Subject: Re: bug#18793: 24.4; zero width rectangular selection displaces text

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 May 2022 12:26:23 +0200

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

> AFAIU, that's a feature: we are trying to indicate the existence of
> the selection, even though its width is zero.  Type "M-x
> describe-text-properties RET" at the first character.  The indication
> must take up some space on display, so it moves the following text to
> the right.

Yes.  Various things were suggested in the bug report, like a new
facility to draw a vertical line through a character, for instance, to
allow indicating stuff like this without the (very slightly) disturbing
horizontal shift.  I think that sounds like a good idea (and I could see
it being useful in general -- for instance, with a mode that indicates
the fill column, perhaps).

It doesn't sound very complicated to implement -- a new text/overlay
property, I guess?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no