fringes

fringes

[Chuck Bernard]

Hi everybody, I'm new to the list but have been using emacs for 12 years :-)

I've finally upgraded to emacs version 21.2.1

My question is regards to the "fringes" and how I might go about turning them
off.
I can change the colors and fonts etc. but I just don't want to see them at all.

Or, am I just use to the "old" way which didn't have fringes and someone might
like to explain to me why I should really keep them.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

//Chuck

Re: fringes

[G Anna]

> Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:08:44 -0700
> From: Chuck Bernard <chuck@logicvision.com>
> Subj: fringes
> 
> Hi everybody, I'm new to the list but have been using emacs for 12
> years :-)

Quite late.  But always welcome over here!

> I've finally upgraded to emacs version 21.2.1
> 
> My question is regards to the "fringes" and how I might go about
> turning them off.  I can change the colors and fonts etc. but I just
> don't want to see them at all.

Well... I am new to the list as well as to emacs.  (Just one year
old.)  So, what are "fringes"?

Cheers,
anna

-- 

(9) I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely
    necessary.  If  it is necessary, it will not be a large red button
    labelled  "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not
    Push"  will  instead  trigger  a spray of bullets on anyone stupid
    enough  to  disregard  it.  Similarly,  the ON/OFF switch will not
    clearly be labelled as such. - Peter Anspach in "The Top 100 Things 
    I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord"

RE: fringes

[Bingham, Jay]

In Emacs 21.1 and later fringes are narrow bands on both edges of the frame in which are displayed line wrapping information (there may be other information displayed there but I do not know what it would be, I am not a developer of emacs) in the form of curved arrows.  From what has been said in this list previously they cannot be disabled.  You may want to check the list archives for more specific details.

-_
J_)
C_)ingham
.    HP - NonStop Enterprise Division - Software Product Assurance
.    Austin, TX
. Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade in public.
. Never clothe them in vulgar and shoddy attire.          -Dr. George W. Crane-

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	G Anna [mailto:drguruolai@eth.net] 
Sent:	Thursday, 16 May, 2002 7:51 a
To:	Chuck Bernard
Cc:	help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject:	Re: fringes


> Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:08:44 -0700
> From: Chuck Bernard <chuck@logicvision.com>
> Subj: fringes
> 
> Hi everybody, I'm new to the list but have been using emacs for 12
> years :-)

Quite late.  But always welcome over here!

> I've finally upgraded to emacs version 21.2.1
> 
> My question is regards to the "fringes" and how I might go about
> turning them off.  I can change the colors and fonts etc. but I just
> don't want to see them at all.

Well... I am new to the list as well as to emacs.  (Just one year
old.)  So, what are "fringes"?

Cheers,
anna

-- 

(9) I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely
    necessary.  If  it is necessary, it will not be a large red button
    labelled  "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not
    Push"  will  instead  trigger  a spray of bullets on anyone stupid
    enough  to  disregard  it.  Similarly,  the ON/OFF switch will not
    clearly be labelled as such. - Peter Anspach in "The Top 100 Things 
    I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord"


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Re: fringes

[Chuck Bernard]

I am very dissappointed if they can't be disabled. While I am getting use to them they
really just waste space for me and don't contain any worthwhile information since
we practice the rule of "Never more than 80 columns of text" in our source code.

Heck, I don't even use scroll bars so I have turned them off completely since it
allows me to do it.  I'd like the same for fringes too :-)

I'll have a look in the archives.

Thanks,

//Chuck


"Bingham, Jay" wrote:

> In Emacs 21.1 and later fringes are narrow bands on both edges of the frame in which are displayed line wrapping information (there may be other information displayed there but I do not know what it would be, I am not a developer of emacs) in the form of curved arrows.  From what has been said in this list previously they cannot be disabled.  You may want to check the list archives for more specific details.

Re: fringes

[Chuck Bernard]

Well, I've downloaded the entire archive and I was not able to find any
discussions on the fringes with regard to turning them off.

Maybe I'm the only person in the world which was annoyed by them when
I went from a previous version that didn't have them.   At least I'm unique ;-)

//Chuck



Oliver Scholz wrote:

> drguruolai@eth.net (G Anna) writes:
> [...]
> > Well... I am new to the list as well as to emacs.  (Just one year
> > old.)  So, what are "fringes"?
> [...]
>
> Under X the fringes are the columns on the left and right of a buffer
> that display arrows sometimes and that are in a slightly different
> color than the background (depending on your customization).

Re: fringes

[Greg Hill]

Chuck,

Not quite unique.  I have been so annoyed with many of the 
"improvements" in emacs-21 that, instead spending my time trying to 
"customize them away," I just stick with emacs-20 and add to it the 
occasional emacs-21 feature that I find to be useful.  All of the 
"improvements" to Emacs-21 (like the "fringes" and "tool-bar") that 
are immediately obvious to anyone familiar with previous versions 
appear to have been designed by an escapee from the Microsoft asylum.

--Greg

At 9:12 AM -0700 5/17/02, Chuck Bernard wrote:
>Well, I've downloaded the entire archive and I was not able to find any
>discussions on the fringes with regard to turning them off.
>
>Maybe I'm the only person in the world which was annoyed by them when
>I went from a previous version that didn't have them.   At least I'm 
>unique ;-)
>

Re: fringes

[Oliver Scholz]

drguruolai@eth.net (G Anna) writes:
[...]
> Well... I am new to the list as well as to emacs.  (Just one year
> old.)  So, what are "fringes"?
[...]

Under X the fringes are the columns on the left and right of a buffer
that display arrows sometimes and that are in a slightly different
color than the background (depending on your customization).

    'oliver

-- 
Oliver Scholz               28 Floréal an 210 de la Révolution
Taunusstr. 25               Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!
60329 Frankfurt a. M.
Tel. (069) 97 40 99 42

Re: fringes

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Greg Hill <ghill@synergymicro.com>
> Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 09:57:27 -0700
> 
>                                                          All of the 
> "improvements" to Emacs-21 (like the "fringes" and "tool-bar") that 
> are immediately obvious to anyone familiar with previous versions 
> appear to have been designed by an escapee from the Microsoft asylum.

Actually, the person who designed them never looked at a Microsoft OS
for inspiration (AFAIK, he didn't use any Windows system at all).

It's okay to dislike a feature, but why post derogatory remarks about
people who labored on coding them, and then gave the results out for
free?

Re: fringes

[Chuck Bernard]

"Bingham, Jay" wrote:

> A discussion about turning the fringes off did occur shortly after version 21.1 was released, if it was not in this list then it was in the help-emacs-windows list.  (Sorry for pointing you to the wrong archive, since I am subscribed to both lists it is sometimes hard to remember which list a discussion occurred in when a topic that pertains to any implementation of emacs is discussed in the emacs windows list).
>
> I can assure you that you are not the only one who is annoyed by them, nor are you the only one who is disappointed that they can't be turned off.

Good, then I'm not alone :-)

In my opinion, one of the best things about emacs is that people contribute new
functions or features all of the time.  However, "THE" best thing is that the rest of
us can either  use them or disable them.

Fringes seem to fly in the face of the greatest strengths of emacs in that you
are forced to have them whether you like them or not.  Toolbars and fringes
are nice things to have for beginners but once you get use to the tool it is
best to take off those training wheels and become truly efficient.

Sorry for venting... Thanks for listening.  I feel better already :-)

//Chuck

Re: fringes

[Luis O. Silva]

Dear Greg,

I completely agree with Eli, your remarks aren't
constructive. May be an improvement would be to make it
possible to disable this feature?

I've been working with emacs 21.1 for a while and I'm very
pleased with it and very grateful to all its creators. I
also think that the fringes are a _great_ thing, although,
as you, I don't like the toolbar at all. It is important to
me that I can disable it. So I think that the real
improvement is to make it possible to disable the fringes
rather than go back.

Best regards,
luis


-- 
Luis Octavio Silva P.
St. Petersburg State University.
66/3 Botanicheskaya St., Apt.119/2
Stary Peterhof
St. Petersburg, Russia.

Fringes

[Nick Roberts]

If a buffer uses the default left fringe width, the variable left-fringe-width
is nil while the function window-fringes returns information about the fringes
of a window.  So there appears to be no way to determine the fringe width of a
buffer that is not currently displayed.  I've noticed this problem because
gdb-ui.el uses window-fringes in gdb-put-breakpoint-icon.  Since the speedbar
now has no left fringe, if I expand the display of a watch expression in the
speedbar (an array, say), the breakpoint icon shifts from the fringe to the
display margin (because window-fringes uses the selected window by default,
the speedbar in this case).

Nick


Here's a suggestion/correction for the Fringes section of the lisp
manual.

(caution if applying diff - remove line with ^^^^^^)

*** display.texi.~1.188.~       2005-10-01 00:57:51.000000000 +1200
--- display.texi        2005-10-02 21:55:21.174050936 +1300
***************
*** 2730,2752 ****
  @node Fringe Size/Pos
  @subsection Fringe Size and Position

!   Here's how to control the position and width of the window fringes.

  @defvar fringes-outside-margins
! If the value is non-@code{nil}, the frames appear outside the display
                                      ^^^^^^
! margins.  The fringes normally appear between the display margins and
! the window text.  It works to set @code{fringes-outside-margins}
! buffer-locally.  @xref{Display Margins}.
  @end defvar

  @defvar left-fringe-width
  This variable, if non-@code{nil}, specifies the width of the left
! fringe in pixels.
  @end defvar

  @defvar right-fringe-width
  This variable, if non-@code{nil}, specifies the width of the right
! fringe in pixels.
  @end defvar

    The values of these variables take effect when you display the
--- 2730,2754 ----
  @node Fringe Size/Pos
  @subsection Fringe Size and Position

!   The following buffer-local variables control the position and width
! of the window fringes.

  @defvar fringes-outside-margins
! The fringes normally appear between the display margins and the window
! text.  If the value is non-@code{nil}, they appear outside the display
! margins.  @xref{Display Margins}.
  @end defvar

  @defvar left-fringe-width
  This variable, if non-@code{nil}, specifies the width of the left
! fringe in pixels.  A value of @code{nil} means to use the left fringe
! width from the window's frame.
  @end defvar

  @defvar right-fringe-width
  This variable, if non-@code{nil}, specifies the width of the right
! fringe in pixels.  A value of @code{nil} means to use the right fringe
! width from the window's frame.
  @end defvar

    The values of these variables take effect when you display the

Re: Fringes

[Richard M. Stallman]

    If a buffer uses the default left fringe width, the variable
    left-fringe-width is nil while the function window-fringes returns
    information about the fringes of a window.  So there appears to be
    no way to determine the fringe width of a buffer that is not
    currently displayed.

What does it mean to speak of the "fringe width of a buffer that is
not currently displayed"?

If it means the fringe width that would be in effect if that buffer is
displayed in a window, then if left-fringe-width is nil in that
buffer, it should use the default.  So couldn't you just use the
default value?

That ought to be easy, so if you think this problem is hard, perhaps I
have missed the point.


Anyway, your changes in the Lisp Manual look good.
Please install them.

Re: Fringes

[Nick Roberts]

 >     If a buffer uses the default left fringe width, the variable
 >     left-fringe-width is nil while the function window-fringes returns
 >     information about the fringes of a window.  So there appears to be
 >     no way to determine the fringe width of a buffer that is not
 >     currently displayed.
 > 
 > What does it mean to speak of the "fringe width of a buffer that is
 > not currently displayed"?

You're right, it doesn't mean anything, the fringe width will depend on
the frame that it's displayed in.

 > If it means the fringe width that would be in effect if that buffer is
 > displayed in a window, then if left-fringe-width is nil in that
 > buffer, it should use the default.  So couldn't you just use the
 > default value?

I assumed that all frames have the same fringe width, which was previously
true by default, so I didn't notice a problem.  The default value for the
speedbar is 0 now, which isn't generally what I want.

 > That ought to be easy, so if you think this problem is hard, perhaps I
 > have missed the point.

If the buffers that hold breakpoint icons are visible, it's straightforward.
If they are not visible then I'm not sure what to do.

Nick

Re: Fringes

[Richard M. Stallman]

     > That ought to be easy, so if you think this problem is hard, perhaps I
     > have missed the point.

    If the buffers that hold breakpoint icons are visible, it's straightforward.
    If they are not visible then I'm not sure what to do.

Why do anything?  What's the real problem?