Re: Russian letters

[Paul Pogonyshev]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Paul Pogonyshev <address@hidden>
> > Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 00:48:15 +0300
> > 
> > $ emacs -Q
> > M-x customize-variable RET utf-fragment-on-decoding RET
> > [set to t, set for current session]
> > C-x C-f test.text RET
> > 
> > Now, the characters from the file are decoded into `cyrillic-iso8859-5',
> > while new, typed characters are in `mule-unicode-0100-24ff'.
> 
> This is exactly what is expected.  Here's the doc string of
> utf-fragment-on-decoding:
> 
>     utf-fragment-on-decoding's value is nil
> 
>     Whether or not to decode some chars in UTF-8/16 text into iso8859 
> charsets.
>     [...]

Why not do the same to the typed characters?  Current behavior is
inconsistent---some characters are decoded (into iso-8859 charsets),
some are not.

> The reason why the default value is nil is precisely that most users
> will not want the fragmentation, they will want the characters to
> belong to a single character set.

I understand you, but actually, most users do not bother.  Emacs should
work `out of the box' and display the characters.  Apparently, it can
show Cyrillic letters, but won't show them, uh?

Why doesn't Emacs try to decode characters on displaying?  This can
be done only once just to check if the decoded characters can be
shown normally, not as boxes.

> Did you set this variable to a non-nil value in your .emacs?  If so,
> how about removing that customization?  If the reason is that you
> don't have Unicode fonts installed, I think installing them is a
> better solution.

I use Debian Sarge which is only 1 year old.  And Emacs doesn't work
with its standard font and Cyrillic letters as is.  (Well, I didn't
try the standard package, but CVS `emacs -Q' shows boxes.)  I had enough
persistence to find the reason (here, thank you), but most users won't.
Especially since Emacs cannot even list font families (at least I don't
know how.)

Paul