Subject: Re: bug#79046: (WIP) [PATCH] tab-line: Change close button appearance for modified tabs

From: Juri Linkov <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2025 09:47:08 +0300

> When editing multiple buffers the `tab-line-tab-modified` face (which
> indicates that a buffer has been modified and not saved) is sometimes
> barely visible or hard to distinguish from the tab line.
>
> This patch changes the appearance of the close button icon when the
> buffer has been modified, similar to other editors.

Thanks, I tried it out, and it looks nice.

> The patch is not yet finished, this feature is currently "hardcoded"
> (the only way to disable this is removing `tab-line-tab-face-modified`
> from `tab-line-tab-face-functions`).
>
> I would like any suggestion, if should this have an option for disable
> this.

There is an option `tab-line-tab-name-format-function`,
but it would be too cumbersome for users to override the
whole `tab-line-tab-name-format-default` to be able to
disable only the close button.

Maybe it would be ok for users to customize the icon with

  M-x customize-icon RET tab-line-close-modified RET

and copy attributes from `tab-line-close-button`.