Subject: Re: bug#18246: enriched-encode: should set inhibit-point-motion-hooks, too

From: Richard Stallman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 18:50:04 -0400

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    I meant to display the "intangible" text as display properties or
    overlay strings.  Whether the text actually comes from the buffer (and
    the display property covers it) or is consed out of thin air is not
    important for the point I wanted to make.

For some purposes, that is true.  Maybe using the 'display' property
is good enough.  I have a feeling that it will seem anomalous to
users in some cases, but that is just a feeling.

One anomalous case for the 'display' property is searching in the buffer.
It does not find the text that appears via the 'display' property 
because that text is not really in the buffer.  With 'intangible',
search would find it even though point could not appear right there.

Another option would be to use text that is read-only but not intangible.
Maybe users won't be disturbed by being able to move point to the middle
of fixed text in the form.

I feel that none of these offers behavior that is really right and
smooth for a form.  I think this is an area for improvement in Emacs.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
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