From xemacs-m  Thu Sep 11 07:09:49 1997
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Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 08:09:48 -0400 (EDT)
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From: David Bakhash <cadet@MIT.EDU>
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To: XEmacs Developers <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>
Subject: Re: Menus (Was: PGP and mailcrypt)
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X-Mailer: VM 6.31 under 20.2 XEmacs Lucid

Hrvoje Niksic writes:
 > > Well, but compatibility is pretty much mandatory.
 > 
 > Why?  I consider good, context-sensitive button3 much more important
 > than compatibility.  If we value compatibility more than usefulness,
 > we might as well give up working on XEmacs.
 > 
 > In XEmacs, you can manipulate menus anyway you like, using the
 > interface described in the XEmacs manual.  Easymenu is good for simple 
 > things, but for large programs it is lacking.

yes.  I have noticed that certain modes, like w3 and VM have excellent
context-sensetivity and are just very robust.  Both of these examples
work in GNU emacs as well, so the code is portable (though it may not
have been easy to write).  So compatibility doesn't seem to be the issue 
here.  There are ways to write menu code so they work in emacs and
XEmacs.

	If easymenu can be written so that it is still compatible, but
does not sacrifice any of the additional features that XEmacs has, then
I say go for it.  Fix up easymenu and pray that XEmacs package authors
change their code over.  But otherwise, I must agree w/ Hrvoje:
compatibility is not my main interest either, though it's important.

dave

