Subject: Re: bug#46926: Remove the quotes from highlighted/linked symbols when displaying docs

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2021 19:38:18 -0600

Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]> writes:

> Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> I don't think I agree, but maybe someone else will have an opinion?
>
> I don't have an opinion here, really, but I think the example posted
> without the quotes looked nicer.

Yes, I must agree that it looks far better.

The point of `quotes' is to make these symbols stand out in comparison
to the surrounding text.  But the linking face we use is already very
aggressive: not just blue but also underlined.  So I think this is by
far already highlighted enough, which means the quotes are superfluous
and should be removed.

Speaking strictly about help-mode, I think removing them is therefore
just sound typography that will make it easier to read the help text.

> On the other hand, since we quote symbols like that all over Emacs,
> removing them just in info mode is perhaps not optimal.

I have no opinion about Info, as there we do not have any linking going
on.  IOW, the extra emphasis the `quotes' add is fine in that context.

About the only drawback I see to removing them from help is what you
say: that we lose some consistency as compared to the rest of Emacs.
IMO, this price is well worth paying to get cleaner help buffers.