Vertical cursor movement in Emacs 23.1

Vertical cursor movement in Emacs 23.1

[D Yong]

Hello,

I recently upgraded from Emacs 21.3 to 23.1 on my Windows computer and
noticed that the cursor movement is now different in version 23.1.

When I use the arrow keys to move the cursor vertically from one line
to the next, the cursor does not stay in the same column *unless* the
previous key press was an up or down arrow.

Example: Say I have a buffer fill of text lines all the same length. I
click my mouse to position the cursor somewhere in the middle of the
text. If press "left up up up" or "right up up up" then the cursor
will move *left* one column and up one row after the first "up" key
but then remain in the same column for all subsequent "up" key
presses.

A similar thing will happen if I press "[backspace] up up up" or "q up
up up". The cursor will move left and up for the first "up" keypress,
then stay in the same column for all subsequent "up" key presses.

This is not the same thing as using picture-mode to maintain the same
column number when moving the cursor vertically. I'm assuming here
that all of the lines of text are long enough that the same column
number can be maintained.

I can confirm that in Emacs 21.3 this did not happen. When moving the
cursor vertically, Emacs always tries to maintain the same column
number. I also do not think this is a matter of some strange mode I'm
using or strange configuration. I can reproduce this behavior with
no .emacs file and while editing in the scratch buffer.

Can someone confirm that this is the case, or better yet, tell me how
to fix this strange behavior so that emacs will maintain the same
column when moving the cursor vertically from one line to the same?

Thanks!

Re: Vertical cursor movement in Emacs 23.1

[Teemu Likonen]

On 2009-12-06 22:23 (-0800), D. Yong wrote:

> I recently upgraded from Emacs 21.3 to 23.1 on my Windows computer and
> noticed that the cursor movement is now different in version 23.1.
>
> When I use the arrow keys to move the cursor vertically from one line
> to the next, the cursor does not stay in the same column *unless* the
> previous key press was an up or down arrow.

Seems like you have found this bug:

    "next-line and previous-line don't keep the column in
    text-scale-mode"

    http://emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3668

> Can someone confirm that this is the case, or better yet, tell me how
> to fix this strange behavior so that emacs will maintain the same
> column when moving the cursor vertically from one line to the same?

I, too, wish someone would fix the bug. :-)

If you have more information, please add it the the bug report. Just
send mail to address <3668 [at] emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com>.

Re: Vertical cursor movement in Emacs 23.1

[Stefan Monnier]

> Example: Say I have a buffer fill of text lines all the same length. I
> click my mouse to position the cursor somewhere in the middle of the
> text. If press "left up up up" or "right up up up" then the cursor
> will move *left* one column and up one row after the first "up" key
> but then remain in the same column for all subsequent "up" key
> presses.

Sounds like a bug.  Please report it via M-x report-emacs-bug.  Try to
make sure you provide a concrete test-case starting from "emacs -Q".


        Stefan