[Cuis-dev] Making Cuis Unicode-only and VectorGraphics-only. (was Re: Alternative arrows)

[Juan Vuletich]

Hi Gerald,

On 10/18/2022 4:45 PM, Gerald Klix via Cuis-dev wrote:
> Hi Juan,
>
> please see below.
>
> On 18.10.22 21:02, Juan Vuletich wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> Now that the VectorEnginePlugin is in the official VMs, it means we 
>> can count on it. 
> In theory yes, I presume the life-typing-VM may suffer,
> but IHMO that's a side issue.

That is important, of course. I think that the live-typing VM should 
have no trouble in updating to the latest from OpenSmalltalk, including 
VectorEnginePlugin.

> While the VectorEnginePlugin is fast enough for medium size
> monitors, I often experience noticeable, sometimes annoying delays,
> when I use it. (I know, my bad:
> Display boundingBox ->  0 at 0 corner: 4320 at 3840).
> “Annoying” mean, I loose input keystrokes.

Wow, that bad? On what platform are you?

> It clearly becomes better, when less text has to be displayed
> and it stays bad, once I had a stack-overflow (there is at
> least one memory leak caused by stack overflows, but
> that's a different story).
>
> In a nutshell: I would love to help to make vector graphics
> faster!

Yes. We need to work on performance. We cant flip the switch if it is 
too slow.

>> So, what I want to do is to make the "Use Unicode" preference the 
>> default and only behavior, and actually remove support for ISO 8859 
>> files (and StrikeFonts, and a lot of the older stuff). And if 
>> everything is Unicode, then there's no need to have these special 
>> glyphs for $_ and $^. We could use instead a real Unicode left arrow 
>> for assignment, and just remove support for $_ for assignment. (Using 
>> := would still be possible). All this "Smalltalk-80 glyphs" kludge 
>> would go away.
> That would be cool!
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> If we decide to go in this direction, it may make sense to 
>> temporarily disable the "Smalltalk-80 glyphs", at least if you want 
>> to use the Unicode arrows for something else.
> Does that mean, I will see underscores in this phase?
> Hopefully not.
> I confess, I did not know, that there is another assignment operator
> than “:=” before I used Cuis :»

Well, as usual, we need to do the changes in an appropriate sequence to 
reduce annoyances to a minimum!

>>
>> Opinions?
> I will test VectorGrahics tomorrow, with a clean image
> and try to do some measurements. Until then I am undecided.

That would be _really_ helpful.

Thanks,

-- 
Juan Vuletich
cuis.st
github.com/jvuletich
researchgate.net/profile/Juan-Vuletich
independent.academia.edu/JuanVuletich
patents.justia.com/inventor/juan-manuel-vuletich
linkedin.com/in/juan-vuletich-75611b3
twitter.com/JuanVuletich