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.
>
>