On 26 Sep 2007, at 15:59, Drew Adams wrote:

>> I often find myself clicking on the echo area by accident. Perhaps
>> that has to do with the fact that when the minibuffer is active, a
>> click there will put the focus there. But if I'm the only one who
>> makes that mistake, never mind.
>
> You're not the only one. I've said the same thing. I too am not  
> crazy about
> the new behavior of bringing up *Messages*. In fact, I find that it  
> causes
> me more effort in the long run (especially since I use frames),  
> since I then
> have to close the *Messages* window/frame.
>
> I understand why the new behavior was added, and that was  
> especially because
> of some such "accidents", in particular, mistaken attempts to select
> echo-area output. Double-clicking will not help here however, IMO. I
> personally prefer the old behavior (just an error message), but on  
> n'arrete
> pas le progres...

Normally, when a user action has no assigned function, the  
application does not react at all. Examples include pressing an  
unbound key, or clicking on, say the desktop background (on my system  
at least). I can see why a click on a message would lead to  
*Messages*, but a click into empty space? Even an error message seems  
to distract.

You might be interested in the attached patch, which will require a  
double-click to bring up *Messages*. I find that more consistent with  
other UIs, where double-clicks open something like a new window.