emacs mode line suggestions

[Xah]

On Nov 12, 11:55 pm, anhnmncb <anhnm...@sina.com> wrote:
> Mouse when on modeline, and popup buffers menu by C-<left mouse> can be
> used to change to other buffers, both of which are not what I want, can
> I disable it?

don't know.

lol. I think the mode line is another of emacs's problem.

Here's what i think are better default:

• that the buffer location percentage should by default not shown if
emacs is running in GUI with scroll bar.

• clicking on the file name should not switch buffer. It could do
contextual menu listing user buffers instead. (user buffer here are
those not starting with “*”)

• Minor mode should not be displayed there. It's confusing. Instead,
the major mode can add a “mode” word after it. So this is more
intuitive. (The idea of Minor modes are kinda confusing. They should
be thought of as Preferences (Mac-speak) or Options (Windows-speak),
which is what they mostly are used as.)

• Clicking on the major mode name should pop up a contextual menu to
let user switch to major major modes. (e.g. C, C++, java, perl, php,
bash, javascript, html/xml, python, text, LaTeX.)

• line number mode should be on by default. So that, the line number
shows in the mode line.

• the start of the mode line, showing like “-u:**”, “%%”, “%*”... are
quite cryptic. Having used emacs for 10 years, these are still not
burned into my brain. And it's not easy to look them up what they are
until you are emacs diehard. (e.g. you'll have to know it's
technically called “mode line”, then you'll have to know about emacs-
index-search, and in general familiar with info and the bunch of emacs
only terminologies)

It'd better to instead say “Read Only” instead of “%*”, and show
“Modified” instead of the “**”. (don't show anything when it's “--”)

The coding system shown in mode line should be removed. The current
coding system should be shown in the menu somewhere, and allow users
to change thru menu.

---------------------
Summary:

So, i think the mode line should be like this:

‹buffer name›   linePos/charPos   (‹major mode name›)------‹status›---

where the status can be Modified or Read Only.

Also, when editing as root, it'd be nice to indicate it in mode line.
Some indication of being root is a frequently requested feature.

Clicking on the buffer name should show menu list of user buffers,
those not starting with a *.

Clicking on linePos/charPos show a menu that allow user to turn on/off
line number mode or char number mode.

Clicking on the major mode name should show a menu of commonly used
major modes, allowing user a easy way to switch. (currently, emacs has
no intuitive way for user to switch a mode or know what modes are
available. This is also a FAQ item.)

Clicking on the “status” should show a menu allowing user to toggle
read only.

All these clicking should be Right Click, which is more standard
behavior of clicking on things for contextual menu. (e.g. in Mac and
Windows system wide, and in Firefox for example)

Optionally, to the very right of the status bar could have a “i” or
“info”, and when clicked, it shows all the current modified/read
status, mode settings, minor modes, encoding used, etc of the current
buffer. This can be done as a new split window much like C-h f would.
In the result pane, it can show status of other buffer local vars that
are related to text editing (such as case sensitive search, how lines
are wrapped, length for truncation, margin ... ). With links or active
text that lets user toggle or set new vals easily (similar to the UI
of customize).

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄