Re: Gnus v5.4.4 is released

[Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk>]

Rich Pieri <rich.pieri@PrescientTech.com> writes:

> What I want to know, and nobody has provided an acceptable answer, yet,
> is what has replaced it.

Nothing really.  The old hack wasn't really intended to be a user
option.  There just wasn't any convenient way to enquiry for the
available color support in a frame.  So a global variable was used.  I
took up the problem with RMS, and he added a `display-type' frame
parameter.  The XEmacs people invented a `device-class' function to do
the same all by themselves.[1]

So in Emacs you can use

	(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(display-type . mono))

while in XEmacs you can use

	(defun device-class (&rest ignore) 'mono)

to lie about your color support.  These `new hacks' will affect more
than just the faces declared by customize, but an option to lie only
to the faces declared with customize would be weird, in my opinion.

The `display-type' and `background-mode' frame parameters are not very
well documented in Emacs, I suggest you send a polite bug report /
request for enhancement to RMS.

-- 
Per Abrahamsen

[1] Annoying conflict in terminology here.  Emacs use `window-system'
where XEmacs uses `device-type', while Emacs `display-type' is the
same as XEmacs calls `device-class'.  Emacs also have
`background-mode' with no direct equivalent in XEmacs.