[slime-devel] Re: Putting REPL prompt on the mode line?

[Brian Downing]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2005 at 07:54:10PM -0800, Derek Peschel wrote:
> >More importantly to me, the prompt tells me "this is what *PACKAGE* was
> >when I ran this command n {minutes,hours,days} ago."  I'd be very
> >unhappy for that information to go away.
> 
> I wodnered if that issue would come up.  If the information was stored
> as a property of the text region that contains the command, and displayed
> on the mode line or something, would that work for you?

My gut feeling is that putting more distance between the expression and
the package it was run in is not a win for me.  Plus you'd have to put
point on it to determine it that way which is quite inconvenient.

> Do you want to see that kind of prompt in an editor buffer or let the
> editor take care of it?

In a normal Lisp buffer I agree - its primary purpose is editing the
file, and interaction with the Lisp is secondary.  Having a
buffer-package shown on the mode-line works well in that case.  However,
I think the REPL buffer is a different story - interaction is primary
there, so I think the prompt works well (for me).

> I'm going a step further and changing the way the package and evaluation
> state are shown.  It's purely for appearance.  Would a REPL buffer be nicer
> if the left margins of all lines of input and output were aligned?

IMHO, no.  I like having the input indented by the prompt because it
helps delimit what exactly is input without relying on font faces.

Please experiment, though.  Just make the end product be a customize
option and everyone will be happy.  :-)

-bcd