Re: Customize fringe

[Simon Josefsson]

Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

> It seems rather odd to package this functionality as `fringe-mode',
> since a `mode' suggests something that's typicall either on or off.

Either you have a fringe or you don't.  Same as menubar and toolbar.
Size, content, color etc is additional configuration.  IMHO.  But I
see your point.

> There are many possible states for fringes, of which quite a few will
> probably be popular (some that come to mind are full/full [the default],
> 0/full, half/half, and 0/0 [no fringes]), and I don't think that image
> we should present to users is of something that is either all there or
> not there at all.

Hm.  When would I want to have half a fringe?  What do you think of
the new :type below?  Hard coding half to 4 may not be perfect, but
"half width" isn't a concept otherwise known by the fringe code it
seems, so I'm not sure if there is a better solution.  "Only right"
and "Only left" seems quite useful though, perhaps I'll modify my own
behaviour from no fringes to 0/full.

  :type '(choice (const :tag "Default width" nil)
                 (const :tag "No fringes" 0)
                 (const :tag "Half width" (4 . 4))
                 (const :tag "Only right" (nil . 0))
                 (const :tag "Only left" (0 . nil))
                 (integer :tag "Specific width")
                 (cons :tag "Different left/right size" 
                       (integer :tag "Left width")
                       (integer :tag "Right width")))

Of course, the Options->Show/Hide submenu should have a "Fringe"
submenu similar to the scroll-bar, with common choices.

> [Incidentally, why did your patch preload `fringe'?  I shouldn't think
> it would be necessary.]

If I didn't preload it, my fringes didn't go away when I started
emacs.  I had to (require 'fringe).  Maybe I did something wrong?  It
looks similar to tool-bar-mode, scroll-bar-mode etc though.