From: joakim@verona.se
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Customizing the mode line
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:01:42 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m34ophlycp.fsf@verona.se> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <83skd1dta0.fsf@gnu.org> (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:18:31 +0200")
Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> Do we have some convenient UI for customizing the mode line? The user
> manual doesn't mention any.
>
> I frequently find myself in a situation where the information that's
> important to me is pushed beyond the right edge of the mode line, and
> is thus invisible. Annoyingly, a large part of the real estate of the
> mode line is taken by information that is much less important, like
> the percentage of the file before the window start and the list of
> minor modes in effect. The latter, for example, is quite static in
> any given buffer, so once you saw it for the first time, there's no
> need to continue showing it in such a central place. However, even in
> a C buffer, the mode shown is "C/l Abbrev", which is quite long. And
> when I read mail, I see something like "RMAIL XXXX/YYYY answered,
> deleted"; when replying to mail it's "Mail Fly Abbrev Fill", etc.
> These are very long strings that I don't need to see all the time,
> because they almost never change. But they steal too much precious
> space.
>
> By contrast, dynamic information such as the current time, the system
> load, the battery condition, the mail indicator, the current function
> (when in which-func-mode), etc. -- these are banished off the edge of
> the mode line, and cannot be consulted. This effectively makes these
> features unavailable, unless one is willing to make her frames
> unreasonably wide or even full-screen.
>
> I consider this a bad misfeature. What's more, modifying what's in
> the mode line is not an easy task (unless I'm missing something): it
> boils down to reading bindings.el and manually setting various parts
> of standard-mode-line-* variables to remove or rearrange what is
> shown.
>
> Can we make the mode line display more ergonomic, or at least more
> customizable? Should I file a "wish-list" bug for this?
One thing adding to the problem is that a lot of information is repeated
in all modelines, where they could really live separately in a special
status window.
I tried adding functions to help with this problem, for instance the
"window groups" patch that let you keep a window on screen, that could
keep status info. This is currently unfinished.
Currently I just use this instead:
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; modeline-depopulator
;;test little hack to see info in msg area
;;TODO lan status
(require 'battery)
(require 'timeclock)
(defun modeline-depopulator ()
(interactive)
(message "%s\n%s\n%s"
(format-time-string "%H:%M %Y-%m-%d" (current-time))
(battery-format battery-echo-area-format (funcall
battery-status-function))
(timeclock-status-string)))
(global-set-key [f5] 'modeline-depopulator)
I press f5 when I want to know something I dont need to know all the
time, like time and date, time spent in a project, and battery status.
It is not distracting and it does in fact work surprisingly well.
>
--
Joakim Verona
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2009-10-30 15:01 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 49+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2009-10-30 11:18 Customizing the mode line Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-30 11:28 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-10-30 13:38 ` Stefan Monnier
2009-10-30 15:15 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-30 16:54 ` Drew Adams
2009-10-30 17:18 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-30 19:12 ` Stefan Monnier
2009-10-30 20:39 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-31 5:16 ` Miles Bader
2009-10-31 8:47 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-31 10:00 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-10-31 16:03 ` Drew Adams
2009-10-31 16:29 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-31 17:03 ` Drew Adams
2009-10-31 6:09 ` Manoj Srivastava
2009-10-31 10:31 ` Štěpán Němec
2009-10-31 20:38 ` Scrollbar thumbs (was: Customizing the mode line) Stefan Monnier
2009-11-01 3:11 ` Scrollbar thumbs Miles Bader
2009-11-02 6:55 ` Stefan Monnier
2009-11-02 7:41 ` Jason Rumney
2009-11-02 14:10 ` Stefan Monnier
2009-11-04 16:36 ` Customizing the mode line Evil Boris
2009-10-30 15:01 ` joakim [this message]
2009-10-30 15:25 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-30 21:55 ` Stephen Berman
2009-10-30 17:45 ` Chong Yidong
2009-10-30 20:41 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-30 20:56 ` Lennart Borgman
2009-10-31 0:13 ` Stefan Monnier
2009-10-31 5:17 ` Justin Bogner
2009-10-31 5:19 ` Miles Bader
2009-10-31 11:07 ` Richard Stallman
2009-10-31 11:19 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-11-01 9:28 ` Richard Stallman
2009-11-01 15:21 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-10-31 11:27 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-31 14:09 ` Robert J. Chassell
2009-10-31 14:30 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-31 22:13 ` Robert J. Chassell
2009-10-31 22:40 ` Robert J. Chassell
2009-11-01 3:49 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-31 18:55 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-10-31 17:46 ` M Jared Finder
2009-10-31 18:30 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-31 19:02 ` Juanma Barranquero
2009-10-31 14:33 ` Chong Yidong
2009-10-31 15:45 ` Eli Zaretskii
2009-10-31 18:07 ` Chong Yidong
2009-10-31 18:21 ` Eli Zaretskii
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