Occur: "no matches for <regexp>": KILL *occur*, please

[David Combs]

You do an M-x occur, which succeeds and gives you a *Occur*.

Now you do a different M-x occur, and there's NO matches
this second time.

So what does emacs do?  Leaves *Occur* untouched, but
does report "no matches for ..." down in the minibuf.

Well, that minibuf is by definition the furthest-away thing
on the emacs-screen -- down at the very bottom.  And there's
only *one* of them, regardless of the number of windows
on-screen at a given time.

Like, if both the file you're occurring on and the *Occur*
file are "far" away from the minibuf, YOU WON'T LIKELY SEE
the "nothing found" minibuf-msg.

Thus, you *might* have a look at the existing *Occur*, and
(incorrectly) *think* that it's showing the results of your *successful*
second try -- totally wrong, of course.

----- WHAT TO DO?

(1) you could just kill-off that prior *Occur*.  Unambiguous action.


(2) you could instead *keep* that prior *Occur* -- but MODIFY
the buffer-content to somehow say "am from some PRIOR M-x occur".

  Maybe via some standout-color, maybe via big x "ascii-drawn"
over it, or the like.


Of course, take into consideration whether the prior occur
was on the *same* or a *different* file from what the
*unsuccessful* M-x occurs were run on.

   (Don't ask me "in what way do you suggest we take
     that matter into consideration" -- am far too
     tired to think logically about that one.)


THANKS,

David