GNU bug report logs - #51490
Show an indicator when Emacs is busy somewhere in the Emacs window

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Message #59 received at 51490 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Gregory Heytings <gregory <at> heytings.org>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: larsi <at> gnus.org, stefan <at> marxist.se, 51490 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#51490: Show an indicator when Emacs is busy somewhere in
 the Emacs window
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2022 13:02:53 +0000

>> Aren't they the simplest graphical element drawn by Emacs, a simple 
>> black-and-white bitmap?
>
> No, they aren't.  They are certainly not black-and-white: they use 
> faces.
>

Sorry, I wrote a bit too fast (as usual), I did not mean literally "black" 
and "white", I meant "two colors", represented by a two-value pixel 
bitmap.

>
> Drawn how?  Bitmaps are images, and drawing images in the text area 
> means we need to invoke all the machinery of redrawing a certain screen 
> line, be it on the mode line or elsewhere.  That's how Emacs draws 
> stuff; we don't have any way of directly poking the glass with an 
> arbitrary bunch of pixels, at least not one that I know of.
>

I'm thinking aloud here, sorry if it isn't useful.  But I think we have at 
least one similar occurrence: XTflash.

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