bug#37173: 27.0.50; (blink-cursor-mode 0) in ~/.emacs has no effect

bug#37173: 27.0.50; (blink-cursor-mode 0) in ~/.emacs has no effect

[Sven Joachim]

I hate blinking cursors, and thus have

(blink-cursor-mode 0)

in my ~/.emacs since forever.  Some recent change in the master branch
broke this, since the cursor blinks anyway :-(.  I am sure this worked
until a week ago.

Interestingly, "emacs --eval '(blink-cursor-mode 0)'" still works, as
does "emacs --load somefile.el" where somefile.el contains just the line
(blink-cursor-mode 0).  But from user-init-file, (blink-cursor-mode 0)
does not have an effect anymore.


In GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.32)
 of 2019-08-24 built on turtle
Repository revision: 42f8fa80706ee34bba98a922e2f42edcfe474bc9
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12004000
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.

Configured using:
 'configure --build x86_64-linux-gnu --host x86_64-linux-gnu
 --prefix=/usr --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib
 --localstatedir=/var --infodir=/usr/share/info/emacs-snapshot
 --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-mailutils
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs-snapshot:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/27.0.50/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/27.0.50/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --without-wide-int --disable-silent-rules --without-compress-install
 --with-x=yes --with-x-toolkit=gtk2 --without-gconf --without-gsettings
 build_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu host_alias=x86_64-linux-gnu'

Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG SOUND GPM DBUS GLIB NOTIFY INOTIFY ACL
LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE HARFBUZZ M17N_FLT LIBOTF XFT ZLIB
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK2 X11 XDBE XIM THREADS LIBSYSTEMD JSON PDUMPER
LCMS2 GMP

Important settings:
  value of $LC_COLLATE: C
  value of $LANG: de_DE.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs
format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg
epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs text-property-search time-date
subr-x seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader cl-loaddefs
cl-lib sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils
tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type
mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image
regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode
lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch timer
select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core
term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang
vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932
hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic
chinese composite charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook
help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs
button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5
base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable
backquote threads dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting
font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty
make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 44069 7077)
 (symbols 48 5962 1)
 (strings 32 15293 1912)
 (string-bytes 1 495391)
 (vectors 16 9790)
 (vector-slots 8 125925 8790)
 (floats 8 18 37)
 (intervals 56 213 0)
 (buffers 992 11))

bug#37173: 27.0.50; (blink-cursor-mode 0) in ~/.emacs has no effect

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>
> Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2019 15:10:17 +0200
> Cc: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>
> 
> I hate blinking cursors, and thus have
> 
> (blink-cursor-mode 0)
> 
> in my ~/.emacs since forever.

That's a mistake; use this instead:

  (blink-cursor-mode -1)

bug#37173: 27.0.50; (blink-cursor-mode 0) in ~/.emacs has no effect

[Sven Joachim]

On 2019-08-24 16:18 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> From: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>
>> Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2019 15:10:17 +0200
>> Cc: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>
>> 
>> I hate blinking cursors, and thus have
>> 
>> (blink-cursor-mode 0)
>> 
>> in my ~/.emacs since forever.
>
> That's a mistake; use this instead:
>
>   (blink-cursor-mode -1)

The docstring says

,----
| If called interactively, enable Blink-Cursor mode if ARG is positive, and
| disable it if ARG is zero or negative.  If called from Lisp,
| also enable the mode if ARG is omitted or nil, and toggle it
| if ARG is ‘toggle’; disable the mode otherwise.
`----

To me this suggests that (blink-cursor-mode 0) should disable the
blinking cursor.  Anyway, (blink-cursor-mode -1) makes no difference.

Cheers,
       Sven

bug#37173: 27.0.50; (blink-cursor-mode 0) in ~/.emacs has no effect

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>
> Cc: 37173@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2019 15:32:56 +0200
> 
> Anyway, (blink-cursor-mode -1) makes no difference.

Right, sorry.

 I suspect this change:

  commit 7e2090ee80c9099ee953392444e1d73d10e973d4
  Author:     Noam Postavsky <npostavs@gmail.com>
  AuthorDate: Sat Aug 3 20:19:31 2019 -0400
  Commit:     Noam Postavsky <npostavs@gmail.com>
  CommitDate: Tue Aug 20 20:20:52 2019 -0400

      Respect global-eldoc-mode in minibuffers (Bug#36886)

      * lisp/emacs-lisp/easy-mmode.el (define-globalized-minor-mode): Accept
      a BODY parameter.
      * doc/lispref/modes.texi (Defining Minor Modes): Document new
      parameter.
      * etc/NEWS: Announce it.

      * lisp/simple.el (read--expression): Move eldoc-mode setup to...
      * lisp/emacs-lisp/eldoc.el (eldoc--eval-expression-setup): ... here,
      new function.
      (global-eldoc-mode): Add or remove it to
      eval-expression-minibuffer-setup-hook when enabling or disabling
      global-eldoc-mode.  This enables eldoc in the minibuffer (solving
      Bug#27202), only when global-eldoc-mode is enabled.

bug#37173: 27.0.50; (blink-cursor-mode 0) in ~/.emacs has no effect

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2019 16:35:55 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: 37173@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
>  I suspect this change:
> 
>   commit 7e2090ee80c9099ee953392444e1d73d10e973d4
>   Author:     Noam Postavsky <npostavs@gmail.com>
>   AuthorDate: Sat Aug 3 20:19:31 2019 -0400
>   Commit:     Noam Postavsky <npostavs@gmail.com>
>   CommitDate: Tue Aug 20 20:20:52 2019 -0400

Actually, the culprit was this one:

  commit bb5cd7c4caf415e40836edbbc4e62b0dd411d73f
  Author:     Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
  AuthorDate: Thu Aug 22 20:46:31 2019 +0300
  Commit:     Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
  CommitDate: Thu Aug 22 20:46:31 2019 +0300

      Recompute user-emacs-directory-relative defcustoms one more time

      * lisp/startup.el (command-line): Re-evaluate the
      custom-delayed predefined variables one more time after
      loading the user's init file.  (Bug#37116)

I've reverted this for now, but I don't understand why re-evaluating
the custom-delayed variables should toggle a minor mode whose mode
variable is in the custom-delayed-init-variables list, when the init
file says to turn it off unconditionally.  What am I missing?

bug#37173: 27.0.50; (blink-cursor-mode 0) in ~/.emacs has no effect

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2019 16:50:25 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: 37173@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
>       Recompute user-emacs-directory-relative defcustoms one more time
> 
>       * lisp/startup.el (command-line): Re-evaluate the
>       custom-delayed predefined variables one more time after
>       loading the user's init file.  (Bug#37116)
> 
> I've reverted this for now, but I don't understand why re-evaluating
> the custom-delayed variables should toggle a minor mode whose mode
> variable is in the custom-delayed-init-variables list, when the init
> file says to turn it off unconditionally.  What am I missing?

Don't bother answering that, I figured it out.  It is a definite no-no
to re-evaluate defcustoms after loading the user's init file, doh!

bug#37173: 27.0.50; (blink-cursor-mode 0) in ~/.emacs has no effect

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> I've reverted this for now, but I don't understand why re-evaluating
>> the custom-delayed variables should toggle a minor mode whose mode
>> variable is in the custom-delayed-init-variables list, when the init
>> file says to turn it off unconditionally.  What am I missing?
>
> Don't bother answering that, I figured it out.  It is a definite no-no
> to re-evaluate defcustoms after loading the user's init file, doh!

(blink-cursor-mode 0)

in .emacs still works, so I guess there isn't more to do in this bug
report, and I'm closing it.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no