Subject: bug#21652: bell chars

From: Tom Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2020 11:55:01 -0400

On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 10:57 AM Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
> > Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2020 07:23:29 -0700
> > Cc: [email-masked]
> >
> > Tom Baker <[email-masked]> writes:
> >
> > > I wrote this because I have a history of setting one command going,
> > > then going off to do something else, and then remembering an hour
> > > later "is that command done yet?" and looking to see that it finished
> > > a half hour before.
> >
> > This is a valid use case.
>
> There's something I don't think I understand in this use case: if the
> same command was run from a shell prompt outside Emacs, would the
> shell beep?  Or is the intent to make the Emacs shell mode do
> something a shell doesn't?
>

This is correct.  Most non-emacs shells have a scrolling limit, so
eventually command output scrolls off the top of the screen and is lost
forever.

So "the Emacs shell mode" does "something a shell doesn't" right there.

Whether I am on Android, Mac, PC, or Linux, I can scroll back in the shell
mode.  And the "cross-platform" part of it is important to me, since I jump
from one machine to another all the time.

> would the shell beep?

Yes, whether in bash or cmd.exe, I add an "echo the bell char so I'll know
I am done" command. In shell mode (and not in all external shells), I can
"enter my command" and hit enter, and then slap my forehead and mutter
"gee, I forgot", and enter the "echo bell" command any time after that --
the shell mode will execute followup lines of commands afterwards
seamlessly.

So that's another "the Emacs shell mode" does "something a shell doesn't".

There are lots more -- I've relied on the basic Emacs shell-mode since the
1980's. It's incredibly productive.

(IN CASE OF FOLLOWUP DISCUSSION: I already said (in the post to which this
is a reply) that I can withdraw the suggestion. I don't need it any more.
[I forget exactly what year, 2018, 2019, or 2020, I made this suggestion,
but I've moved on from it without an emacs change, which I did form my own
benefit, anyway.] )