Hide Emacs echo area during inactivity

Question

The echo area is the line at the bottom of Emacs below the mode line:

                     ~                       ~
                     |                       |
                     +-----------------------+
                     |-U:--- mode-line       |
                     +-----------------------+
                     | M-x echo-area         |
                     +-----------------------+

Now the mode line is highly customizable while the echo area is more rigid (and unused a lot of the time). The question is pretty simple: is it possible to hide the echo area during inactivity and redisplay it once it needs your attention:

  ~                       ~             ~                       ~
  |                       |             |                       |
  |                       |             +-----------------------+
  |                       |             |-U:--- mode-line       |
  +-----------------------+             +-----------------------+
  |-U:--- mode-line       |             | M-x echo-area         |
  +-----------------------+             +-----------------------+

          Inactive                                Active

This is similar to the way Google Chrome displays URLs when you hover your mose over a link and the Firefox addon Pentadactyl where the command-line is hidden by default.

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 22 '11 at 20:27

This is NOT the answer to what you are asking, it will not give you the mini-buffer, but it will reclaim a bit of screen real estate

(defun toggle-mode-line () "toggles the modeline on and off"
  (interactive) 
  (setq mode-line-format
    (if (equal mode-line-format nil)
        (default-value 'mode-line-format)) )
  (redraw-display))

(global-set-key [M-f12] 'toggle-mode-line)

And for completeness sake, the hallmark of luddite-mode

(global-set-key [f12] '(lambda () (interactive) (menu-bar-mode nil) (scroll-bar-mode nil)))

Of course, it is desirable to start out with this:

(cond ((> emacs-major-version 20)
       (tool-bar-mode -1) ; introduced in emacs 21
       (menu-bar-mode -1)
       (scroll-bar-mode -1)
       (menu-bar-showhide-fringe-menu-customize-disable)
       (blink-cursor-mode -1)
       (windmove-default-keybindings 'meta)))

I will eagerly be awaiting the answer to this question and incorporate it in luddite-mode

Why are you using `(menu-bar-showhide-fringe-menu-customize-disable)` instead of `(set-fringe-mode 0)`? — Rörd, Feb 22 '11 at 20:54
Thanks for the response, the reason I asked was because I had vague ideas of merging the mode line and echo area together. I have already extensively customized the mode line and I doubt I'll set it to `nil` any time soon. `(setq max-mini-window-height 0)` has no effect —— it **is** possible to have a dedicated minibuffer (http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Dedicated_Minibuffer_Frame), using that with `make-frame-invisible` and a minibuffer hook might be the solution I'm looking for.. — Iceland_jack, Feb 23 '11 at 22:22

geekosaur · Answer 2 · 2011-03-07T08:07:28.140

One thing you could do is split the minibuffer into its own frame, then hide and show it as needed.

(setq minibuffer-frame-alist (append '((auto-raise . t) (auto-lower . t)) minibuffer-frame-alist))
(setq initial-frame-alist (append '((minibuffer . nil)) initial-frame-alist))

You will lose echo area messages, but I gather you already don't care about that.

EDIT: the above was untested, and incomplete. This appears to work here:

(setq initial-frame-alist (append '((minibuffer . nil)) initial-frame-alist))
(setq default-frame-alist (append '((minibuffer . nil)) default-frame-alist))
(setq minibuffer-auto-raise t)
(setq minibuffer-exit-hook '(lambda () (lower-frame)))

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

4

You could get a minibuffer-less frame by using this code

(setq default-minibuffer-frame
      (make-frame
       '((name . "minibuffer")
         (width . 0)
         (height . 0)
         (minibuffer . only)
         (top . 0)
         (left . 0)
         )))
(setq new-frame
      (make-frame
       '((name . "editor")
         (width . 80)
         (height . 30)
         (minibuffer . nil)
         (top . 50)
         (left . 0)
         )))

that I took and modified from here on SO.

Though it can create minibuffer-less frames, it appears impossible to get rid of minibuffer and make it appear only when needed as you describe with the Google Chrome's status bar example.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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answered Mar 03 '11 at 00:31

vpit3833

7,817
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I awarded you the bounty since the deadline was running out, your solution only describes a dedicated minibuffer frame though so I'll need solve this myself. – Iceland_jack Mar 08 '11 at 20:22
Thank you, I will be just as interested in having the minibuffer behave the way you describe it in the question. It will be good to reclaim some space in the netbook I use. – vpit3833 Mar 08 '11 at 23:58
@Iceland_jack, did you find a solution? – guilhermemtr Dec 13 '21 at 14:21

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 05 '11 at 08:45

Technically, it's not possible to hide the echo area. However, I have an idea might might give the same appearance, under the assumption that you work with Emacs in a full-screen environment. In that case, a tool could resize the emacs window (the "frame" in emacs-speak) so that it would either fill the display or extend beyond the bottom of the display, depending on if the echo area should be visible or not.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time myself to implement this, so I leave it to somebody else to do this and to claim the bounty.

The first challenge is to find a good spot to make the resizing, one such place could be the post-command-hook. Other places might be minibuffer-setup-hook and minibuffer-setup-hook The second challenge is to decide if the echo area should be visible or not, I think that you can use current-message to check if a message is being displayed.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 22 '11 at 20:25

1

As far as I know it's not possible to hide the echo area, and I would not agree with you that it is unused a lot of time. From buffer switching over M-x commands to minibuffer output, a lot of different stuff goes on in the echo area.

I can understand that on small displays, e.g., on netbooks etc. it is desirable to save screen estate. But I would argue that the echo area is used much more when you edit a file than the address bar of a web browser is used when you look at a web page. It's an integral part of Emacs.

answered Feb 22 '11 at 20:25

Thomas

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I never mentioned a browser's address bar although one could argue that Pentadactyl's command line is used just as much as Emacs' echo area. Nevertheless I have some ideas about integrating non-interactive features of the echo area into the {mode,header}\ line (or vice versa). Hell, I won't argue *why* — to me the motto of Emacs is *why not*. – Iceland_jack Feb 23 '11 at 18:43
1

Well, on a widescreen setup, after the first 50-80 characters, echo area is pretty much a waste of screen state. I can hold about 320 characters wide at work, so, uh, yeah, it's not used much in my workflow. – Paul Nathan Mar 02 '11 at 03:29

Hide Emacs echo area during inactivity

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