Re: Android port of Emacs

[Po Lu]

Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> writes:

> There is a Termux extension on the works for supporting X11 and Wayland,
> so that can change on the future. Other projects (UserLand) provide a
> graphical environment out of the box. I just tried Emacs on UserLand
> (Emacs 28.2, the GTK build, from their Arch distribution), the
> experience is not great, but it runs.

Those programs run an X server, but have to be started by the system
anyway.  The experience is not good.

> Installing Emacs as a separate step would not be an issue, but if the
> user could launch your port from Termux/Userland or from elsewhere
> having access to all those binaries, it would be a boom.

If you start Emacs and keep it running, it will be able to access
binaries from Termux.  I think that is sufficient, but if it's not, I'll
try to figure out how to run emacsclient from Termux as well.

> Today I tried your port again for about an hour. It is obvious that you
> use a hardware keyboard ;-) 

Everyone seems to think that, but I don't.

> Emacs hides the on-screen keyboard too often, even with
> touch-screen-display-keyboad set to `t': just try M-x calc and do a
> simple operation.

That shouldn't happen; would you please try to determine what is calling
`frame-toggle-on-screen-keyboard' in that case?

> IMO Emacs should never hide the on-screen keyboard, moreover when
> clicking with the finger over the small clickable areas of menus and
> links is very difficult.

I've never found that difficult; perhaps the menu bar font size is too
small?

> And a quick method to show the keyboard would be very welcome (having
> the volume button trick to close Emacs is curious, I'm sure you have
> your reasons, but if the keyboard is shown and the user can press C-g,
> isn't it better than closing Emacs?)

The volume button doesn't close Emacs, it just quits and behaves
identically to C-g.

> Also, completion works weird: the sequence C-x b Mes TAB correctly
> completes to *Messages*, but when ENTER is hit Emacs creates a buffer
> names "Mes".

This is normal Emacs behavior.  Perhaps you have some customizations to
completion that you forgot to apply to Android?

> But those are minor issues that I'm sure will be resolved. I'm having
> strong W32/Cygwin vibes. Nobody would say nowadays that the W32 port is
> questionable because Cygwin exists. Likewise, this port shows lots of
> potential as the right port for the general userbase that would like to
> carry Emacs on our pockets.

Thanks.