customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[gnuist006]

I have a number of questions and things to do.

(1) How to hide typed commands in the minibuffer or not show them. Normally, the commands are temporarily shown. Is there a way to disable it or make fg equal to bg in that area for some of the text?

(2) How to make time up to the second in the message bar?

(3) Whats the meaning of symbols like %%- and **- in the message bar?

(4) How to make the message-bar more professional?

(5) How to make the minibuffer more professional?

Thanks for all your help.

Bolega

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[Emanuel Berg]

gnuist006@gmail.com writes:

> (3) Whats the meaning of symbols like %%- and **- in
>     the message bar?

By "message bar", do you mean the mode line?

Anyway, this kind of information is easy to look up in
the Emacs manual. Google it (your question) or use the
info system:

    C-h i m Emacs RET

But:

    %% = read-only buffer
    ** = modified (but not saved) buffer

> (4) How to make the message-bar more professional?

What do you mean by "professional"? Do you mean like this:

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/pics/bars.png

Suffice to say, you can get it to look the way you
want. But it seems you don't have much Emacs
experience. In particular, if you don't even know what
the information is, how can you tell what should be
there and what shouldn't?

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[gnuist006]

why dont you also reply (1) and (2) ?

On Sunday, April 19, 2015 at 4:10:49 PM UTC-7, gnui...@gmail.com wrote:
> I have a number of questions and things to do.
> 
> (1) How to hide typed commands in the minibuffer or not show them. Normally, the commands are temporarily shown. Is there a way to disable it or make fg equal to bg in that area for some of the text?
> 
> (2) How to make time up to the second in the message bar?
> 
> (3) Whats the meaning of symbols like %%- and **- in the message bar?
> 
> (4) How to make the message-bar more professional?
> 
> (5) How to make the minibuffer more professional?
> 
> Thanks for all your help.
> 
> Bolega

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[Alexis]

gnuist006@gmail.com writes:

> (4) How to make the message-bar more professional?

Like Emanuel, i'm not sure what you mean by "more professional", 
though it seems to me "more professional" is very 
subjective. However, i do find the default mode-line to be too 
cluttered - particularly with information not useful to me - and 
so i've set the value of `mode-line-format' roughly like so (i use 
vertical bars to visually separate mode-line 'fields'):

[read-only marker, if appropriate]
[buffer-modified marker, if appropriate]
buffer-name
|
buffer coding system
([EOL type if not Unix])
|
major mode
([mode-specific info, e.g. away status when using ERC])
|
line,column / [position of point as percentage of buffer]
|
[word count, when appropriate]
|
moon phase
|
hebrew date
|

Works For Me. :-)


Alexis.

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[Alexis]

gnuist006@gmail.com writes:

> why dont you also reply (1) and (2) ?

People respond to the questions they feel they can address, and 
don't necessarily respond to the questions to which they feel they 
can't provide a reasonable answer.

Having said that, one thought regarding question 2:
 
>> (2) How to make time up to the second in the message bar?

i assume you want the clock visually displaying each second as it 
elapses. If so, this might not be straightforward, as the 
mode-line is not updated on a regular schedule, but "when 
appropriate" (e.g. point has been moved). So say the clock 
displayed:

  12:24:48

and nothing caused the mode-line to update for 10 seconds 
(e.g. there was no buffer input), then the next mode-line update 
would cause the clock to 'jump' to:

  12:24:58

without having displayed the intervening seconds.

i guess you might be able to set up a timer to run every second to 
deal with this; but more knowledgeable people than i on this list 
would be better placed to discuss the feasability of that.


Alexis.

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[Óscar Fuentes]

gnuist006@gmail.com writes:

>> (1) How to hide typed commands in the minibuffer or not show them.
>> Normally, the commands are temporarily shown. Is there a way to
>> disable it or make fg equal to bg in that area for some of the text?

Maybe

(setq echo-keystrokes 0)

does what you want.

>> (4) How to make the message-bar more professional?

What's "more professional" for you?

Anyways, google for "emacs powerline" and see if that fits your
criteria.

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[Dan Espen]

Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com> writes:

> gnuist006@gmail.com writes:
>
>> (4) How to make the message-bar more professional?
>
> Like Emanuel, i'm not sure what you mean by "more professional",

Actually, I found the question somewhat insulting toward the Emacs
developers.

Therefore, I maintain that the question itself is unprofessional.

That said, I customized the mode lines to show the active mode line
in 3D, which gives it an attractive appearance (IMO).

The  OP might want to experiment with a proportional font in the mode
line if that floats his  boat.

-- 
Dan Espen

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-04-20, at 15:31, Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> wrote:

> Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> gnuist006@gmail.com writes:
>>
>>> (4) How to make the message-bar more professional?
>>
>> Like Emanuel, i'm not sure what you mean by "more professional",
>
> Actually, I found the question somewhat insulting toward the Emacs
> developers.
>
> Therefore, I maintain that the question itself is unprofessional.

While I rather agree with the above (especially that "professional" was
not defined here, and it seems not necessarily to be an objective
quality - for instance, it might mean a completely different thing for
various, well, professions, like writer vs. programmer), one must admit
that there is a lot of information in the mode-line (even with only the
default settings), which may be distracting.

This doesn't help very much - only a tiny bit - but decreasing the font
in the mode-line might be helpful:

(set-face-attribute 'mode-line nil :height 0.8333)

(Personally, I did it with the (in a sense) opposite goal in mind: so
that I can cramp /even more/ info in the mode-line, e.g. Org-mode's
currently clocked task, which-function mode and a bunch of minor modes
I use every day.)

Hth,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[Emanuel Berg]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:

> While I rather agree with the above (especially that
> "professional" was not defined here, and it seems
> not necessarily to be an objective quality - for
> instance, it might mean a completely different thing
> for various, well, professions, like writer vs.
> programmer), one must admit that there is a lot of
> information in the mode-line (even with only the
> default settings), which may be distracting.

Yes. Especially if you have a big font like me there
is far too much information to fit (my terminal is 85
chars wide).

[Mode line code last in the post, for the impatient.]

> (Personally, I did it with the (in a sense) opposite
> goal in mind: so that I can cramp /even more/ info
> in the mode-line, e.g. Org-mode's currently clocked
> task, which-function mode and a bunch of minor modes
> I use every day.)

My take is you should have everything you need, and
nothing you do not need. So it is never a matter of
having "less" or "more", it is always to have exactly
what you need, and always so.

This cannot be planned on the drawing table but must
be worked out day in, day out. As in, whenever I find
I hit a command frequently to get a piece of
information, I think - can I put that information
somewhere so I don't have to hit the command each time
to get it? But sometimes there is just no room.

There are clever schemes to solve such issues, as
always. For example, I have CAPS bring up the
*Buffer List*. In the buffer list, I don't need
anything "buffery" information in the mode bar as
I see in the main buffer it is a buffer list, and
I don't need anything else. So then I can use the mode
bar for that mode and put common data I frequently
need. That way I only have to hit CAPS to get it, then
M-TAB to get back (note the positions of those
keys on the keyboard). [If I did it today I would put
CAPS in the *Buffer List* to get to the previous
buffer, i.e., to get back. Now that lists non-file
buffers as well, which is practical,
so it isn't worth the effort to reprogram my hands
which takes considerably longer than reprogramming the
keys, for sure.]

Indeed, such solutions are like the familiar pile of
firewood by the outhouse. Instead of saying "let's
move the firewood and be done with it", every time you
go to the outhouse, you bring back a log under each
arms. Multiple purpose walking - even (and especially)
in the Emacs wellingtons!

Now, this is how I set up the mode line to be reactive
on specific modes. The best way would probably be to
not have to do that: instead all modes would have
a format variable string, e.g. the Gnus
`gnus-group-mode-line-format', the ERC
`erc-mode-line-format', and so on. (Hey - what
a social guy!)

For context, is the file URL:

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/mode-line.el

With the most relevant (indispensible) code:

    (setq-default mode-line-format
       `(" "
         (:eval (if (not (or buffer-read-only
                             (member major-mode '(erc-mode
                                                  inferior-emacs-lisp-mode
                                                  message-mode) )))
                    mode-line-modified) )
         " "
         (:eval
          (if (eq major-mode 'w3m-mode) w3m-current-title
            (if dired-directory dired-directory
              (if (eq major-mode 'message-mode) (buffer-name)
                (if buffer-file-name
                    (abbreviate-file-name buffer-file-name)
                  mode-line-buffer-identification )))))
         " "
         (show-modes mode-line-modes)
         (line-number-mode "[%l] ")
         (column-number-mode "{%c} ")
         ))

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: customizing minibuffer and the message bar, ie mode-line

[Emanuel Berg]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> With the most relevant (indispensible) code ...

Here is the version with the clock for
`Buffer-menu-mode' - same URL (soon):

    (setq-default mode-line-format
     `(
       (:eval (if (eq major-mode 'Buffer-menu-mode) (format-time-string " %H:%M")))
       " "
       (:eval (if (not (or buffer-read-only
                           (member major-mode '(erc-mode
                                                inferior-emacs-lisp-mode
                                                message-mode) )))
                  mode-line-modified) )
       " "
       (:eval
        (cond
         ((eq major-mode 'Buffer-menu-mode) "")
         ((eq major-mode 'w3m-mode)         w3m-current-title)
         (dired-directory                   dired-directory)
         ((eq major-mode 'message-mode)     (buffer-name))
         (buffer-file-name                  (abbreviate-file-name buffer-file-name))
         (t                                 mode-line-buffer-identification) ))
       " "
       (show-modes mode-line-modes)
       (line-number-mode "[%l] ")
       (column-number-mode "{%c} ")
       ))

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573