backlighting

[Scott Tringali]

Dale Whitfield wrote:

> I'd also put forward that one can be too precious about ensuring all
> platforms and all compilers are always supported by all versions of Nedit. 
> 
> In my view this is slowing progress. Rather get out a version that works
> on Linux, say, where there is plenty of active development and then work
> to ensure other platforms are supported. Otherwise the argument just
> becomes circular and development stalls.
> 
> I prefer the positive approach - to be finding reasons to add code
> rather than reasons to leave it out.

I think we can strike a balanced approach.  On Linux, you get more 
features, because there are a lot more libraries at our disposal.  I'd 
rather open a library to do UTF8 conversions that write it all 
ourselves!  But that means we have to invest some effort at 
configuration management.  Our build system really doesn't handle 
multiple configuration options.

Ideally, all feature would show up on all platforms, but given the 
stagnation of proprietary Unix, it's really not feasible to do this 
anymore.  Not without integrating every kind of bit of code under the 
sun into nedit's code base. Ugh.

Where I draw the line is coding Linux-only features that completely and 
permanently break the non-Linux builds.  Running on "plain Unix" is 
still an important goal.  It's something that we *can* do, that that 
some of the whizzier editors cannot.