Re: Putting blink-cursor-mode in Options menu.

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> Does anyone else agree that this option should be in the Options menu?

Yes.  If not directly on the top level, then at least in one of the
submenus.  Since Emacs has the blinking cursor enabled by default, then
there should be an easy way to disable it.  Also a year ago I proposed
in http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2004-02/msg00223.html
to add a new command line option:

  --no-blinking-cursor, -nbc    disable blinking cursor

In case there will be a consensus to disable the blinking cursor
by default (AFAIK, XEmacs already does this), then the option
should be the opposite:

  --blinking-cursor, -bc        enable blinking cursor

> What do other applications do about this?

Most applications have no easy way to disable blinking cursors.
So everyone who want to do it, has to spend too much time searching an
appropriate option.  To help people to find such an option quickly
there is a page with instructions how to turn blinking cursors off in
most popular applications: http://www.jurta.org/prog/noblink.en.html

> My version of mozilla has no way to change whether the cursor
> blinks, but it is rather old.

There is no such option in Mozilla Preferences UI.  However, in
Mozilla there is the variable ui.caretBlinkTime which can be set to 0
through about:config or directly in user.js.  In very old versions,
putting *blinkRate: 0 in .Xresources should help.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/