Re: use of `mouse-face' to delimit text zones

[Stefan Monnier]

>> > How is Joe R. Hacker supposed to know that adding invisible characters
>> > to a portion of text covered by mouse-face will break completion??
>> We're talking about a property added *by the completion code* and *for
>> the completion code*.  I.e. an internal use.
> Not entirely true: when the mouse hovers above those parts of the
> *Completions* buffer, the candidate under the mouse gets highlighted.
> By contrast, a face added for internal purposed would be invisible to
> the user.

The completion code wants to add a mouse-face property so it gets
highlighted when the mouse hovers above it, yes.  That's not an
internal detail.  The internal detail is "how does it figure out the
element boundaries": the fact that it uses the mouse-face property for
that is an internal detail.

>> Joe R. Hacker doesn't need to know about it unless he actually hacks
>> on the code that handles minibuffer-completion-help.
> Guess what? he just did.

Luckily he sent his code for review, so someone knowledgeable in the
relevant code pointed out the pitfall he was about to fall into.


        Stefan