Re: Customize fringe

[Simon Josefsson]

"Stefan Monnier" <monnier+gnu/address@hidden> writes:

> See my previous post yesterday or the day before on a separate thread
> for why I don't think there should be a "toggle fringe" in the menu bar.

This was it:

>>    From: Thien-Thi Nguyen <address@hidden>
>>    Date: 03 May 2002 20:39:35 -0400
>> 
>>    > i imagine arrows dancing around the screen, some question like "these
>>    > are fringes -- do you belong to the minimalist school of thought; i.e.,
>> 
>> I think that we miss a chapter with this in the manual...
>
> If you're talking about the dancing arrows, I might agree, although
> I'd point out that we also miss the corresponding implementation.
> As for the fringes, I would rather not advertise the ability to
> remove them (to new users).  I didn't like them at first, but I now
> think they're really cool (the only thing missing is the "cursor
> inside the right fringe" feature which would allow us to display 80
> char lines with no wrapping).
> I think new users could be tempted to turn them off and never discover
> how cool they are (and/or whine about how lame the gdb-arrow looks).

1) There are many modes (mainly non-text editing ones) where fringes
   are of little use, e.g. Gnus, PCL-CVS, W3, Shell, Speedbar, Info.
   I don't think we should hide the possibility of disabling them to
   the user. Fringes are annoying to the user in the same way toolbars
   and menubars are, and it should be easy to disable.  If we hadn't
   this discussion, I'd even argue the fringes should be disabled by
   default in those modes (much like speedbar disabled menubar and
   toolbar).

2) Alot of people asked for a way to disable the fringes after 21.1,
   this would make them happy, I think.

I also did not like them at first, and have been using them up until
now that I wrote this, but I still don't like them.  I find myself
running 20.7 when editing text just because I like the fringeless
behaviour better.  I don't think I'm alone in this..