Re: Minibuffer tray to display current time and date

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> I was wondering if there is a possibility to display current time and date
> on the right side (right-aligned) of the minibuffer (similarly to how trays
> do on desktops)?  I'm OK with the fact that it can disappear when one uses
> minibuffer (for `M-x' or whatever), but it should appear again as soon as
> minibuffer is idle.  I'm also aware of

I'd welcome a package that lets you display such info in the minibuffer.
This has been requested several times already.

Basically, the situation is that what you call the "minibuffer" is
actually a mini-window.  Those windows can display normal buffers.
Among the buffers they display, are the so-called minibuffers, which are
normal buffers, named like " *Minibuf-N*", used during minibuffer input.
There are also echo-area buffers (2 of them, named " *Echo Area 0/1*")
which are used to display "message"s.

IIUC, the "idle minibuffer" AFAIK is actually displaying the buffer
" *Minibuf-0*", so if you put the data you want into that buffer, it
should be displayed where/when you want it.
E.g. try:

   M-: (with-current-buffer " *Minibuf-0*" (insert "I'm Idle!")) RET

*BUT*, IIRC there is somewhere in the C code where we sometimes just
"clear" the mini-window (under the assumption that the buffer it
displays doesn't contain anything) instead of actually displaying its
content, so in order for such a package to work reliably, we may need to
patch the C code.  But it might work well enough to be usable without
such a patch.


        Stefan