Any way to make minibuffer questions more obvious?

Any way to make minibuffer questions more obvious?

[Steven Degutis]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 682 bytes --]

I was in dired, and I deleted a dir using D, then I hit "y" to confirm I
want to delete it. Next I try to go copy another with C, but nothing
happens. I look in the minibuffer and it says "Please answer y or n.  Kill
dired buffer of foo, too? (y or n)".

I had no idea it was asking me this second question. I completely forgot
that it would. And the minibuffer where it asks it is the bottom left of my
screen, while the dired buffer is in the top-right, this being a 27" Apple
display at highest possible resolution, so there's no way I would have
noticed it.

Is there a way to make this kind of question pop-up a new frame or some
other more visual way of asking this?

-Steven

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 827 bytes --]

RE: Any way to make minibuffer questions more obvious?

[Drew Adams]

> I was in dired, and I deleted a dir using D, then I hit "y"
> to confirm I want to delete it. Next I try to go copy another
> with C, but nothing happens. I look in the minibuffer and it
> says "Please answer y or n.  Kill dired buffer of foo, too?
> (y or n)". 
>
> I had no idea it was asking me this second question.  I
> completely forgot that it would. And the minibuffer where it
> asks it is the bottom left of my screen, while the dired
> buffer is in the top-right, this being a 27" Apple display
> at highest possible resolution, so there's no way I would
> have noticed it. 
>
> Is there a way to make this kind of question pop-up a new
> frame or some other more visual way of asking this?

I think we've all been bitten by that more than once. ;-)

Dunno whether someone else will have a brilliant suggestion.  (I don't.)

There are ways to make Emacs flash, burp, and wave its arms wildly, and you
could always attach those to (your version of) `y-or-n-p'.  But soon you might
find that annoying.

FWIW, `y-or-n-p' does not use the minibuffer.  It simply reads a user-initiated
event, which is typically hitting a key (e.g. `y' or `n').  If it doesn't like
the event it reads then it asks you again.  and again.

Re: Any way to make minibuffer questions more obvious?

[Steven Degutis]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1637 bytes --]

In that case, are there any built-in functions or things that let me create
a "pop up" window/frame/anything? Kinda like a windows dialog "Are you
sure" box in the sense that it sits on top of everything else centerde in
the screen, but still responds to my keys.

-Steven


On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 5:00 PM, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:

> > I was in dired, and I deleted a dir using D, then I hit "y"
> > to confirm I want to delete it. Next I try to go copy another
> > with C, but nothing happens. I look in the minibuffer and it
> > says "Please answer y or n.  Kill dired buffer of foo, too?
> > (y or n)".
> >
> > I had no idea it was asking me this second question.  I
> > completely forgot that it would. And the minibuffer where it
> > asks it is the bottom left of my screen, while the dired
> > buffer is in the top-right, this being a 27" Apple display
> > at highest possible resolution, so there's no way I would
> > have noticed it.
> >
> > Is there a way to make this kind of question pop-up a new
> > frame or some other more visual way of asking this?
>
> I think we've all been bitten by that more than once. ;-)
>
> Dunno whether someone else will have a brilliant suggestion.  (I don't.)
>
> There are ways to make Emacs flash, burp, and wave its arms wildly, and you
> could always attach those to (your version of) `y-or-n-p'.  But soon you
> might
> find that annoying.
>
> FWIW, `y-or-n-p' does not use the minibuffer.  It simply reads a
> user-initiated
> event, which is typically hitting a key (e.g. `y' or `n').  If it doesn't
> like
> the event it reads then it asks you again.  and again.
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2215 bytes --]

RE: Any way to make minibuffer questions more obvious?

[Drew Adams]

> In that case, are there any built-in functions or things that
> let me create a "pop up" window/frame/anything? Kinda like a
> windows dialog "Are you sure" box in the sense that it sits
> on top of everything else centerde in the screen, but still
> responds to my keys.

You can redefine or advise `y-or-n-p' to do anything you like.

`x-popup-dialog', `tooltip-show'/`tooltip-hide', `display-warning', `message',
`ding' with and without `visible-bell', fiddle with `ring-bell-function', open
36 yellow, red, and magenta frames that blink chartreuse fast and wobble around
changing size.  Whatever.

(x-popup-dialog t '("Help?! "
                    ("Yes" . 42)
                    ("No" . 3.14159265358979)))