bug#40774: Error messages shouldn't be hidden when the user is idle

[Drew Adams]

> > My suggestion would instead be this: As an option,
> > have buffer `Messages' be displayed on an idle timer.
> 
> This is not the same, because if there are progress messages too then errors 
> can be drowned in the noise, the user may not notice the error, and the user 
> usually doesn't care about progress message history.
> 
> It's much better if emacs collects the errors while the user is away and shows
> them when the user is back, because if the computer can collect these then it 
> should do it instead of the user.
> 
> And when the user is back and sees the errors then he knows about them right 
> away without having to parse the Messages buffer visually.

The same trivial messages that pollute *Messages* would pollute your multi-line 
echo area.

Showing *Messages* has the same effect of showing your multi-line echo area, 
no? Except that it's not transient.

Emacs "collects the errors while the user is away, and shows them when the user 
is back" is exactly what *Messages* does.

Even now, even without popping up Messages automatically after some idle 
period, you can just click `mouse-1' in the echo area to pop it up.  Or use 
`C-h e' to do the same thing.

(See also: https://stackoverflow.com/q/4682033/729907.)
___

BTW, I wonder if buffer *Messages* shouldn't have a menu-bar menu, with a few 
items that do things like filter temporarily in various ways, change 
`message-log-max', etc.  Some things a user might want to do with the buffer 
content aren't necessarily obvious.

IOW, *Messages* could probably be made more directly useful than it is now.