Re: Highlighting cursor for char before

[Alexandre Garreau]

Le mercredi 27 octobre 2021 17:59:11 CEST, vous avez écrit :
> About what?  You ask so many questions, and OTOH say so little apart
> of the questions, that I no longer understand what you are talking
> about.

Oh noes :(

Ok, let’s start again more simply: what is that block underlining? what’s 
its meaning?

To me, in LTR, currently with the current behavior, in both insert and 
ovrwt mode, that block is underlining “the place where will appear the 
character I type” (first assertion), and that’s its meaning.  It also 
underlines the character that will be deleted if I press Suppr or C-d 
(second assertion), but since most of the time I use DEL, that’s 
irrelevant, because the character that would be deleted if I press DEL is 
not the one underlined.

In RTL, currently, the second assertion holds, but the first doesn’t… 
unless I’m in overwrt mode… but nobody use that anymore right? I only do 
while in artist-mode…

To me, block-cursor is most useful in overwrt mode, and since both most 
likely emerged at the same time, that’s a congruence that’s no longer 
useful, and that now can bring confusion (because of the assertion I 
proposed as a semantic for that kind of cursor).

> > Ok that was precisely what I wanted to know (especially as I totally
> > trust your opinion for that matter, as a beginning (is that treated
> > in xdisp.c as well?)), except given the misunderstandment above I’m
> > unsure you correctly understood what I meant… I meant the precise
> > opposite of what the block cursor currently does… is that so complex?
> 
> It is complex, yes.  That's what I tried to explain.

Isn’t it just a matter of taking the current behavior and reversing the 
way the block is drawed compared to the cursor position (the position 
between two chars that we would see if the cursor was just a line)?

and still: is that in xdisp.c?

> And I don't think it makes sense to display the cursor on the
> character before point, because it will be terrible in bidirectional
> context.

Why so?

> Are there any other editors that show the cursor that way?

I’m pretty sure there aren’t.  I never saw a such thing.  But I find it 
more logical.

> But if someone wants such a feature as an option, why not?

I would! I like when things I use have a meaning, more than when they have 
a history (and I see a historical explanation in the current behavior, but 
no semantical one).