Re: how to tell what's in the fringe? (lazy fringe)

[Miles Bader]

"Drew Adams" <address@hidden> writes:
>> I don't have any pre-20 emacs
>
> Pre-21. Emacs 20 uses $ for line truncation, not fringe.

Right.

>> here to confirm, but my recollection is that the old behavior was to
>> actually reserve the final column on the line for the line
>> truncation/wrapping indicator -- i.e., there _was_ a kind of fringe
>> before, but only on the right side.
>
> No. The indicator, $, simply takes the place of the \ that is used
> normally for wrapped lines. With or without truncation, without fringe
> the window right edge is right up against the last displayed character
> of the line (which might be a newline). When a line is truncated, one
> less character is displayed - it is replaced by $.

That is no different than current emacs with only a right fringe:

In emacs <21 (again, IIRC), the last column always contained either "$",
"\", or " " (representing a newline); you could not have lines with 80
"content" (non-newline) characters.  So you basically got 79 generally
usable columns, if your window was 80 columns wide.

In current emacs, you get precisely the same results if you set the
fringe style to `right-only', though the terminology has changed a bit:
The last "column" (the fringe) contains either a fringe indicator or
nothing, _but_ current emacs also allows the " " representing a newline
to displayed in the fringe.  So again, you get 79 generally usable
columns if your window is 80 columns wide.

Thus, despite the new concepts, the amount of usable space is the same,
when you use only the right fringe.

[many thanks to Kim for implementing the newline/cursor-in-the-fringe
feature BTW]

-miles

-- 
Rational, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience
and reflection.