Re: about showing all characters including non-printable, control etc

[Harry Putnam]

Bernardo <bernardo.bacic@pobox.com> writes:

>>> does M-x apropos RET whitespace RET
>>> list whitespace-mode?
>>
>> yes... (thanks) under global-whitespace-mode
>>>From what it says apparently if you have global-whitespace-mode on you
>> should have a WS on mode line that toggles `visualization' on/off.
>>
>> I have that. `WS' with it on... what am I supposed to see?
> if you
> * start Emacs with -Q command line option
> * switch to *scratch* buffer
> * type global-whitespace-mode RET
> * type C-q TAB
> do you see anything different?
>
> BTW are you running Emacs in a terminal or as an (X) windows application?

emacs in X

As I've mentioned ... I already have the mode on as evidenced by the
WS in the mode line... and sure enough I see cool syntax highlight on
tabs in scratch buffer... however I don't normally read News and Mail
in the scratch buffer.

I was testing on the snippet from a rc file in this thread

If you go to one of the replies in this thread that has the snippet
from a rc file...(This one does):

  Message-ID: <87y6nrvq78.fsf@galatea.local>

And paste it here below.  Do you see tabs there... I don't.
Yet if you run over the uncommented lines with arrow keys you will see
they are there.

>   # All snapshots will be stored under this root directory.
>   snapshot_root       /bk/rsnap/home
>   cmd_cp              /bin/cp
>   # uncomment this to use the rm program instead of the built-in perl routine
>   cmd_rm              /bin/rm

That was my error... I should have opened one of the rc files instead
of checking the snippet in a News message.

When I do open the actual rc file... I see the tabs marked.

But going back to my original comments... comparing to the :l command
in vim... that would show the tabs regardless of type of buffer.

I guess that's what I expected global-whitespace-mode to do too, but it
doesn't.

for example... using my home made vi-list functions (That someone on
this list.. wrote yrs ago)... shows them in this message (or anywhere
else... I think) no trick modes that might or might not do the job
involved.

(defun vi-list ()
  "Simulate a :set list in Vi." 
  (interactive)
  (standard-display-ascii ?\t "^I")
  (standard-display-ascii ?\n "$\n")
  )

(defun vi-nolist ()
  "Simulate a :set nolist in Vi."
  (interactive)
  (standard-display-ascii ?\t "\t")
  (standard-display-ascii ?\n "\n")
  )

Apparently global-whitespace-mode is disabled in message mode some
how.  Maybe others too.

How can I turn those two defuns (vi-list, vi-nolist) into a toggle?
So I can turn it on off with one key combo.