Re: Suggestions for mode-line-format changes

[Kim F. Storm]

Mario Lang <address@hidden> writes:

> erc-track.el uses the global-mode-string to
> indicate if a channel buffer not currently visible
> had activity.  It is quite important for
> this feature to be visible, and not scrolled out on the right side.
> 
> I agree that time isn't that important, but there are other things which can
> be put into global-mode-string.  I dont think
> it should be changed from it's current location.

There really seems to be different levels of importance of the things
people put into global-mode-string - some of which should be "very
visible" (e.g. battery status), some which should be "normally
visible" (e.g new mail, output available, important mode state), and
some which is just "nice to have" (e.g. time of day and system load).

Consequently, putting everything in a "global" state variable will
definitely not work well for all users...

Kai's idea of a fully configurable mode line format sounds nice, but
it will not work if we can only control where "global-mode-string" is
displayed in the mode-line; we need to be able to control the position
of each of the [current] elements of global-mode-string.

Maybe we could change the interpretation of global-mode-string [as the
last element in mode-line-format] in formatting the mode-line, so that
only the elements of global-mode-string which have not been
shown already are displayed for global-mode-string.

This could be done by maintaining a temporary list of the symbols used
so far to format the mode line and skip those symbols which have
already been displayed.  The means that you can insert
battery-mode-line-string explicitly in mode-line-format and not worry
about it being present in global-mode-string as well.


> 
> OTOH, I always wanted something like global-mode-string
> which only occurs once in a frame.  Currently, global-mode-string
> is displayed as many times as windows are displayed in the current frame.
> This is waste of space for most things using global-mode-string
> (like time and the mail icon).
> 
> If we could come up with an equivalent which is only displayed
> at one position in the frame, I'd like that.
> (e.g. on the right side of the menu, or there somewhere).
> 
> P.S.: To be worthwhile, this feature would
> need to work in X and -nw.

Displaying it in the (unused) echo area should work on all platform if
done correctly...

-- 
Kim F. Storm <address@hidden> http://www.cua.dk