blink-cursor-mode under ttys

blink-cursor-mode under ttys

[Stefan Monnier]

In my xterm, blink-cursor-mode doesn't work.
Looking at the code I don't see any not and indeed it can be made to work
by changing

 (defun blink-cursor-timer-function ()
   "Timer function of timer `blink-cursor-timer'."
   (internal-show-cursor nil (not (internal-show-cursor-p))))

into

 (defun blink-cursor-timer-function ()
   "Timer function of timer `blink-cursor-timer'."
   (internal-show-cursor nil (not (internal-show-cursor-p)))
   (let ((message-log-max nil)
         (msg (current-message)))
     (message "force cursor update")
     (if msg (message "%s" msg) (message nil))))

Note that neither (force-mode-line-update t) nor (sit-for 0) nor the
combination of the two manages to cause "enough redisplay".


        Stefan

Re: blink-cursor-mode under ttys

[Dan Nicolaescu]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

  > In my xterm, blink-cursor-mode doesn't work.
  > Looking at the code I don't see any not and indeed it can be made to work
  > by changing


Please don't do this, at least not without a lot of user
requests. Have we had any such requests?

Terminals can usually blink the cursor by themselves, if the user has
turned on blinking it won't be a good idea for emacs to blink the
cursor.

There was another discussion earlier this year where people stated
that they have problems with the blinking cursor on X, let's not
extend that problem to ttys too.

       --dan

Re: blink-cursor-mode under ttys

[Juri Linkov]

>   > In my xterm, blink-cursor-mode doesn't work.
>   > Looking at the code I don't see any not and indeed it can be made to work
>   > by changing
>
> Please don't do this, at least not without a lot of user
> requests. Have we had any such requests?
>
> Terminals can usually blink the cursor by themselves, if the user has
> turned on blinking it won't be a good idea for emacs to blink the
> cursor.
>
> There was another discussion earlier this year where people stated
> that they have problems with the blinking cursor on X, let's not
> extend that problem to ttys too.

I agree that since xterms don't blink the cursor by default, Emacs
started in xterm should not blink the cursor too.

But this is rather a question of the default value.  Nothing prevents
from fixing it to allow blinking cursors on xterm for users who want
to turn on blinking in Emacs.

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

Re: blink-cursor-mode under ttys

[Stefan Monnier]

>> In my xterm, blink-cursor-mode doesn't work.  Looking at the code I don't
>> see any not and indeed it can be made to work by changing

> Please don't do this, at least not without a lot of user
> requests. Have we had any such requests?

I hate blinking cursors, don't worry.
I just found it odd that on ttys, the blinking code is currently active,
even tho it has no visible effect (but only because the blinking code
happens to have no known bug).  So I think we should at least turn off (by
default) blink-cursor-mode in terminals.

Richard said:
> Could you change internal-show-cursor to set a flag to cause redisplay to
> do whatever needs to be done?

Indded I could, if I knew enough about redisplay :-(


        Stefan

Re: blink-cursor-mode under ttys

[Richard M. Stallman]

      So I think we should at least turn off (by
    default) blink-cursor-mode in terminals.

That seems ok to me.

    > Could you change internal-show-cursor to set a flag to cause redisplay to
    > do whatever needs to be done?

    Indded I could, if I knew enough about redisplay :-(

Is the problem in internal-show-cursor only on ttys?
If so, maybe it is not a real problem.

Re: blink-cursor-mode under ttys

[Stefan Monnier]

>       So I think we should at least turn off (by
>     default) blink-cursor-mode in terminals.

> That seems ok to me.

Looks like I was confused.  It is already OFF by default.

>> Could you change internal-show-cursor to set a flag to cause redisplay to
>> do whatever needs to be done?
>     Indded I could, if I knew enough about redisplay :-(
> Is the problem in internal-show-cursor only on ttys?

Yes.

> If so, maybe it is not a real problem.

It's not very serious, no.


        Stefan

Re: blink-cursor-mode under ttys

[Richard M. Stallman]

    > Is the problem in internal-show-cursor only on ttys?

    Yes.

    > If so, maybe it is not a real problem.

    It's not very serious, no.

I think we can ignore it.

Re: blink-cursor-mode under ttys

[Richard M. Stallman]

Could you change internal-show-cursor to set a flag to
cause redisplay to do whatever needs to be done?