May 6, 2016

My minimalistic Emacs mode line

Maybe it’s because I come from Vim bg but to me the Emacs mode line felt cluttered. So went with:

A lot have the same reasoning as Xah mode line suggestions. So from the default mode line:

cs:ch-fr  buf      pos line   (major minor)

cs: I always use the same coding system, so only show when I’m not. Also, show full name, not a cryptic abbreviation.
ch I auto save when going out of focus, so I don’t care to know if the buffer is modified. Also not care to know if it’s read-only, easier to try to modify and get the warning anyway.
- Not really using Tramp so skipping for now.
fr Not using Emacs on terminal so skipping.
buf Buffer name I keep, but don’t use the switch-on-click behavior.
pos Don’t like the Top/Bot/All keywords and rarely care about %.
line Keeping the line number but adding it after the buffer name, separated with a colon. Also, add the range of lines when selecting lines (transient mark mode).
Don’t use the column. When in need, use C-x = instead.
major Emacs almost always gets the major mode I expect, and if not, it’s obvious and easy to change.
minor The minor modes I always diminish.

Ideas I have but did not bothered to implemented yet.

When buffer-file-coding-system is displayed, make it clickable to activate set-buffer-file-coding-system.
Have some indication when file is remote, mabye adding @<hostname> after the buffer name.

So what’s your mode-line-format ?

Cheers,