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Article #1090

Re: Re: save the separate minibuffer! (not!)

#1090
From: David.BRistor
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1993 02:07
50 lines
3355 bytes
> I won't say that those who prefer a separate minibuffer don't deserve
> a choice, but it would be my guess the Jamie and fellow coders at
> Lucid would have less of a headache by eliminating a seldom used
> option.  If it makes any difference, when I upgraded Epoch from 3.2 to
> 4.0, everyone here was very pleased that this orphan minibuffer had
> finally returned home.

The jury is out on whether it is or is not a seldom used feature.  Here it's
use is universal, so far as I've seen on the screens of others.  With respect
to "returned home," (nice phrase :-), my use of the separate minibuffer is
also a home, and quite a stable one at that:  I don't look to the bottom of
the epoch screen, I look to the bottom of the monitor.  Just as in days of
old, when vt100's were the rage, there it is, at a known physical location.

> In fact, I completely disabled the separate minibuffer even as an
> option, because observation of users familiar with ordinary Emacs made
> it clear they could never quite figure out where it was or what it was
> doing.        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That's very surprising, but perhaps depends on just how the separate
minibuffer is used.  I've seen it used in the "mode" where it flits around
from screen to screen, perhaps thats what you used?  Perfectly awful!

How do your users now find the minibuffer?  They have to look at the bottom of
the current screen.  Which is the current screen?  What if another screen is
covering the current screen's minibuffer?

This is from my .Xdefaults.  It pegs the minibuffer to the bottom of my
workstation's screen.  Since I've always worked this way, I don't know if
anything in elisp must change to allow the separate minibuffer.  All I ask is
that folks not using a separate minibuffer at least give it a try.

epoch.minibuf.cursor.glyph:	152
epoch.minibuf.background:	black
epoch.minibuf.foreground:	white
epoch.minibuf.font:	*courier-medium-r-normal--12*
epoch.minibuf.geometry:	163x1+0-0
olvwm.VirtualSticky:	Minibuffer
OpenWindows.MinimalDecor: epoch

The last two: sticky cause it to appear on all of olvwm's virtual screens;
minimal decor prevents any epoch screens from having a title bar (which is
often out-of-date w.r.t. the actual buffer anyway).

                                                     ,-------.
						    /  	 |    \
        Dave Bristor                               /     |     \
        bristor@sun.com                            |     |     |
#include <disclaimer.h>                            \    /|\    /
                                                    \  / | \  /
                                                     `-------'
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From: David.BRistor@eng.SUn.COM
Newsgroups: gnu.epoch.misc
Subject: Re: Re: save the separate minibuffer! (not!)
Date: 26 Feb 1993 21:07:04 -0500
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