.FN!set-language-environment.FN" should set .FN!language-unicode-precedence-list.FN"

[Joachim Schrod]

>>>>> "MF" == Mike FABIAN <mfabian at suse.de> writes:
MF> Joachim Schrod <jschrod at acm.org>

>> Mike FABIAN wrote:
>>> 
>>> If one absolutely wants to reduce confusion by reducing the number of
>>> choices, then I think the non-UTF-8 choices could be removed if one
>>> starts in an UTF-8 locale because in that case the non-UTF-8 ones are
>>> almost useless anyway.
>> 
>> I don't know exactly what set-language-environment does in total; but
>> it sets also the coding priority list. And using a Latin1 or Latin9
>> for LaTeX in a UTF-8 locale is a very common use case.

MF> That's one reason why I would keep them all, to let the user choose
MF> between all alternatives even after startup.

We are in full agreement here; I just wanted to document one common
use case where one wants to switch to a Latin-environment, when one
uses UTF-8 otherwise.[*]

MF> For LaTeX files in Latin1 or Latin9 when running in an UTF-8
MF> locale by default, I think it is useful to add a coding system
MF> cookie to these files to make sure they are loaded correctly.

AFAIK, this does not always work, as coding system cookies are
sometimes ignored when XEmacs thinks it knows better than the user
what it's doing. It's not so bad any more than a few versions ago,
where two successive Umlauts suddenly selected some Japanese coding
system, but it's still not ideal. (This is a well-known gripe from me,
you'll find it in the mailing list archives.)

MF> If you want to grep for words containing umlauts in such files
MF> correctly with “M-x grep” and then again grep through UTF-8
MF> encoded files, it is actually useful being able to switch between
MF> the language environments “German (UTF-8)” and“German”. 
MF> Therefore, I think it is best to have them all available.

Exactly; I concur with you that one needs both.

Cheers,
	Joachim

[*] Unicode support in TeX rather sucks, not the least because of
missing good-quality freely distributable fonts. (And, as a member of
the LaTeX team, I'm allowed to say that it sucks. All others may
please tell that it's ``quite poor''... ;-) DANTE, the German TeX
Users Group, sponsors development of freely distributable fonts and
also improvement of Unicode support in other places in the TeX
workbench, but we still have a long way to go.

-- 
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Joachim Schrod				Email: jschrod at acm.org
Roedermark, Germany