Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[cmr.Pent]

Hello!

The latest version of Emacs 23 introduces a colored octagon in the
lower left corner of the frame. Sometimes it is yellow, sometimes it
is red. I'm pretty sure it's a sort of indicator, but what exactly it
indicates?

Andrey Paramonov

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[David Golden]

cmr.Pent@gmail.com wrote:

> Hello!
> 
> The latest version of Emacs 23 introduces a colored octagon in the
> lower left corner of the frame. Sometimes it is yellow, sometimes it
> is red. I'm pretty sure it's a sort of indicator, but what exactly it
> indicates?
>

It did? What platform are you on? Are you building from GNU Emacs CVS or 
using some third-party distribution?  Is it all the time or only in some 
major modes? 

No real idea - it does sound like it could be some "error/warn/okay" 
red/yellow/green traffic light icon for some validating mode, but I'm 
not seeing such a thing out-of-box...

For ref, here's what an X11/gtk+ "emacs -Q" looks like on my system, 
with an Emacs CVS build from 10 mins ago:
http://harpegolden.net/misc/emacs-x11gtk-20090412.png

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[Nikolaj Schumacher]

"cmr.Pent@gmail.com" <cmr.Pent@gmail.com> wrote:

> The latest version of Emacs 23 introduces a colored octagon in the
> lower left corner of the frame. Sometimes it is yellow, sometimes it
> is red. I'm pretty sure it's a sort of indicator, but what exactly it
> indicates?

It might be a long shot, but it sounds like you're talking about this:
http://nschum.de/src/emacs/test-case-mode/


regards,
Nikolaj Schumacher

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[cmr.Pent]

On 13 апр, 01:29, Nikolaj Schumacher <m...@nschum.de> wrote:
> It might be a long shot, but it sounds like you're talking about this:http://nschum.de/src/emacs/test-case-mode/
>

Yes, this looks like what I see! However, in my Emacs the octagon
appears for example in AucTeX buffers, which has nothing to do with
unit tests...

From some experiments, I now think that the octagon is somehow related
to the file VCS (version control systems) status. A clarification from
Emacs developers would be nice. Every time I see a red octagon I get
worried subconsciously :-/

Andrey Paramonov

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[Nikolaj Schumacher]

"cmr.Pent@gmail.com" <cmr.Pent@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, this looks like what I see!
>
> From some experiments, I now think that the octagon is somehow related
> to the file VCS (version control systems) status.

There is a package named git-emacs which copied the visualization.  I'm
fairly certain it wasn't merged into Emacs at this time.  Maybe you have
installed it.


regards,
Nikolaj Schumacher

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[Richard Riley]

"cmr.Pent@gmail.com" <cmr.Pent@gmail.com> writes:

> On 13 апр, 01:29, Nikolaj Schumacher <m...@nschum.de> wrote:
>> It might be a long shot, but it sounds like you're talking about this:http://nschum.de/src/emacs/test-case-mode/
>>
>
> Yes, this looks like what I see! However, in my Emacs the octagon
> appears for example in AucTeX buffers, which has nothing to do with
> unit tests...
>
> From some experiments, I now think that the octagon is somehow related
> to the file VCS (version control systems) status. A clarification from
> Emacs developers would be nice. Every time I see a red octagon I get
> worried subconsciously :-/
>
> Andrey Paramonov

A very nice git package called git-emacs has an icon like that.

http://tsgates.cafe24.com/git/git-emacs.html

It would be nice if that feature was in base vc IMO.

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[Miles Bader]

Richard Riley <rileyrgdev@googlemail.com> writes:
> A very nice git package called git-emacs has an icon like that.
>
> http://tsgates.cafe24.com/git/git-emacs.html
>
> It would be nice if that feature was in base vc IMO.

Which feature?  Cryptic icons?

[I say "cryptic" because it's obviously managed to confuse several
people in this thread...]

Of course by default, Emacs will be put something like "Git-master" in
the modeline for git-controlled files, which certainly seems much more
clear.

-Miles

-- 
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra.  Suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath.  At night the ice weasels come.  --Nietzsche

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[cmr.Pent]

I've dug a bit deeper and I've discovered that the octagon is shown by
psvn.el, and is indeed not a part of the vanilla Emacs. I'll send a
patch to Stefan Reichör to provide a tooltip "svn status". The feature
is customizable so the octagon is easy to remove (once you know in
what package to look for).

I think a sort of "modified" indicator might indeed be useful in the
base vc module, as at least psvn and git-emacs have their
implementations of it. For example, we could show

SVN-123M

instead of

SVN-123

for locally modified buffers. I'll look at the code later.

Andrey

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[Miles Bader]

"cmr.Pent@gmail.com" <cmr.Pent@gmail.com> writes:
> I think a sort of "modified" indicator might indeed be useful in the
> base vc module, as at least psvn and git-emacs have their
> implementations of it.

There actually is one already:  unmodified-according-to-VC buffers use
"-" as a separator in their VC indicator, and modified buffer have ":"
(e.g., "CVS-1.2" vs. "CVS:1.2").  The tooltip over the VC indicator also
says more explicitly.

[Note that the indicator doesn't change until you save the file.]

-Miles

-- 
Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not
particularly care to trace his own.

Re: Emacs 23.1 -- colored octagon in lower left corner?

[Richard Riley]

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

> Richard Riley <rileyrgdev@googlemail.com> writes:
>> A very nice git package called git-emacs has an icon like that.
>>
>> http://tsgates.cafe24.com/git/git-emacs.html
>>
>> It would be nice if that feature was in base vc IMO.
>
> Which feature?  Cryptic icons?
>
> [I say "cryptic" because it's obviously managed to confuse several
> people in this thread...]

Any icon would if you dont know what it is. Its simply a VC status and
much clearer than tiny modeline text IMO. It would be nice in magit too
as an option.

>
> Of course by default, Emacs will be put something like "Git-master" in
> the modeline for git-controlled files, which certainly seems much more
> clear.
>
> -Miles

--