RE: Global indicators

[Drew Adams]

> > Why not rather a full part of the echo area for all the global
> > indicators that should be there rather than in the mode-line?
> 
> I think this is a good idea.  How about putting such indicators on the
> right-hand side of the echo area, justified to the right?  We 
> could give it a slightly less prominent face to distinguish it
> from ordinary echo area messages.
> 
> One I can think of is that it might get confusing if echo 
> area messages start to overlap the indicator area (especially
> multi-line messages). And how this would interact with the
> minibuffer is not clear.

I think it's not such a great idea, for the reasons I gave before.  Just one
opinion.

> One more thing: we could put a GTK spinner object (GtkSpinner) on the
> right edge of the GTK tool bar.  I haven't looked into the 
> details, but the required code changes probably won't be too challenging.

That might be OK.  Why not find a way to use any animated GIFs (or free
equivalent) on the tool bar?  Code could then indicate whatever progress or
other activity it liked in whatever way it liked, changing the graphic as needed
etc.  (And a user who wasn't interested could hide the toolbar.)

Of course with such additions it wouldn't be just a tool bar anymore.  (That
would be OK by me...)