Peter Heslin
pj****@hesli*****
Wed Aug 17 20:10:16 JST 2005
Hello! First of all, thanks for your work in producing the Carbon Emacs Package. I have a software project called Easymacs, which is a configuration for Emacs oriented towards non-technical users. I have recently added instructions on how to use it under Mac OS X, and I have recommended installing Carbon Emacs Package and the Easymacs. There is some redundancy (both include AUCTeX, for example) but I am not worried about that. From my point of view, ease of installation is the most important thing for non-technical users, and Carbon Emacs Package is very easy to install. Here are the installation instructions: http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin/Software/Emacs/Easymacs/mac-install.php In particular, it is great that it includes aspell. I have tried getting cocoAspell to work with Emacs, but it is not easy, and Fink is too hard to use for non-technical users (as I know from experience). So Carbon Emacs Package is the best solution. Only one thing could be improved, I think. It is not so easy to install additional language dictionaries for aspell. This is because the default dict-dir points to /Volumes/Emacs/..., which probably only exists on the developer's machine, and because the MacOS/bin directory is not in the standard path. I have put instructions up on my web-page on how to install additional dictionaries for Carbon Emacs Package, but they are much too complicated for non-technical users: http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin/Software/Emacs/Easymacs/mac-aspell-dicts.php I wonder if you would consider providing a way to automate this process? For example, there could be an Emacs menu item that would bring up a dialog to select a tar.bz2 file. Then it would copy that file to a temporary dir, run bunzip2, tar x, configure, make, copy the files to Contents/Resources/lib/aspell-0.60/, and delete the temp file. Thanks again for Carbon Emacs Package! Best wishes, Peter Heslin