Subject: Re: bug#45806: 26.3; `menu-bar-separator'

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:04:34 +0200

> Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 16:32:31 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
> 
> This variable (defconst) doesn't seem to be documented anywhere.

It has a doc string, and if you look at its usage, this is all you'll
ever need.

> It seems to be used for menus in general; it doesn't seem to be tied to
> the menu-bar in any way.  And its only doc is the doc string, which says
> only "Separator for menus."  Could it be renamed to remove any mention
> of the menu-bar (keeping the old name as alias)?

Sorry, this name is with us for too long to rename it now.

> How is it actually used?  Is it used only in (some?) toolkits?

Look at menu-bar.el (obviously), it's used all over there.  On all the
toolkits and also in no-toolkit builds.

> It's a defconst (why?), so presumably you shouldn't change it.  But
> changing it doesn't seem to have any effect anyway, in MS Windows.  If
> this is hard-coded then why is it even needed?

See above.  If you really want to see the effect of changing it
(why?), I think you will need to rebuild Emacs.