visual line mode

[drain]

What's the best way to enable this in every mode, under all conditions, as the default? Right now I have a bunch of hooks for el / C / org, etc., but not shell or dired.

Also, why is the default to have wrapping in the middle of words? (probably a question for Emacs devs).

[Tassilo Horn-6]

drain <[hidden email]> writes:

> What's the best way to enable this in every mode, under all
> conditions, as the default?  Right now I have a bunch of hooks for el
> / C / org, etc., but not shell or dired.

Put (global-visual-line-mode) in your ~/.emacs.

> Also, why is the default to have wrapping in the middle of words?
> (probably a question for Emacs devs).

Then the text is displayed as-is.  With word wrapping, you cannot judge
how many whitespaces are between the last word on line N and the first
word on line N+1.

Bye,
Tassilo

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 23:56:48 -0700 (PDT)
> From: drain <[hidden email]>
>
> Also, why is the default to have wrapping in the middle of words?

It isn't.  visual-line-mode wraps between words, except when a single
word is wider than a line.

[Tassilo Horn-6]

Eli Zaretskii <[hidden email]> writes:

>> Also, why is the default to have wrapping in the middle of words?
>
> It isn't.  visual-line-mode wraps between words, except when a single
> word is wider than a line.

But visual-line-mode is not the default.  (That's how I've interpreted
the question.)

Bye,
Tassilo

[drain]

Tassilo Horn-6 wrote

Eli Zaretskii <[hidden email]> writes:

>> Also, why is the default to have wrapping in the middle of words?
>
> It isn't.  visual-line-mode wraps between words, except when a single
> word is wider than a line.

But visual-line-mode is not the default.  (That's how I've interpreted
the question.)

Bye,
Tassilo

Indeed, that's what I meant: why isn't visual line mode the default?

global-visual-line-mode is better, but not global: my draft buffers still wrap in the middle of words. I have to turn on visual-line-mode manually.

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 12.10.2012 um 12:35 schrieb drain:

> Indeed, that's what I meant: why isn't visual line mode the default?

Because it's so awful.

--
Greetings

  Pete

Ce qui a été compris n'existe plus.
                                (Paul Eluard)

[drain]

Because it's so awful.

Peter Dyballa wrote

Am 12.10.2012 um 12:35 schrieb drain:

> Indeed, that's what I meant: why isn't visual line mode the default?

Because it's so awful.

--
Greetings

  Pete

Ce qui a été compris n'existe plus.
                                (Paul Eluard)

Can you elaborate?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 03:35:15 -0700 (PDT)
> From: drain <[hidden email]>
>
> >>> Also, why is the default to have wrapping in the middle of words?
> >>
> >> It isn't.  visual-line-mode wraps between words, except when a single
> >> word is wider than a line.
> >
> > But visual-line-mode is not the default.  (That's how I've interpreted
> > the question.)
> >
> > Bye,
> > Tassilo
>
> Indeed, that's what I meant: why isn't visual line mode the default?

Because Emacs is first and foremost a programmer's editor, and
wrapping lines in a buffer that shows program source is a bad idea.

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 12.10.2012 um 12:48 schrieb drain:

> Can you elaborate?

I can't see where lines end and where new line starts. Cursor behaviour/moving in the text is strange.

--
Greetings

  Pete

Typography exists to honor content.
                        – Robert Bringhurst

[Tassilo Horn-6]

drain <[hidden email]> writes:

> Indeed, that's what I meant: why isn't visual line mode the default?

I agree with everything Eli & Peter said. ;-)

> global-visual-line-mode is better, but not global: my draft buffers
> still wrap in the middle of words. I have to turn on visual-line-mode
> manually.

Is it possibly that you still have visual-line-mode in some hooks?  What
you describe sounds like global-visual-line-mode first turns on VLM in
your draft buffer, and then your hook turns it off again (or the other
way round).

Bye,
Tassilo

[Tassilo Horn-6]

Peter Dyballa <[hidden email]> writes:

>> Can you elaborate?
>
> I can't see where lines end and where new line starts.

The fringe indicators help.

> Cursor behaviour/moving in the text is strange.

Depends.  I use visual-line-mode when I need to write LaTeX documents
with other people that always write a paragraph on one line, and
basically everybody that doesn't use Emacs does so.  In those
situations, VLM is really an improvement.  It's even better with
`adaptive-wrap-prefix-mode' (package adaptive-wrap in ELPA).

Bye,
Tassilo

[drain]

Tassilo Horn-6 wrote

drain <[hidden email]> writes:

> Indeed, that's what I meant: why isn't visual line mode the default?

I agree with everything Eli & Peter said. ;-)

> global-visual-line-mode is better, but not global: my draft buffers
> still wrap in the middle of words. I have to turn on visual-line-mode
> manually.

Is it possibly that you still have visual-line-mode in some hooks?  What
you describe sounds like global-visual-line-mode first turns on VLM in
your draft buffer, and then your hook turns it off again (or the other
way round).

Bye,
Tassilo

Not that I am aware of. When you launch compose-mail with global-visual-line mode (merely to reproduce my conditions), does it work for you?

Given the amount of visual-line-mode backlash, I suppose I should confine it to non-code docs.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Peter Dyballa <[hidden email]>
> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:27:09 +0200
> Cc: [hidden email]
>
> Cursor behaviour/moving in the text is strange.

Strange in what ways?  Can you give an example?

[Tassilo Horn-6]

drain <[hidden email]> writes:

>> Is it possibly that you still have visual-line-mode in some hooks?
>> What you describe sounds like global-visual-line-mode first turns on
>> VLM in your draft buffer, and then your hook turns it off again (or
>> the other way round).
>
> Not that I am aware of. When you launch compose-mail with
> global-visual-line mode (merely to reproduce my conditions), does it
> work for you?

Ah, ok.  When I do:

  1. emacs -Q
  2. M-x global-visual-line-mode
  3. M-x compose-mail RET

I get an *unsent mail* buffer in message-mode.  `visual-line-mode' is
indeed active, but message-mode also activates `auto-fill-mode' which
automatically inserts hard line breaks after 72 chars by default.

So basically, you could add

  (add-hook 'message-mode-hook 'turn-off-auto-fill)

to have `visual-line-mode' work as expected in message-mode.  But do you
really want to send such badly formatted mail?

Bye,
Tassilo

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Tassilo Horn <[hidden email]>
> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:36:33 +0200
>
> Peter Dyballa <[hidden email]> writes:
>
> >> Can you elaborate?
> >
> > I can't see where lines end and where new line starts.
>
> The fringe indicators help.

What fringe indicators?  You mean, if visual-line-fringe-indicators
are customized?

[drain]

Tassilo Horn-6 wrote

So basically, you could add

  (add-hook 'message-mode-hook 'turn-off-auto-fill)

to have `visual-line-mode' work as expected in message-mode.  

Works now. Though I should note it was MIME-edit-mode in my case (being a
Wanderlust user).

But do you really want to send such badly formatted mail?

I like VLM primarily for reading, especially e-mails. For writing, for
archiving books / articles, etc., I set fill-column to 70 - 75 and
fill-paragraph, one paragraph at a time. Probably more efficient ways of
doing all this, but obviously I'm just starting out.

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 12.10.2012 um 15:28 schrieb Eli Zaretskii:

>> Cursor behaviour/moving in the text is strange.
>
> Strange in what ways?  Can you give an example?

Not that easily. I remember that some development version of GNU Emacs 24 came with visual-line-mode on. For me it was hard to navigate, the cursor stopped in every /visible/ line and did not visit the next line of text…

Maybe there were more disturbing things this day. I did not like that experience. And hopefully I 'll be dead before GNU Emacs comes with visual-line-mode on!

--
Greetings

  Pete

We have to expect it, otherwise we would be surprised.

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 12.10.2012 um 13:36 schrieb Tassilo Horn:

>> I can't see where lines end and where new line starts.
>
> The fringe indicators help.

They're much too many! It's like with the wood and the trees in it…

--
Greetings

  Pete

If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.
                –  Sears, Roebuck, and Co., Consumer's Guide, 1897

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 12.10.2012 um 15:28 schrieb Eli Zaretskii:

>> Cursor behaviour/moving in the text is strange.
>
> Strange in what ways?  Can you give an example?
>
One more example: the text cursor forgets where the end of the line was and seems to jump between the column it started to move and the visual end of the text.

--
Greetings

  Pete

A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.
                                – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Peter Dyballa <[hidden email]>
> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:46:04 +0200
> Cc: [hidden email]
>
>
> Am 12.10.2012 um 15:28 schrieb Eli Zaretskii:
>
> >> Cursor behaviour/moving in the text is strange.
> >
> > Strange in what ways?  Can you give an example?
>
> Not that easily. I remember that some development version of GNU Emacs 24 came with visual-line-mode on. For me it was hard to navigate, the cursor stopped in every /visible/ line and did not visit the next line of text…

I think you are talking about bugs in early versions of the
bidirectional display engine.