Re: Emacs26: Quick thoughts on display-line-numbers-mode

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Robert Weiner <rsw@gnu.org>
> Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2017 14:38:12 -0400
> 
> 1. The similar linum-mode when possible displays a subtle vertical separator between the line numbers and
> the left margin of the text area. This helps to visually parse the numbers as separate from the text and helps
> identify where the first text character is. It would be good to have something similar at least as an option.

linum-mode displays line numbers in the left display margin.  I think
usurping the display margins for a display-related feature as popular
as line numbers is a bad idea, because it clashes with other
specialized features which want to use the margins, so I explicitly
coded the native line-number display not to do that.  Therefore, I
will object to having this new display on the display margins, even as
an option.

Separation between the numbers and the text is still kept, by means of
a white-space glyph.

> Then linum-mode should be removed (maybe add an alias) so there is no confusion as to which mode should
> be used.

I'm waiting for the pretests and the feedback we get to see if this
can be done.  It's possible that in some rare situations the new mode
will be inconvenient or unable to support.  If no such reports come
in, we will indeed retire linum-mode when Emacs 26.1 is released.

> 2. The mode-line popup menu that displays/hides line and col numbers in the mode=line could be expanded to
> toggle this mode on and off locally and globally, as well as providing options for its various display settings:
> relative, visual and absolute.

I'm not sure I agree.  The mode-line menu is for displays on the mode
line.  The display-line-numbers-mode and its variants can be turned on
or off from the menu bar's Options menu.

Thanks for your comments.