Subject: 24.3.50; `minibuffer-prompt-properties' for `face'

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2013 15:31:29 -0800 (PST)

It is good to have variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties'.  And it is
good that by default its value includes `face' with a value of
`minibuffer-prompt'.  This allows the prompt, by default, to stand out
against the user input.

However, the design should be more supple.  It should use the `face'
property specified in `minibuffer-prompt-properties', if any, to apply
that face only to parts of the PROMPT string that do not already have a
`face' text property.  Any parts of PROMPT that are already propertized
with property `face' should be left alone, and not have their face
overridden by face `minibuffer-prompt'.

This would let users supply a PROMPT string that already has certain
parts highlighted with faces, so that they, in turn, stand out against
the rest of the prompt.

In order to get that effect now, users have to propertize the entire
PROMPT string, highlighting not only the particular part(s) they want to
emphasize, but also providing face `minibuffer-prompt' for the other
parts.  If they do not do the latter then the prompt as a whole does
not stand out against the user input: it has no special face except for
the particular part(s) highlighted.

This enhancement apparently needs to be done in the C code
(`read_minibuf'), which means also that users cannot implement this
improvement themselves, in Lisp.

In GNU Emacs 24.3.50.2 (i686-pc-mingw32)
 of 2013-11-28 on LEG570
Bzr revision: 115271 [email-masked]
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 6.1.7601
Configured using:
 `configure --enable-checking 'CFLAGS=-O0 -g3' CPPFLAGS=-DGLYPH_DEBUG=1'