bug#10072: 23.3; invisible text

[Andrew Kurn <kurn@sfu.ca>]

On Sun 20 Nov 2011 21:27 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> 
> > Sorry, but I didn't receive this latest version.  Could you re-send it?
> 
> Sorry, it's appended this time.
> 

[. . .]

> 
> > I suspect that the philosophy of the command-loop-move-point
> > thingy is to move point so that invisible text will not be
> > inserted in /any/ case.
> 
> No: doing it reliably is fiendishly difficult and in general cannot be
> done without breaking some code somewhere.  So instead the code does
> a best effort which covers 99% of the cases.  It's fundamentally
> very DWIMish.
> 

Ah.  I didn't know that.  I'd thought that the next-insert-must-not-
inherit-invisible test could be applied until it returned true.

[. . .]



> I tend to consider Emacs as a great big pile of bugs.  It very much
> follows a pragmatic "don't worry too much about corner cases" (some
> people might call it "worse is better"), so documenting all bugs would
> be a daunting task.  You can see the bug-tracker as a way to document
> the known bugs.

This is where I have a benefit from not being a regular reader of
this mailing list:  I consider Emacs to be very well debugged and
the documentation to be astonishingly literate and complete -- perhaps
the best of any program ever written.

[. . .]

> 
> I'd like to see a pre-redisplay-functions hook added to Emacs for
> various reasons (e.g., for reveal-mode, as well as to move the
> region-highlighting code to Elisp), and such a hook might possibly allow
> a more reliable implementation of this feature, but don't hold
> your breath.
> 

Interesting.


> > Anyhow, I'm pretty happy with my improved understanding, so I'm
> > grateful for your help.  Are you a volunteer?
> 
> Yes, like all the other Emacs developers.

[. . .]

Regarding the text below, I think it serves to express the situation
well.  It makes it clear that the situation is not precisely described
but is a compromise of sereral factors and, therefore, not to
be strictly relied upon.

And, of course, it describes things in more detail than the previous
version, so an improvement.

My thanks for all your work.

Andrew



----------
> 
> 
> === modified file 'doc/lispref/display.texi'
> --- a/doc/lispref/display.texi	2011-11-20 02:29:42 +0000
> +++ b/doc/lispref/display.texi	2011-11-20 20:21:22 +0000
> @@ -870,15 +870,21 @@
>  non-@code{nil} (the default), but only because they are explicitly
>  programmed to do so.
>  
> -  However, if a command ends with point inside or immediately before
> -invisible text, the main editing loop moves point further forward or
> -further backward (in the same direction that the command already moved
> -it) until that condition is no longer true.  Thus, if the command
> -moved point back into an invisible range, Emacs moves point back to
> -the beginning of that range, and then back one more character.  If the
> -command moved point forward into an invisible range, Emacs moves point
> -forward up to the first visible character that follows the invisible
> -text.
> +  However, if a command ends with point inside or at the boundary of invisible
> +text, the main editing loop moves point to one of the two ends of the invisible
> +text.  Which end to move to is chosen based on the following factors: make sure
> +that the overall movement of the command is still in the same direction, and
> +prefer a position where an inserted char would not inherit the @code{invisible}
> +property.  Additionally, if the text is not replaced by an ellipsis and the
> +command only moved within the invisible text, then point is moved one extra
> +character so as to try and reflect the command's movement by a visible movement
> +of the cursor.
> +
> +  Thus, if the command moved point back to an invisible range (with the usual
> +stickiness), Emacs moves point back to the beginning of that range.  If the
> +command moved point forward into an invisible range, Emacs moves point forward
> +to the first visible character that follows the invisible text and then forward
> +one more character.
>  
>    Incremental search can make invisible overlays visible temporarily
>  and/or permanently when a match includes invisible text.  To enable