Re: Is it possible to set a "goal column" for 'beginning-of-line'?

[Stefan Monnier]

> The command 'beginning-of-line' moves point to column 0
> by default. Is it possible to set a "goal column," so that
> this command moves point to that column, e.g. column 7,
> rather than 0? The content before such column will become
> irreachable in this situation (but it might still be displayed).

> In another word, is there a vertical version of narrowing
> (but perhaps don't try to hide something)?

There are many different ways to get this behavior, so you'll need to be
more specific if you want to know what's the best option for you.
Things that matter:
- do you want all programatic uses of beginning-of-line to be affected or
  only the interactive C-a command?
- what about other commands like C-f and C-b?  Should they be allowed to
  move through the first 8 chars of a line?
- are those first 8 chars real?  I.e. do they get loaded from/saved into
  a file?
- should they be shown or should they be ideally hidden?

I.e. tell us more about the bigger picture of what you're trying to do.


        Stefan