bug#53776: Modeline indicator when using define-minor-mode

[Stephen Berman]

On Fri, 04 Feb 2022 14:05:58 +0000 goncholden <goncholden@protonmail.com> wrote:

> ------- Original Message -------
>
> On Friday, February 4th, 2022 at 1:35 PM, Stephen Berman
> <stephen.berman@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 04 Feb 2022 13:22:08 +0000 goncholden goncholden@protonmail.com 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > ------- Original Message -------
>> >
>> > On Friday, February 4th, 2022 at 1:02 PM, Stephen Berman
>> >
>> > stephen.berman@gmx.net wrote:
>> >
>> > > On Fri, 04 Feb 2022 11:55:45 +0000 goncholden via "Bug reports for GNU
>> > >
>> > > Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > Have been using define-minor-mode and noticed that when setting the
>> > > > modeline indicator, the text is appended with no space between other
>> > > > modeline indicators. Is this how :lighter is supposed to work?
>> > >
>> > > Yes, the lack of a space is in the definition of `mode-line-modes':`
>> > >
>> > > (:propertize ("" minor-mode-alist)
>> > >
>> > > I guess the reason is that you can have multiple minor mode lighters and
>> > > providing a space between each would complicate the definition of
>> > > `mode-line-modes', so that's the job of the minor mode definition
>> > > itself:
>> > >
>> > > > (define-minor-mode rich-minor-mode
>> > > > "This is the docstring."
>> > > > :lighter "rich"
>> > >
>> > > So you should do this: :lighter " rich"
>> > >
>> > > Steve Berman
>> >
>> > Because one can easily add minor-modes that exceed the mode-line 
>> > mini-buffer,
>> > is there
>> > the capability of making a hierarchical modeline indicator.
>> >
>> > e.g.
>> >
>> > Emacs-Lisp
>> > company
>> > Outl
>> > Gon -> rich
>> > -> gudin
>> > -> cholden
>>
>> That would appear to require a multiline mode line, which is not
>> possible with the current implementation. An alternative, which might
>> be easier to implement (for someone who knows how, not me), would be to
>> make the mode line horizontally scrollable. But maybe that's not so
>> easy, since it seems so obviously useful, yet hasn't been implemented.
>
>> Steve Berman
>
> Much useful.  Would we be able to include such proposition for emacs?

It could certainly be a feature request.  In fact, maybe this bug report
can be repurposed as such as request, since the lack of a space in the
minor mode lighter isn't a bug per se.

Steve Berman