GNU bug report logs - #9353
24.0.50; default grep file name face is uglier now

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From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
To: "'Juri Linkov'" <juri <at> jurta.org>, "'Stefan Monnier'" <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
Cc: 9353 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#9353: 24.0.50; default grep file name face is uglier now
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 06:38:09 -0700

> > The default font I use is readable in bold, because giving 
> > up on such a useful tool would be too bad (remember that I
> > prefer to use the same color everywhere and distinguish
> > things based on bold/italics/font), but
> > that's just me.
> 
> IIUC, the only Drew's objection is the face's color, not boldness,
> because he uses a dim background.  So we could change the color to
> a darker green, that will also look better on the default 
> light background.

No, actually I did & still do object to bold being part of the default
definition.  I said:

 For one thing, it should not be bold.  We should almost never
 use a bold face as the default face for something, because
  boldness does not work well on some platforms and for some
 (many) faces.

(And it is not about appearance against my background - I was just too lazy to
make screenshots with Emacs -Q.)

I won't argue that the bug should not be closed if you refuse to get rid of the
bold part, but I think bold is a mistake for a default face - anywhere in Emacs.

And yes, I know that we have other default faces that also use bold.  That is a
mistake too, IMHO.  At least on Windows, even with the default emacs -Q font, I
think bold is not very legible.

I understand Stefan's personal choice to privilege bold, italic etc. instead of
colors.  But that's suitable as a personal customization, IMO, not as the
default appearance.

To me, the bold fonts I see are so bad that it reminds me of pre-anti-aliasing
Emacs (Emacs 21).  I remember some people arguing that the anti-aliased
appearance was worse and that we should keep the Emacs 21 appearance.  To each
his own...

No, I don't expect to convince you about this.  Thanks for changing the color,
anyway.

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