Re: How to add syntax-highlighting to a Help buffer?

[Raffaele Ricciardi]

On 04/07/15 17:25, Michael Heerdegen wrote:
> `font-lock-mode' is not so useful for the fontification of Help buffers,
> so it makes sense not to use it.  For highlighting regexps, as in your
> examples, hi-lock is just fine.  *Help* is mostly text, not code.

I thought that Help buffers relied on Font Lock Mode because -- in a
Help buffer -- `C-h v font-lock-mode RET' replied:

    Its value is t
    Local in buffer *Help*; global value is nil

    Non-nil if Font-Lock mode is enabled.

Had the value of `font-lock-mode' been `nil', I would have thought
otherwise.

> OTOH the code could be easily rewritten to use font-lock-mode and
> propertize via the font-lock-face text property.

Now that I have understood how things work, I doubt that it would be
beneficial to use Font Lock Mode in Help buffers, because the text could
be mixed (for example: Emacs Lisp code and regular text).  Therefore, it
makes sense to highlight each portion of text in an specific way, as
Emacs does now.