Re: scroll-up, scroll-down, scroll-left, scroll-right

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Alex Schroeder <alex@gnu.org>
> Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 00:16:01 +0200
> 
> While reading this message,
> press M-x scroll-left.  While I write this, the entire text
> disappears, and little arrows on the left fringe indicate that the
> text has disappeared to the left.  Press M-x scroll-right to return to
> the original position.  Now press M-: (scroll-left 78).  What do you
> expect?  I expect the same behaviour as before.  But instead, "78" is
> displayed in the echo area and the window remains unchanged.  Does
> that explain what I am seeing?

Yes.

> Can you reproduce what I see?

Yes.

> I just tried it again and I continue to think it is broken.

No, it's a feature ;-).  Set automatic-hscrolling to nil, and you will
get what you want.

When automatic-hscrolling is t, the default, Emacs 21 automatically
alters the horizontal scrolling of a window as necessary to ensure
point is always visible.  If you put point on the right edge of a long
line, "M-: (scroll-left N)" will do what you want for some
sufficiently small values of N, even without automatic-hscrolling
being set to nil.

However, if automatic-hscrolling is non-nil, that doesn't mean Emacs
ignores "M-: (scroll-left 78)".  It doesn't scroll the window, but
instead it sets the lower bound for automatic horizontal scrolling.

For more info, see the node "Horizontal Scrolling" in the ELisp
manual, and also its namesake in the Emacs manual.