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From: jla@LUCID.COM (Joseph Arceneaux)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs
Subject: WYSIWYG Emacs (was Re: Control Characters)
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Date: 30 Jan 91 21:41:47 GMT
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In article <119695@uunet.UU.NET> kyle@uunet.UU.NET (Kyle Jones) writes:

  >John Andrew Edwards writes:
  > > It would seem that emacs would someday like to become more
  > > WYSIWYG.

Currently I am implementing active regions in Emacs v19 (please do not
ask when this will be ready) which allows different portions of text
to have differing visual properties, including fonts.  One use I would
like to see of this are filters for various text files, such as
texinfo files.  When a texinfo file was read in, the filter would be
applied to the buffer searching, e.g., for "@code{foobar = frobbed}"
and replacing this with "foobar = frobbed" displayed under X in the
suitable font.  When the file was saved, the buffer could be parsed
again, and all regions using the `@code' font transformed into
"@code{<text>}" before being written to disc.

Other things are also possible; for example, cross reference marks
could be translated into regions, which when clicked upon with the
mouse, display the referenced text in another window.

It is possible that at a later date some standard (such as SGML) could
be used for saving annotated files, but I think this may be a ways
off, and using such a plan which stores the file in readable ascii has
many advantages.

Joseph Arceneaux,
The Free Software Foundation