Re: emacs mode line suggestions

[Xah <xahlee@gmail.com>]

On Nov 16, 1:40 pm, Eli Zaretskii <e...@gnu.org> wrote:
> Please explain how you deduce that the cursor percentage is shown.
> Here's what I see (on MS-Windows, but that's the only GUI Emacs I can
> access where I type this): as long as the first and last line shown by
> the window don't move, I see the same percentage, no matter how I move
> the cursor; but when I scroll the window with "C-u 1 C-v" (which
> scrolls by one line without moving buffer position), the percentage
> starts changing, even though cursor is on the same place in the
> buffer.

Ok, i think i know what you are saying.

I had some misunderstanding in my previous post. Here's what i would
suggest:

according to (info "(emacs)Mode Line"), quote:

«
     -CS:CH-FR  BUF      POS LINE   (MAJOR MINOR)------

...

POS tells you whether there is additional text above the top of the
window, or below the bottom.  If your buffer is small and it is all
visible in the window, POS is `All'.  Otherwise, it is `Top' if you
are
looking at the beginning of the buffer, `Bot' if you are looking at
the
end of the buffer, or `NN%', where NN is the percentage of the buffer
above the top of the window.  With Size Indication mode, you can
display the size of the buffer as well.  *Note Optional Mode Line::.
»

what i am thinking is that code word “All”, “Top”, “Bot”, which are
different than NN%, is less intuitive than if it always use the NN%
format.

i think it's perhaps even better if the percentage is simply the
current line number divided by the total num of lines in buffer.

> > > As for what it should do, I don't see why your preference is better
> > > than the current one.  Popping a menu requires another click to
> > > actually select a buffer, whereas the current behavior does it in one
> > > click.
>
> > typically, a user has several user buffers open, and as far as i guess
> > many programers who use emacs extensively has like hundreds of buffers
> > open. Cycling them one by one is not much useful.
>
> No one in their right mind will cycle buffers.  This feature exists if
> your buffer is one or two away.  Anything more than that, you should
> use the menu-bar's Buffers menu (or select the buffer by its name with
> C-x b).

So, when clicking on the buffer name, showing a menu is more useful
than cycling buffer.

> > For one reason, it by default selectively display only some of the
> > minor modes currently on
>
> Perhaps because some minor modes decided not to announce themselves.
> For example, in the buffer where I type this I have "Fly Abbrev Fill"
> as the list of minor modes that I have turned on.

Yes, so that's confusing.

> > > > • Clicking on the major mode name should pop up a contextual menu to
> > > > let user switch to major major modes.
>
> > > Switching a major mode is a very rare command, so having this at your
> > > fingertips makes no sense, IMO.
>
> > switching between modes is not rarely used. I'd estimate it is used
> > every other hour at least.
>
> Please provide some use-cases to back this up.  FWIW, I almost never
> switch the major mode in the same buffer, unless Emacs didn't switch
> into the right one to begin with, and even then I only do that once in
> a given buffer.

those who use *scratch*, or create new buffer, or create new file...
he may need to switch to the righ lang mode. Sometimes when such
buffer is used as a scratch, programer may have more than one lang
inserted into it, and may switch to different mode for the right
syntax coloring.

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄