dired: it is actually a marked file off the screen you will act on

dired: it is actually a marked file off the screen you will act on

[Dan Jacobson]

Try this: do dired on a large directory of lots of similarly named
files.  Now mark one of the files with "m", and move it off the screen
with a C-v. Now use ! (dired-do-shell-command) on the file under the
cursor.  Note how easy it is to think that the file under the cursor
is the one to be acted upon!

Therefore some visual extra warning should appear when
dired-do-shell-command will act on a marked file and not the one under
the cursor.

Yeah, we are prompted with the file name, but like I said, suppose
they are very similar.

Same for any dired command that plans to act on marked files.

Some kind of unignorable minibuffer signal.

Re: dired: it is actually a marked file off the screen you will act on

[Richard Stallman]

    Try this: do dired on a large directory of lots of similarly named
    files.  Now mark one of the files with "m", and move it off the screen
    with a C-v. Now use ! (dired-do-shell-command) on the file under the
    cursor.  Note how easy it is to think that the file under the cursor
    is the one to be acted upon!

    Therefore some visual extra warning should appear when
    dired-do-shell-command will act on a marked file and not the one under
    the cursor.

It is a reasonable idea in principle.  Any suggestions for how
to show the distinction?

Re: dired: it is actually a marked file off the screen you will acton

[Stephan Stahl]

Hi.

Richard Stallman said:
>     Therefore some visual extra warning should appear when
>     dired-do-shell-command will act on a marked file and not the one under
>     the cursor.
>
> It is a reasonable idea in principle.  Any suggestions for how
> to show the distinction?

How about to do the same thing as when multible files are marked?
Popup that extra buffer showing the names of the marked files.  Or in
this case showing the name of the marked file?  I think this would
seem consistent and easy to notice.

An other (maybe not so good) idea would be to use diffent colors for
the prompt when acting on marked/current file.

Stephan
-- 
Stephan Stahl