GNU bug report logs - #20499
[PROPOSED PATCH] C-x 8 shorthands for curved quotes, Euro, etc.

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From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: rms <at> gnu.org
Cc: ivan <at> siamics.net, 20499 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#20499: [PROPOSED PATCH] C-x 8 shorthands for curved quotes, Euro, etc.
Date: Sat, 09 May 2015 17:36:39 +0300

> Date: Sat, 09 May 2015 10:17:15 -0400
> From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
> CC: ivan <at> siamics.net, 20499 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> I typed C-x 8 RET greek TAB TAB.
> 
> All the NAMES that appear start with "Greek", but when I inserted
> GREEK CAPITAL LETTER HORI and examined it with C-u C-x =,
> it said
> 
>   name: COPTIC CAPITAL LETTER HORI
>   old-name: GREEK CAPITAL LETTER HORI
> 
> I didn't notice the old-name field the previous time.  I suppose that
> explains why it was included in that completion table.

Yes.  Greek and Coptic characters share the same Unicode block.

>   > > It also includes many punctuation characters, and letters with
>   > > diacritics, that are in a different part of Unicode, and are not
>   > > normal Greek letters.
> 
>   > This is simple Emacs completion at work: it brings you every character
>   > whose name begins with "GREEK".
> 
> Do you think I don't know that?

Do you think I don't know you know?

You asked me some questions that you should be sure I knew also, and
yet I didn't react like that.

I find your attitude in this thread unnecessarily offensive.

>   > I hope you now agree that the use case of searching for a character
>   > with only some vague idea about its appearance and/or name needs some
>   > pretty sophisticated (and overlapping) capabilities for allowing the
>   > user to specify what she knows, before showing the possible
>   > candidates.
> 
> We seem to be totally miscommunicating.  I DON'T WANT to search for
> them by name.  I never asked for that.

Where did I mentioned search by name?  I didn't, because I really
don't think it's convenient enough.  It's what we have now, but it is
not what I think should be the method of looking up an unknown
character.

But your idea of showing dozens or hundreds of characters isn't
workable, either.

Like I wrote elsewhere, we need a way for the user to specify what she
knows, and then show the characters that match the spec.  The
specification could include one or more of the following:

 . Script name
 . Language name
 . Unicode block name
 . Character class (alphabetical, numerical, punctuation, etc.)
 . Base character
 . With/without diacriticals

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