Re: Need an enabler for a bad habit.

[William Case <billlinux@rogers.com>]

Hi Mathias;


On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 16:05 +0100, Mathias Dahl wrote:
> William Case <billlinux@rogers.com> writes:
> 
> > Mathias, I was trying to skip using many words to say a simple
> > thing.  Perhaps the paragraph should have read "I know, I know.
> > There is no need. As long as emacs has the focus I can just start to
> > type M-x or C-X C-F etc. and my command will automatically appear in
> > the mini-buffer."
> 
> So, what you want is to be able to click in the echo area (the area
> below the mode line) to get the "M-x prompt" (without needing to type
> M-x), is it?

Essentially, yes.  But I have always thought what you have called the
echo area was the mini-buffer in emacs and I don't even need the "M-x
prompt".  I just want my cursor blinking in the very first field/column
of the echo area.  I will type the command or accelerator keys that I
need after the cursor is placed.  I would expect that the cursor would
remain at the end of the command line until I push Enter.

If you open a virtual terminal and type a couple of shell commands, you
can see what I mean.

I want to reconfirm, I am not advocating that others may want this or
that it is something emacs should automatically do.  In fact, it is a
waste of time and clicks and/or keystrokes.  However, intuitively, as in
a command line on a terminal, I like to see that I have moved on to the
next command by seeing the cursor at the beginning of a cleared command
line (the command-to-be, so to speak), that I have a second or two to
think about what exactly I am going to type next; and what I type next
will be a command of some sort.

It is a habit that comes from 30 years of being a computer user.

-- 
Regards Bill