Re: messages while the minibuffer is active

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> On Wed Nov  1, Miles writes:

> Because it *hides* both your input and the prompt, *while* you're
> typing!  If it's a prompt that requires a single letter input, then
> you have to sit there and *wait* for the stupid thing to go away.

Here's an even worse aspect of this behavior, in my opinion, since
this has bitten me many times:

 1. You start something going, and walk away.

 2. While you're gone, Emacs asks you a question.

    This could very well be an important question, one for which a
    wrong answer might force you to redo all of the slow steps that
    caused you to walk away in the first place.

 3. While this question is in the minibuffer, a message gets
    displayed.

 4. You come back to your machine, and basically there is a blank
    minibuffer with the cursor down there.

 5. Now, I know it wants me to answer a question, but I no longer know
    what the question is!  I try C-l most of the time when this
    happen, but there are times when I don't realize that the active
    point is now in the minibuffer, and I mistakenly enter the wrong
    input.  That's because e21 has hollow cursors in my other windows,
    which more often than not simply means that my frame isn't active
    anymore.

Anyway, this bites me in some form once a day, so I thought I would
mention it.