RE: by default, point should not enter the minibuffer prompt

[Drew Adams]

> > Users shouldn't have to customize 
> > `minibuffer-prompt-properties' just to make
> > `C-a' not enter the prompt, etc.
> 
> They don't have to.
> 
> If that is not the behavior you observe, please provide more detailed
> info.  Remember to use emacs -Q.

This will seem contorted ;-), but here goes (same for Emacs 22.3 and Emacs 23
from Oct 3):

emacs -Q
(setq enable-recursive-minibuffers t)

C-x C-f jjjjjjjjjj C-q kkkkkkkkkkk

So you see this in the minibuffer, with point after the k's:

Find file: /current/dir/jjjjjjjjjj
kkkkkkkkkkk

M-: (forward-line -1)

The cursor ends up on the F of Find file, not at the start of the input after
the prompt.

I'm not saying that a user will typically go through such contortions.

This arose because in Icicles C-a in the minibuffer does (forward-line 0) but if
repeated does (forward-line -1), so that you can move up at line beginnings by
repeating C-a (C-e does the same for line endings but moving down). It's not
that unusual to have multiple-line input in Icicles, so it's not unusual to move
to the beginning of the input with repeated C-a (not for file names, but for
other input).

If `minibuffer-prompt-properties' includes `point-entered
minibuffer-avoid-prompt' there is no such problem (which is why I didn't see the
behavior myself, since I had customized it to include that).

It's not a big deal. I can easily work around this for Icicles, but I didn't
want to trample on user preferences for `minibuffer-prompt-properties' (e.g. if
a user really did want to move to the prompt beginning).

However, it sounds like there might be some disagreement over what the default
behavior is or should be. Stefan seems to say that by default users should be
able to move to the prompt beginning (so they can copy prompt text), but Miles
seems to say - and it appears to be generally true (except multi-line cases such
as that shown above), that by default you cannot move the cursor over the prompt
(using C-a at least).