Re: Allowing point to be outside the window?

["Kévin Le Gouguec" <kevin.legouguec@gmail.com>]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

>> >> From: Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>
>> >> Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2021 11:07:57 +0800
>
>> >> I wonder what would be involved in allowing point to be outside a
>> >> window's visible area.
>
> Why would anybody want this?  Why do you want this?  This isn't a
> rhetorical question.  Because other programs do it isn't a satisfactory
> reason.

I'll bite: because a user could want to peek a few screenfuls
ahead/behind, while keeping the cursor at a point of interest, where
they can come back with any point movement (e.g. arrow keys) or by just
typing in ("Greetings Mister… *scrolls back up* Mackenzie, RET RET I
trust this Sunday afternoon finds you well…").

Granted, IME I rarely want to check out an arbitrary "full screenfuls";
I usually want to check out the end of the current function (C-M-e) or
look for a pattern (C-s); if that takes me off-screen, C-u C-SPC brings
me right back where I was.

I wouldn't begrudge users who'd prefer the behaviour Po suggests,
though.

> I detest this behaviour, and that Emacs doesn't (currently) do it is a
> large part of the reason why I use Emacs.  With these other programs I
> experience a constant background stress, that the careless or accidental
> depression of a key causes BANG!!! and the text I was reading
> disappears for ever, being overwritten by the text around point.

I don't see how (what I understand of) Po's proposition could lead to
such catastrophic text Armageddon.  And in any case, Emacs's trusty undo
would surely come and save the day.