RE: messages override minibuffer input

[Roland Winkler]

On Sun Sep 23 2007 Drew Adams wrote:
> > If we put such messages at the end, that may cause the minibuffer
> > to grow by a line.  Would you find that disturbing?
> >
> > If not, perhaps the thing to do is to put the message below the
> > current input, always growing the minibuffer.  Or put the message
> > above the minibuffer contents.  What would you think of that?
> 
> Please don't do that. In general, let's try to keep echo-area messages to
> one line. If they happen to be so long that they wrap, so be it. So I'd
> request that we append without a newline.

Maybe I misunderstand something here. I thought that the question
was about messages placed at the end of a minibuffer line. So if the
minibuffer takes already 70 display columns and the message requires
another 70 columns I don't know how the message could fit into a
standard window with 80 display columns unless the message is
wrapped. In such a (standard?) case it would seem more natural to me
to put the message completely into a new line. (But I do agree that
this might be a matter of personal preference.) If, on the other
hand, the last line displayed in the minibuffer takes only 30
columns and the message is a short "Mismatched parentheses" then it
would be sufficient to display the message at the end of that line.

Roland