Re: Emacs Needs Floating Windows (Advanced Tooltips for IntelliSense Support)

[Miles Bader]

On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 04:07:55PM -0800, Kevin A. Burton (burtonator) wrote:

> The is only one area that Emacs needs improvement to support this type of
> API.  We need the ability to determine the X and Y (top and left) coords
> for (point) on the screen (the current active cursor).

I agree this would be a great thing to have.

I have a dictionary thing I wrote that displays a translation from an E/J
dictionary (edict) when you enter a word using the japanese input method.

It uses tooltips, which is usually `OK', but can be annoying if the mouse
pointer happens to be in a wierd place; I'd much rather have it displayed at
a known location relative to the emacs point.

> Can the GNU Emacs developers either:
> 
> - - provide an API to determine the x and y coords of the current active
> cursor (point)
> 
> - - provide a x-show-top-at-point function that provided the exact same
> functionality.

Since the first is more primitive, it seems like a better choice (obviously
the second could be implemented using it).  Hmmm, if you have some
coordinates, can tooltips be displayed to the left/right of them (or only to
the right)?

-Miles
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