RE: not too happy with Emacs 21 vertical-line dragging when scrollbars present

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

I don't want to stir this pot much more, but, for clarification:

 - I thought that Kim's original text, quoted by Richard, was talking about
letting you drag the scroll-bar itself, not dragging below it on the
mode-line. Is that right?

 - I thought that Richard's reply was taking about this thin vertical strip
that Kim proposed perhaps adding between windows. Is that right?

 - If so, then I don't understand Kim's reply, saying that we already have
such a feature - that it's easy to use "that thin line" to drag. Is the thin
line in question the current thin line between _mode-lines_, or the tiny
area between _windows_ that Kim proposed adding?

To me, needing to mouse-over the scroll-bar to get the drag handle would be
OK. The scroll-bar is big, obvious, and conceptually that's just what you
want to do: drag the scroll-bar. Needing to mouse-over to find the existing
tiny thin line between _mode-lines_, however, is not good. Intuitively, you
don't go mousing around between two mode-lines to find where to drag the
scroll-bar.

So, just what thin, vertical rectangle are we talking about here: a
potential one to be added between windows or the existing one between
mode-lines?

--

To speak to a different part of this subject, Richard said this:

  It would be hard to do it at the right using mode-line-format.
  It would be easy to add a new feature that would override part
  of the mode line at the right when appropriate.

If I understand this correctly, he is saying that, in effect, that we could
get back the small, visible drag-handle square beneath the scroll-bar that
we had in Emacs 20. That would be good. If, alternatively, a way could be
found to let users drag the scroll-bar itself, that would be even better.

 - Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: Kim F. Storm [mailto:storm@cua.dk]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     It would be much better if we could find a way to just drag the
>     scroll-bar.
>
> Dragging in the scroll bar has another meaning.
>
>     One way would be to always make a tiny area between windows that you
>     could drag.  But unless we do it by reducing the qscroll bar width,
>     that would take away space that is now used for text display.
>
> We DID have a tiny area, at the bottom of the scroll bar.  Drew is
> complaining that we got rid of it.  It is much easier to use a square
> than a very thin rectangle.  It is hard to put the mouse on the
> latter.

That's not correct.  It is easy to put the cursor on that tiny line!

The code uses a relaxed check so that if the mouse is within ONE
COLUMN on either side of the line, the cursor changes to the <-> drag
cursor.  So there is already a virtual block area there which is TWO
COLUMS wide there.


>
>     It is much harder (impossible) to make a drag-able area to the right
>     of the modeline, as there is no fixed right edge of the modeline at
the
>     lisp level [the modeline is simply truncated by redisplay].
>
> It would be hard to do it at the right using mode-line-format.
> It would be easy to add a new feature that would override part
> of the mode line at the right when appropriate.

Personally, I see no reason to make that explicitly stand out more
than it already does...