RE: Where to show message output while inputting [was: New multi-command facility displays in the wrong echo area]

[Gregory Heytings]

> But sure, if Emacs covers your entire display, and if there's nothing 
> that you're willing to obscure (whitespace, menu-bar, tool-bar, frame 
> title, mode-line, buffer text,...) then yeah, something will be 
> obscured.

Full-screen Emacs is (I believe) very common nowadays.

> The only purely full-measure is to dedicate an area for the output. 
> That has advantages but also the disadvantage of losing real estate for 
> the frequent periods when nothing's being output.

So this full-measure is still a half-measure ;-)

> More to the point, it's an optional mode.  Those (like me) who don't 
> want it on all the time turn it off, and don't need to complain 
> anywhere.

The set-message-function is also optional, you can turn it off easily. 
And in fact with it you could create something like what you want: a 
separate frame with a buffer in which set-message-function would put 
messages.  A first attempt:

(progn
  (select-frame (make-frame '((minibuffer . nil) (name . "Drew's Echo Area"))))
  (set-frame-height nil 1)
  (switch-to-buffer " *Drew's Echo Area")
  (setq-local mode-line-format nil)
  (setq cursor-in-non-selected-windows nil))

(defun set-minibuffer-message (message)
  (with-current-buffer (get-buffer " *Drew's Echo Area") (erase-buffer) (insert 
message)) t)