Re: Dashes in mode-line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Jason Rumney <address@hidden>
> Cc: Julien Danjou <address@hidden>,  address@hidden
> Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 23:51:14 +0800
> 
> > Using window-system is not right here, because the DOS port defines a
> > non-nil value, but uses a text terminal.
> 
> Can we fix that if we intend on keeping the DOS port around?

You mean, can _I_ fix it?  Yes, but is that an efficient use of my
time?  There are alternative (better) methods of testing whether a
display can support graphics.  These methods exist since Emacs 21, and
if we want to clean this up, it could be a better idea to deprecate
window-system and replace it with the appropriate display-*-p
predicates all over.

> I know defining window-system to non-nil used to be the only way to
> get font-lock and other features that the DOS port has had for longer
> than other text terminals, but is there any reason for it now other than
> historical continuity?

Probably not, at least not important reasons.  The DOS port can
actually work in -nw mode, whereby it does not use direct screen
access routines, but that serves only as a debugging aid for quite
some time now.

The main reason it remains is that I would need to go through every
Lisp source that references it and decide what to do instead there.