Subject: Re: bug#51475: read-char-choice should hide the cursor

From: Daniel Martín <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2021 22:09:23 +0200

Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]> writes:

> Gregory Heytings <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>> Or we could make it depend on a dynamic variable.  See attached patch.
>
> I'd rather have an optional variable if this is something that should be
> controlled.
>
> But I'm not sure we want to.  The original example was:
>
> (read-char-choice " a - good\n b - bad\n c - ugly" '(?a ?b ?c))
>
> But that's an ugly prompt in itself.  If it's amended to
>
> (read-char-choice " a - good\n b - bad\n c - ugly: " '(?a ?b ?c))
>
> then it's fine showing the cursor.  (And that's a prompt should look.)

Isearch for example doesn't show the cursor after the colon until after
the cursor can do something useful (ie. you press M-e to edit the search
string).  By the same reasoning, I think that read-char-choice should
always hide the cursor.

I'd prefer if we decide if the cursor is always visible or invisible.
Adding variables or parameters for this would add complexity to Emacs
for a, IMO, small matter.  If there's no agreement, I think leaving
things as is is preferably, but that's just my opinion.