Re: Suggestions for mode-line-format changes

[Miles Bader]

address@hidden (Michael Kifer) writes:
> I don't know.  I don't like programs that know better than I what I should
> be doing.

I think the heuristic I mentioned would probably be right almost all of
the time (and _all of the time_ for the overwhelmingly common case where
you're not doing simultaneous ediffs on the same file).

> Note also that if you have 2 buffers, the order of ediff sessions in
> which they are involved might be different.  This would lead to even
> more confusion.

Perhaps -- in the case where you have multiple simultaneous ediffs with
overlapping sets of buffers.  How often do you do this?

[In fact, I think the `most recent' behavior would be fairly reasonable,
even in this case]

You seem to be saying `Look, in this highly complex case, it will be
confusing!  Abort!'

This seems odd for two reasons -- 

 (1) I think most people use ediff in a fairly simple way, so wouldn't
     it be good to optimize for that?  One way to do this is to provide
     good defaults (and perhaps a way to override them for unusual cases).

 (2) The cases you mention, with multiple overlapping ediff sessions,
     are simply confusing, full-stop, regardless of what this minor-mode
     does.  You're probably better off using the control-window in such
     cases.

     Maybe you could make it a bit better by providing ways to override
     the defaults for such rare situations, but it doesn't mean you
     should avoid defaults altogether.

> I just don't see the benefits.  All these complications for the
> privilege of being able to hold your mouse over a different window
> than now?

Er, I don't use a mouse very much when I use emacs.  Perhaps that's one
reason why I'm annoyed by ediff's interface and you're not.

Anyway, where you see `complications' I see refreshing simplicity.

-Miles
-- 
97% of everything is grunge