Re: Emacs as word processor

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Christopher Allan Webber writes:

 > There are a lot of reactions on this thread that seem somewhat hesitant
 > about emacs adding WYSIWIG support, but I suspect it's fear that #2 will
 > corrupt the lisp machine interfaces that we already know and
 > enjoy...

No, it's not.  I doubt anybody on this list fears that a processor to
import, edit, and export ODF text documents would be written in
anything but well-styled Emacs Lisp, or perhaps some primitives
wrapping appropriate libraries with an idiomatic Lisp API.  Nor need
anybody fear that our much-loved two-handed six-finger CC mode chords
will be replaced with four Alt-keys, 3 fixed toolbars, and a plethora
of popup context menus and floating toolboxes (that always seem to
hide the cursor).  None of the people whose cooperation in installing
such code would stand for it.

The objections I've seen are (1) pragmatic: it's a huge amount of work
to support enough ODF to be able to turn to Emacs *first* when you
need to edit documents created by office suites and (2) principled:
WYSIWYG is the antithesis of accessible.

 > But we can probably add some tooling that will make emacs more
 > friendly and accessible to newcomers without hurting the things we
 > already have.

Been there, done that, failed so dismally they took back the T-shirt. :-)

Try grepping the archives for "make cua(-mode)? the default". :-/