Re: Invisibility bug: `invisible' vs `display'

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se> writes:

> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se> writes:
>>
>>> How can an overlay with identical start and end points
>>> display anything?
>>
>> Using the display property.  Are you sure that you understand the
>> difference between overlays and text properties?  Text properties are
>> bound to characters, overlays to buffer positions.
>
> Well, I'm obviously confused.  I thought overlay properties
> applied to the characters under the overlay.

They apply to the region between its buffer positions.  Which is
usually pretty similar to "characters under the overlay".  But
zero-length overlays exist and work, too, and when copying text from a
buffer, overlay properties are not copied as part of the text.

You can even have overlays that are restricted to a single window
displaying the buffer and will not have an effect on other windows
showing the same buffer.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum