Re: min-width display property, but with padding at the start

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Spencer Baugh <sbaugh@janestreet.com>
> Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2024 08:09:51 -0400
> 
> >> Is there a way to achieve this with display properties?
> >
> > Why do you need display properties?  What's wrong with
> >
> >   (format "%5s" THE-STRING)
> >
> > ?
> 
> That is probably what I'll do if I can't find another solution, but
> doing it with display properties works with non-fixed-width characters
> and faces, which a user might have configured.

Using variable-pitch fonts on the mode line is not recommended, as the
results could be problematic around fields that change dynamically.
The min-width property was introduced to make that easier during the
short period when we considered switching to variable-pitch font by
default, but we later decided not to do that for several reasons.

Are there many people who use variable-pitch fonts on the mode line?

> If simply padding with spaces sufficed, the display properties in
> (info "(elisp) Specified Space") would have little reason to exist.

As an alternative to min-width, you could use a :space display spec
whose width you calculate in Lisp, given string-width of the string
you want to pad.  I think this should work.