allowing scroll to move point off screen

allowing scroll to move point off screen

[Vincent A. Fiano]

I've been using emacs for many years, but I really like the way that the
simple GUI editors scroll - they leave the cursor at the same buffer
position even if it is off screen.  This has the advantage of being able
to look at another part of the buffer, but snap back to your current
buffer position by typing or moving the point.

It seems that keeping the point on the screen is hard coded into the
redisplay function of emacs, but is there any way to allow the scroll bar
and mouse wheel to move the point off the screen?

Unfortunately, from what I can tell redisplay automatically adjusts
window-start and window-end and the point to keep the point on the screen,
and it does not know if I am scrolling via a scrollbar or page up/down
key.  Is there a variable I can set that controls whether redisplay
recenters the point or not?  Given this I think that I can manage the rest
myself.

- Vincent

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Vincent Fiano    /          ynniv@cc.gatech.edu
------ - -  -    `--------------> www.ynniv.com
       M          o         o         F

Re: allowing scroll to move point off screen

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 12:36:39 -0500 (EST)
> From: "Vincent A. Fiano" <ynniv@cc.gatech.edu>
> 
> I've been using emacs for many years, but I really like the way that the
> simple GUI editors scroll - they leave the cursor at the same buffer
> position even if it is off screen.  This has the advantage of being able
> to look at another part of the buffer, but snap back to your current
> buffer position by typing or moving the point.
> 
> It seems that keeping the point on the screen is hard coded into the
> redisplay function of emacs

Right.

> but is there any way to allow the scroll bar and mouse wheel to move
> the point off the screen?

No.  Keeping point visible at all times is one of the most important
design goals of the Emacs redisplay engine.

See the variable scroll-preserve-screen-position for something that
might help you.

Also, in Emacs you can have more than one window looking at the same
buffer, each window with its own value of point.