tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Jason Rumney]

The following change seems to have removed the important variable 
tooltip-use-echo-area, with no apparent replacement.
Besides breaking lisp code that was written for 21.1, I don't recall any 
discussion about why this feature should be deprecated.



 2005-04-20  Nick Roberts  <nickrob@snap.net.nz>

    * tooltip.el (tooltip-use-echo-area): Replace as alias and deprecate.

RE: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

 > The following change seems to have removed the important variable 
 > tooltip-use-echo-area, with no apparent replacement.
 > Besides breaking lisp code that was written for 21.1, I don't recall any 
 > discussion about why this feature should be deprecated.
 > 
 > 
 > 
 >  2005-04-20  Nick Roberts  <nickrob@snap.net.nz>
 > 
 >     * tooltip.el (tooltip-use-echo-area): Replace as alias and deprecate.
 > 

It *was* discussed at great length on emacs-devel. It has *not* been removed
but has an alias: gud-tooltip-echo-area. Normal tooltips and GUD tooltips have
been split, the code for the latter now resides in gud.el. The new behaviour
is documented in the Emacs Manual. It is also described in NEWS.

Why is tooltip-use-echo-area so important?

What code does it break?


Nick

RE: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[jasonr]

It appears to have been moved from tooltip.el where it was preloaded, to gud.el,
so if gud is not loaded it has as good as disappeared.

I don't understand this decision. Why is this now considered a gud specific
feature? It was formerly a user option to have messages appear in the echo area
rather than as a tooltip. What is gud specific about that?

I haven't tracked down which code is using it, but I suspect it is somewhere
inside semantic or jdee, run from a timer. The biggest problem for me is that
Emacs is jumping to the top of the z-order whenever the message comes up.


Quoting Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>:

>  > The following change seems to have removed the important variable
>  > tooltip-use-echo-area, with no apparent replacement.
>  > Besides breaking lisp code that was written for 21.1, I don't recall any
>  > discussion about why this feature should be deprecated.
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >  2005-04-20  Nick Roberts  <nickrob@snap.net.nz>
>  >
>  >     * tooltip.el (tooltip-use-echo-area): Replace as alias and deprecate.
>  >
>
> It *was* discussed at great length on emacs-devel. It has *not* been removed
> but has an alias: gud-tooltip-echo-area. Normal tooltips and GUD tooltips
> have
> been split, the code for the latter now resides in gud.el. The new behaviour
> is documented in the Emacs Manual. It is also described in NEWS.
>
> Why is tooltip-use-echo-area so important?
>
> What code does it break?
>
>
> Nick
>

RE: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

jasonr@f2s.com writes:

 > It appears to have been moved from tooltip.el where it was preloaded, to
 > gud.el, so if gud is not loaded it has as good as disappeared.
 > 
 > I don't understand this decision. Why is this now considered a gud specific
 > feature? It was formerly a user option to have messages appear in the echo
 > area rather than as a tooltip. What is gud specific about that?

Setting tooltip-use-echo-area to t meant that normal (and GUD) tooltip
strings were displayed in the echo area i.e not really as tooltips.
They can now be displayed there independently. For GUD tooltips set
gud-tooltip-echo-area to t. For normal (help) tooltips, just turn
tooltip-mode off.

 > The biggest problem for me is that Emacs is jumping to the top of the
 > z-order whenever the message comes up.

What is the z-order?

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Jason Rumney]

Nick Roberts wrote:

>jasonr@f2s.com writes:
>
> > It appears to have been moved from tooltip.el where it was preloaded, to
> > gud.el, so if gud is not loaded it has as good as disappeared.
> > 
> > I don't understand this decision. Why is this now considered a gud specific
> > feature? It was formerly a user option to have messages appear in the echo
> > area rather than as a tooltip. What is gud specific about that?
>
>Setting tooltip-use-echo-area to t meant that normal (and GUD) tooltip
>strings were displayed in the echo area i.e not really as tooltips.
>They can now be displayed there independently. For GUD tooltips set
>gud-tooltip-echo-area to t. For normal (help) tooltips, just turn
>tooltip-mode off.
>  
>
Meanwhile, tooltip-use-echo-area has been abducted by gud for use as an 
alias, breaking existing code that assumed it was a general user option 
for controlling the display of tooltips.

Shouldn't turning tooltip-mode off disable tooltips completely, whether 
they are displayed in frames or the echo area?

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Kim F. Storm]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> Meanwhile, tooltip-use-echo-area has been abducted by gud for use as
> an alias, breaking existing code that assumed it was a general user
> option for controlling the display of tooltips.

This seems like a bug to me.

> Shouldn't turning tooltip-mode off disable tooltips completely,
> whether they are displayed in frames or the echo area?

Seems like the right thing to do, yes.

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

 > >Setting tooltip-use-echo-area to t meant that normal (and GUD) tooltip
 > >strings were displayed in the echo area i.e not really as tooltips.
 > >They can now be displayed there independently. For GUD tooltips set
 > >gud-tooltip-echo-area to t. For normal (help) tooltips, just turn
 > >tooltip-mode off.
 > >  
 > >
 > Meanwhile, tooltip-use-echo-area has been abducted by gud for use as an 
 > alias, breaking existing code that assumed it was a general user option 
 > for controlling the display of tooltips.

Or even kidnapped by gud.  Rather than use dramatic language to heighten
your case, it would be more helpful if described what code it breaks, and
how it breaks it.  We could then decide what to do.

 > Shouldn't turning tooltip-mode off disable tooltips completely, whether 
 > they are displayed in frames or the echo area?

Having tooltip-mode on and tooltip-use-echo-area set to t wasn't exactly the
same as having tooltip-mode off.  With the former, messages were displayed in
the echo area in the manner of a tooltip i.e they required the mouse to pause
over the text etc.  With the latter, help messages appear instantly like
mouse-face. It is not a tooltip and might even predate them, which might
explain the apparent anomaly.  AFAIK, this is how it has always been, and
no-one has found a problem with it.

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Jason Rumney]

Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz> writes:

>  > >Setting tooltip-use-echo-area to t meant that normal (and GUD) tooltip
>  > >strings were displayed in the echo area i.e not really as tooltips.
>  > >They can now be displayed there independently. For GUD tooltips set
>  > >gud-tooltip-echo-area to t. For normal (help) tooltips, just turn
>  > >tooltip-mode off.
>  > >  
>  > >
>  > Meanwhile, tooltip-use-echo-area has been abducted by gud for use as an 
>  > alias, breaking existing code that assumed it was a general user option 
>  > for controlling the display of tooltips.
>
> Or even kidnapped by gud.  Rather than use dramatic language to heighten
> your case, it would be more helpful if described what code it breaks, and
> how it breaks it.  We could then decide what to do.

It's been reported twice before, it breaks semantic, which uses
tooltip-use-echo-area in a test to determine whether to enable a
certain feature which would be excessively annoying if displayed in a
resizing echo area.

>  > Shouldn't turning tooltip-mode off disable tooltips completely, whether 
>  > they are displayed in frames or the echo area?
>
> Having tooltip-mode on and tooltip-use-echo-area set to t wasn't
> exactly the same as having tooltip-mode off.

Even more reason not to remove tooltip-use-echo-area.

> With the former, messages were displayed in the echo area in the
> manner of a tooltip i.e they required the mouse to pause over the
> text etc.  With the latter, help messages appear instantly like
> mouse-face.

They shouldn't appear at all.

> It is not a tooltip and might even predate them, which
> might explain the apparent anomaly.  AFAIK, this is how it has
> always been, and no-one has found a problem with it.

So why the need to remove tooltip-use-echo-area then, and why is gud
so special that it still needs this variable (or a specialized version
of it), while other code apparently doesn't?

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

 > It's been reported twice before, it breaks semantic, which uses
 > tooltip-use-echo-area in a test to determine whether to enable a
 > certain feature which would be excessively annoying if displayed in a
 > resizing echo area.

The first report appear to be from Frank Schmitt after which I added the
alias.  I heard no more so presumed that fixed the problem.

I don't know what a "resizing echo area" is, but is it always a problem?
Does it stop Semantic from working?

I would guess that the next release of Semantic will be before the next
release of Emacs.  Has anyone reported this as a bug there?

 > >  > Shouldn't turning tooltip-mode off disable tooltips completely, whether 
 > >  > they are displayed in frames or the echo area?
 > >
 > > Having tooltip-mode on and tooltip-use-echo-area set to t wasn't
 > > exactly the same as having tooltip-mode off.
 > 
 > Even more reason not to remove tooltip-use-echo-area.

No, not really.  The user experience is pretty much the same.

 > > With the former, messages were displayed in the echo area in the
 > > manner of a tooltip i.e they required the mouse to pause over the
 > > text etc.  With the latter, help messages appear instantly like
 > > mouse-face.
 > 
 > They shouldn't appear at all.
 >
 > > It is not a tooltip and might even predate them, which
 > > might explain the apparent anomaly.  AFAIK, this is how it has
 > > always been, and no-one has found a problem with it.
 > 
 > So why the need to remove tooltip-use-echo-area then, and why is gud
 > so special that it still needs this variable (or a specialized version
 > of it), while other code apparently doesn't?

I explained why earlier, and in the thread(s) about this change.  GUD is not
special and those involved were agreeable to the changes.  I suggest that you
read that material.

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org>
> Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 22:54:39 +0100
> Cc: Emacs Devel <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> 
> >  > Shouldn't turning tooltip-mode off disable tooltips completely, whether 
> >  > they are displayed in frames or the echo area?
> >
> > Having tooltip-mode on and tooltip-use-echo-area set to t wasn't
> > exactly the same as having tooltip-mode off.
> 
> Even more reason not to remove tooltip-use-echo-area.
> 
> > With the former, messages were displayed in the echo area in the
> > manner of a tooltip i.e they required the mouse to pause over the
> > text etc.  With the latter, help messages appear instantly like
> > mouse-face.
> 
> They shouldn't appear at all.

FWIW, I fully agree with Jason, on both counts.  tooltip-use-echo-area
was a useful option; in particular, if we ever make the tty version
support tooltips, displaying them in the echo area will be our only
choice.

That option should have never been removed, IMHO.  Does anything
prevent us from resurrecting it now?

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

 > > Even more reason not to remove tooltip-use-echo-area.
 > > 
 > > > With the former, messages were displayed in the echo area in the
 > > > manner of a tooltip i.e they required the mouse to pause over the
 > > > text etc.  With the latter, help messages appear instantly like
 > > > mouse-face.
 > > 
 > > They shouldn't appear at all.
 > 
 > FWIW, I fully agree with Jason, on both counts.  tooltip-use-echo-area
 > was a useful option; in particular, if we ever make the tty version
 > support tooltips, displaying them in the echo area will be our only
 > choice.
 > 
 > That option should have never been removed, IMHO.  Does anything
 > prevent us from resurrecting it now?

Resurrecting tooltip-use-echo-area is unrelated to making the tty version
support tooltips.  It was just a flag that re-directed the output of
tooltip-show-help to the echo area i.e. in the case of normal tooltips back to
where it was displayed before tooltips were turned on.

Normal tooltips and GUD tooltips have quite different internals and 
putting their associated code in separate files was much more modular.
Previously if tooltip-use-echo-area was set to t so that normal tooltips
displayed there, then GUD tooltips would display there.  I can
undo the alias of tooltip-use-echo-area with gud-tooltip-echo-area
and put it in tooltip.el, so that setting it to t only displays normal
tooltip there, if that would keep everyone happy.  Somehow I don't
think it will.

Note that the doc string for tooltip-use-echo-area said:

  "Use the echo area instead of tooltip frames.
This is only relevant GUD display, since otherwise it is equivalent to
turning off Tooltip mode."


Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>
> Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 16:30:04 +1200
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org>
> 
> Resurrecting tooltip-use-echo-area is unrelated to making the tty version
> support tooltips.

IMO, it is related.

> It was just a flag that re-directed the output of tooltip-show-help
> to the echo area i.e. in the case of normal tooltips back to where
> it was displayed before tooltips were turned on.

If you mean to say that turning tooltips off would still display the
tooltip text in the echo area, then I agree with Jason: that's a bug
that should be fixed.  It should be possible to have 1 of 3 situations
wrt tooltips:

  (1) no tooltips and no messages in echo area
  (2) tooltip text is displayed in the echo area
  (3) tooltips are displayed as small floating windows

> Normal tooltips and GUD tooltips have quite different internals and 
> putting their associated code in separate files was much more modular.
> Previously if tooltip-use-echo-area was set to t so that normal tooltips
> displayed there, then GUD tooltips would display there.

Internals aside, from the user's point of view, if I want tooltip text
to be displayed in the echo area, I want ALL tooltips to behave like
that.  Why in the world would I like these two variants of tips to
behave differently?

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

 > > Resurrecting tooltip-use-echo-area is unrelated to making the tty version
 > > support tooltips.
 > 
 > IMO, it is related.

OK.  I've just installed changes that try to restore the behaviour of
tooltip-use-echo-area.  I guess I should try to give people what they
want rather than what I think they should have.  I have made it an
obsolete variable because its ugly to turn tooltip-mode on and then
set a flag so that it behaves like its turned off.

Jason, can please you tell me if this change actually gives you the
behaviour that you want.

 > > It was just a flag that re-directed the output of tooltip-show-help
 > > to the echo area i.e. in the case of normal tooltips back to where
 > > it was displayed before tooltips were turned on.
 > 
 > If you mean to say that turning tooltips off would still display the
 > tooltip text in the echo area, then I agree with Jason: that's a bug
 > that should be fixed.  It should be possible to have 1 of 3 situations
 > wrt tooltips:

I don't think it is "tooltip text" but "help text". tooltips come later
and can choose to display "help text".

 >   (1) no tooltips and no messages in echo area
 >   (2) tooltip text is displayed in the echo area
 >   (3) tooltips are displayed as small floating windows

I think that (1) isn't possible but this is a separate issue to Jason's point.
Perhaps there could be another mode, help-text-mode say, that turns messages
on and off in the echo area, but IMHO this should wait till after the release.

 > > Normal tooltips and GUD tooltips have quite different internals and 
 > > putting their associated code in separate files was much more modular.
 > > Previously if tooltip-use-echo-area was set to t so that normal tooltips
 > > displayed there, then GUD tooltips would display there.
 > 
 > Internals aside, from the user's point of view, if I want tooltip text
 > to be displayed in the echo area, I want ALL tooltips to behave like
 > that.  Why in the world would I like these two variants of tips to
 > behave differently?

GUD tooltips are more distracting and easier to activate inadvertantly.
Emacs is generally about choice, they don't have to behave differently
if you don't want them to.

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>
> Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:33:38 +1200
> Cc: jasonr@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> OK.  I've just installed changes that try to restore the behaviour of
> tooltip-use-echo-area.

Thank you.

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Richard Stallman]

    OK.  I've just installed changes that try to restore the behaviour of
    tooltip-use-echo-area.  I guess I should try to give people what they
    want rather than what I think they should have.

It should not be obsolete.  This feature should not be removed.
It is a useful feature.

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

 >     OK.  I've just installed changes that try to restore the behaviour of
 >     tooltip-use-echo-area.  I guess I should try to give people what they
 >     want rather than what I think they should have.
 > 
 > It should not be obsolete.  This feature should not be removed.
 > It is a useful feature.

I'm not sure that you've followed the whole thread.  The feature of being able
to display help messages and GUD variable values in the echo area has *not*
been removed.  On the other hand, the variable tooltip-use-echo-area has been
made obsolete because it involves an ugly hack that intertwines the code in
tooltip.el and gud.el.  The associated doc string describes how to get the
same functionality without it.  It can't be that useful: only users of
Semantic noticed that there had been a change.

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Richard Stallman]

    I'm not sure that you've followed the whole thread.

I can never follow the whole of such a thread.  I don't have time!

							 The feature of being able
    to display help messages and GUD variable values in the echo area has *not*
    been removed.  On the other hand, the variable tooltip-use-echo-area has been
    made obsolete because it involves an ugly hack that intertwines the code in
    tooltip.el and gud.el.

I must be confused.  If that feature exists, doesn't tooltip-use-echo-area
control whether to enable it?

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

 >     I'm not sure that you've followed the whole thread.
 > 
 > I can never follow the whole of such a thread.  I don't have time!
 > 
 > 							 The feature of being
 >     able to display help messages and GUD variable values in the echo area
 >     has *not* been removed.  On the other hand, the variable
 >     tooltip-use-echo-area has been made obsolete because it involves an
 >     ugly hack that intertwines the code in tooltip.el and gud.el.
 > 
 > I must be confused.  If that feature exists, doesn't tooltip-use-echo-area
 > control whether to enable it?

That is one way, but not the only one.  I suggest that we leave it as obsolete
- that doesn't mean it has to go, just that we don't have to feel guilty if we
do remove it.

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>
> Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 17:07:34 +1200
> Cc: eliz@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, jasonr@gnu.org
> 
>  > I must be confused.  If that feature exists, doesn't tooltip-use-echo-area
>  > control whether to enable it?
> 
> That is one way, but not the only one.  I suggest that we leave it as obsolete
> - that doesn't mean it has to go, just that we don't have to feel guilty if we
> do remove it.

Obsolete means that it is slashed for removal in the future.  So I
don't think we should leave it obsolete unless we in fact want to
remove it.

IMHO, we should rather implement the functionality that somehow isn't
there (although I could probably swear I've seen it in action, at
least in NTEmacs circa 21.1) which allows the user to select one of 3
behaviors:

  (1) tooltips popping up in small windows
  (2) tooltip text displayed in the echo area
  (3) tooltips completely disabled

(1) should be (and is) the default on graphical displays, (2) should
be the default on character terminals.

I'm not saying this should be done before the release, especially if
it never worked this way, but if we do agree that this is the vision,
there's no sense in obsoleting tooltip-use-echo-area.

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

Eli Zaretskii writes:
 > IMHO, we should rather implement the functionality that somehow isn't
 > there (although I could probably swear I've seen it in action, at
 > least in NTEmacs circa 21.1) which allows the user to select one of 3
 > behaviors:
 > 
 >   (1) tooltips popping up in small windows
 >   (2) tooltip text displayed in the echo area
 >   (3) tooltips completely disabled
 > 
 > (1) should be (and is) the default on graphical displays, (2) should
 > be the default on character terminals.

Features like tooltips and mouse-face don't work on a character terminal
because currently Emacs doesn't know where the mouse is between clicks. A
daemon program like X is needed. GPM could possibly do this on a Linux
console.

I don't find help text in the echo area very distracting and I'm not sure if
anyone would find a need to turn it off (option 3), but if someone wants to
implement it then tooltip-use-echo-area would have more logic.

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>
> Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 20:29:45 +1200
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, jasonr@gnu.org
> 
> Eli Zaretskii writes:
>  > IMHO, we should rather implement the functionality that somehow isn't
>  > there (although I could probably swear I've seen it in action, at
>  > least in NTEmacs circa 21.1) which allows the user to select one of 3
>  > behaviors:
>  > 
>  >   (1) tooltips popping up in small windows
>  >   (2) tooltip text displayed in the echo area
>  >   (3) tooltips completely disabled
>  > 
>  > (1) should be (and is) the default on graphical displays, (2) should
>  > be the default on character terminals.
> 
> Features like tooltips and mouse-face don't work on a character terminal
> because currently Emacs doesn't know where the mouse is between clicks.

True for Unix tty's (the MS-DOS port uses a character terminal, and
does support tooltips and mouse-face).  But I hope that we will have
this implemented in the future.

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Richard Stallman]

     > I must be confused.  If that feature exists, doesn't tooltip-use-echo-area
     > control whether to enable it?

    That is one way, but not the only one.

What is the interface you recommend, to control this?

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

Richard Stallman writes:
 >      > I must be confused.  If that feature exists, doesn't tooltip-use-echo-area
 >      > control whether to enable it?
 > 
 >     That is one way, but not the only one.
 > 
 > What is the interface you recommend, to control this?

To display help tooltips in the echo area turn `tooltip-mode' off.
To display GUD tooltips in the echo area turn `gud-tooltip-mode' on and set
`gud-tooltip-echo-area' to t.

This sounds more complicated, but displaying help text in the echo area
shouldn't require tooltips. It a text property like mouse-face. Using
tooltip-use-echo-area invokes tooltip-show with its delays etc
unnecessarily.

In contrast displaying GUD tooltip text in the echo area does require
the gud-tooltip machinery (like track-mouse) because text properties
aren't involved.

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Richard Stallman]

    To display help tooltips in the echo area turn `tooltip-mode' off.
    To display GUD tooltips in the echo area turn `gud-tooltip-mode' on and set
    `gud-tooltip-echo-area' to t.

    This sounds more complicated,

Yes, it is not clean.

     but displaying help text in the echo area
    shouldn't require tooltips.

Maybe it should not, but that's a different question.
Just because two underlying mechanisms are involved is no reason
why it needs to have two different variables to control it.
Let's stick with the simple variable that puts all tooltips
in the echo area.

If you want only non-GUD tooltips (and those in the echo area), then
set tooltip-use-echo-area to t, and don't enable GUD tooltips.
What could be cleaner than that?

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Nick Roberts]

 > Let's stick with the simple variable that puts all tooltips
 > in the echo area.

OK.  I've installed a change so that its no longer obsolete.

 > If you want only non-GUD tooltips (and those in the echo area), then
 > set tooltip-use-echo-area to t, and don't enable GUD tooltips.
 > What could be cleaner than that?

I've tried to say but clearly not communicated it.  I think I've done
what people have asked for.  Lets leave it at that.

Nick

Re: tooltip-use-echo-area disappeared

[Jason Rumney]

Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz> writes:

> Jason, can please you tell me if this change actually gives you the
> behaviour that you want.

It seems to have fixed the problem with semantic. Thanks.