Re: Tick Reduction

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org,  stefankangas@gmail.com,  dgutov@yandex.ru
> Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2021 20:53:13 +0100
> 
> >  -\**-  *mail*         Bot L30    (Mail Fly/en Abbrev Fill) 9:41PM 0.08 
> > [100%]
> >
> > So the "-\**" part, the Top/nn%/Bot part, the L30 part, the 9:41PM
> > part, the 0.08 part, and the [100%] part will have to use the fixed
> > advance width?
> 
> No, the last three parts change widths today?

They are numbers, so they can change the width because different
digits have different width.

> (The digits are, as I said, not an issue -- it's just exchanging
> digits with other characters, like spaces.)

I'm not sure this assumption is always true.  I've seen fonts where
"1" is much narrower than other digits.  And the [100%] part is
produced in my case with the [%b%p%%] format, so it can change the
width, AFAIU.

> > Btw, I still don't think I understand why aligning each field to a
> > certain pixel value would not look better (and be easier to
> > implement).
> 
> I don't understand what you mean by that.  Could you explain and give an
> example?

I've shown different fields for the mode line below:

 -\**-  *mail*         Bot L30    (Mail Fly/en Abbrev Fill) 9:41PM 0.08 [100%]
 +++++  +----------+   +-+ +-+    +-----------------------+ +----+ +--+ +----+

A single + means a field of 1 character cell; a +---+ means a field
that starts and ends at the +.  The idea is that each field always
starts at a predefined pixel offset from the beginning of the mode
line.  The each field can change its width, but it will not affect the
following fields.