Subject: bug#24510: 25.1; Info: searching for ` does not find what looks like `

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 14:16:59 -0700 (PDT)

> >>> And it is not matched to that character by Isearch.
> >> >
> >> > It might, if you turn on character-folding in Isearch.
> >> > Unfortunately, that is off by default.
> >
> > I did mention that this is what a user sees by DEFAULT, no?
> >
> > And I did propose that one fix could be for search to find
> > this character - by default - when you hit the backquote key:
> 
> The fix that you propose was already discussed, albeit as part of a larger
> change (the one that Eli pointed to, namely enabling character folding by
> default).  And Eli was, IIRC, in favor of it.
> 
> Do you think it would be useful to have a specific hack for just ` vs ‘?
> I'd find it very confusing.
> 
> Maybe we can come up with a more limited version of character folding, and
> enable that by default?  This should solve this problem, right?

I've brought the problem to your attention.  A solution would be
good to have.  It should not be enough that the response is (1)
"It works for me" and (2) users need to customize their fonts,
to fix things on their end.  That's not the right approach, IMO.

>From a user point of view, and ignoring whatever good or bad
reasons might be behind the changes made, (1) Info now uses curly
quotes, by default, to delimit names, and (2) Isearch does not,
by default, fold ` and ' so that they match those new delimiters.
This combination is not good, for users.

If the delimiters must be changed to curly quotes, AND if they
are not noticeably different (i.e., quite obviously different)
from the characters that users have used to search for delimited
names for decades (since the beginning of Emacs), then Isearch
needs to fold them by default, I think.

Another solution, which I also mentioned, is to try to ensure
that in the default font, for at least common platforms (and MS
Windows is one of those, I think), the delimiter chars are quite
obviously different from ` and '.

If you do not want to enable char-folding by default in 25.1,
or at least quote-folding, then I think the default font needs
to be changed, to make this newly imposed character discrepency
blatantly obvious to users.

And the doc and NEWS need to prominently point out to users that
names in Info are now delimited using characters for which they
(probably) do not have simple keyboard keys.  That message should
also tell them how to insert the delimiter chars in search strings
(toggle char-folding or otherwise insert them).

Do you see another solution?  Pop up a message whenever they
insert a backquote followed by a letter into the search string,
warning them that a backquote does not match a name delimiter?
Warn them to customize their font, if they want to avoid confusion?
I don't think so.