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

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 09:54:54 +0300

> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:58:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked]
> 
> > But if 2 characters from 2 different fonts look the same on your
> > system, I think you should customize the Info faces to countermand
> > that.  I don't see any other solution.
> 
> Again, this is emacs -Q.

That doesn't matter, since Emacs doesn't control the fonts installed
on the user's system, much less how they look.  Like I said: if some
user cannot distinguish between these characters, I see no other
solution for the problem except font customizations, since only the
user on her system can DTRT with the fonts that are available.

> The chars look quite different with my own setup - this is not a
> problem for me, personally.

Then what exactly is the nature of the problem you raise?  Is it a
hypothetical issue that _might_ happen on someone's machine, even
though none of us, including yourself, have actually witnessed it?

> > 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?

Weren't you one of those who lobbied for turning the character-folding
off by default?  If it were not for that lobbying, your search would
have succeeded.

> > Emacs doesn't provide any fonts.  Your system does.  On my system,
> > these two characters look different, even with my old weary eyes.
> 
> They look slightly different, yes.  Barely noticeable when you
> see them side by side (see screenshot).

The look quite different to me (my system uses the same font), so I
guess we will have to agree to disagree about that.

> If you do not want to accept that this is an obvious gotcha, fine.
> Perhaps you will hear from other users about this; perhaps not.
> 
> > > Hard to believe this annoyance has gotten as far as it has (release
> > > 25.1).  Did no one try searching our manuals using Emacs -Q?
> > 
> > We did.  It works for me.
> 
> If it works for you then that's all we can hope for, I guess.

I'm not dismissing the problem.  I'm saying that I don't see a
solution except through user customizations.  Searching for similarly
looking characters is not specific to Info, it can happen elsewhere.
Users who bump into that frequently should customize their fonts
and/or turn on character-folding in search commands.