Re: Migrating font faces from xemacs to emacs

On 28/03/2026 22.45, Frank Steiner wrote:
> Well, if you are used to spot certain things by color quickly, it can be
> very confusing if those colors change :-)

Understood. My experience is telling me that users tend to quickly 
switch from “this colour can't possibly change!”, to “hey, did you try 
that dark jelly-bean fruit salad theme, yet?” once they discover new 
possibilities ;-)

What I was trying to say is that a significant effort upfront may end up 
remaining redundant after a short transitioning period. If that helps 
initial acceptance, that may be a good investment after all.

Also keep in mind that changing some faces to match XEmacs defaults (did 
none of your users customize their faces?) may make them look odd in a 
generally broader Emacs context, negating the well meant intention.

> Would you mind to share your adjustments somehow? The end-of-line-cursor is
> indeed on my todo list, I consider that very useful! But I have started
> with recreating the blinking brackets and the "electric" tilde and slash
> in the file minibuffer, which was the most important missing thing (I use
> that like 100 times per day ;-)).

That's basically all I needed:

     ;; Farewell XEmacs ;(
     (use-package dired-x
       :ensure nil
       :after dired)

     (global-set-key (kbd "C-z") 'zap-up-to-char)
     (global-set-key (kbd "M-u") 'upcase-dwim)
     (global-set-key (kbd "M-l") 'downcase-dwim)
     (global-set-key (kbd "M-DEL") 'kill-word)
     (global-set-key (kbd "M-<backspace>") 'backward-kill-word)

     ;; Turns out I really missed this from XEmacs
     (defvar cursor-type-at-eol '(bar . 5)
       "Cursor shape to use when point moves to end of line.

     XEmacs nostalgia, which gives a nice visual cue about trailing
     whitespace.

     See also `change-cursor-at-end-of-line'.")

     (defun change-cursor-at-end-of-line (win)
       "Change shape of cursor to value of `cursor-type-at-eol' at end 
of line.

     When the cursor is moved away from end of line, its shape returns
     to its default value.  This gives a cue about trailing whitespace
     that is even less in your face than `whitespace-newline-mode'.

     Add this to `pre-redisplay-functions' hook for enabling the
     feature.  The parameter WIN is not used here."
       (while-no-input
         (setq cursor-type (if (eolp) cursor-type-at-eol
                             (default-value 'cursor-type))
           )))

     (add-hook 'pre-redisplay-functions 'change-cursor-at-end-of-line)

     (put 'downcase-region 'disabled nil)