This is the substance of a patch I want to apply later in the week. I'm posting it now to see if there are any vetos or suggestions. I think its pretty neat so I'm hoping that any vetos can be worked around. There are a number of display glitches and crashes in the current patch, so use at your own risk. The idea is that with widgets you often want to put them on some screen real estate that isn't a buffer, vis-a-vis menubars or toolbars. This patch allows you do to that, providing space below (or wherever depending on the gutter and toolbar orientation) the toolbar and allowing you to display anything you can display in a buffer. The patch uses all the generic redisplay routines so there are no device-dependencies, but I have had to cons up some new generation routines to cope with strings rather than buffers. Eventually I would like to use these routines in the modeline code as they eliminate a number of problems that the modeline has with non-printable characters, variable fonts and glyphs etc. Gutter specs are implemented as specifiers and so you can have global as well as buffer, window or otherwise specific ones. andy 1999-07-12 Andy Piper <andy(a)xemacs.org&gt; * gutter.c: new file - implements gutters. All new functions are semantically equivalent to the toolbar functions. (gutter_was_visible): new function. (get_gutter_coords): ditto. (output_gutter): ditto. (clear_gutter): ditto. (update_frame_gutters): ditto. (redraw_exposed_gutter): ditto. (redraw_exposed_gutters): ditto. (free_frame_gutters): ditto. (init_frame_gutters): ditto. (decode_gutter_position): ditto. (Fset_default_gutter_position): ditto. (Fset_default_gutter_position): ditto. (Fdefault_gutter_position): ditto. (gutter_after_change): ditto. (Fgutter_specifier_p): ditto. (recompute_overlaying_specifier): ditto. (gutter_specs_changed): ditto. (default_gutter_specs_changed): ditto. (gutter_geometry_changed_in_window): ditto. (default_gutter_size_changed_in_window): ditto. (default_gutter_border_width_changed_in_window): ditto. (default_gutter_visible_p_changed_in_window): ditto. (syms_of_gutter): ditto. (vars_of_gutter): ditto. (specifier_type_create_gutter): ditto. (specifier_vars_of_gutter): ditto. * gutter.h: new file. Contains gutter constants and sizing macros similar to those for the toolbar. * winslots.h: add gutter variables. * window.h: declare window_is_* functions. * window.c (window_is_lowest): make non-static. (window_is_highest): ditto. (window_top_toolbar_height): deleted. (window_bottom_toolbar_height): deleted. (window_left_toolbar_width): deleted. (window_right_toolbar_width): deleted. (window_top_gutter_height): add gutter sizing. (window_bottom_gutter_height): ditto. (window_left_gutter_width): ditto. (window_right_gutter_width): ditto. * symsinit.h: declarations for gutters vars etc. * search.c (bi_find_next_emchar_in_string): new function. * scrollbar.c (update_scrollbar_instance): remove reference to window_bottom_toolbar_height which did nothing. * redisplay.h (struct display_line): add face indices for overriding defaults in output_display_line. Add gutter_changed flags and declarations. * redisplay.c (create_string_text_block): new function, similar to create_text_block but for strings. Display tables etc are used from the currently selected window. (generate_string_display_line): ditto. Similar to generate_display_line. (generate_displayable_area): generate display lines for a given area on a frame. Input is the string, with associated extents, to display. (redisplay_frame): add gutter_changed check. (redisplay_device): ditto. (redisplay_without_hooks): ditto. * redisplay-x.c (bevel_modeline): moved to redisplay.c. (x_redraw_exposed_area): redraw exposed gutters. (x_bevel_area): new redisplay device method. (x_type_create_redisplay_mswindows): add bevel_area device method. (x_output_display_block): fiddly Martin-style cleanup. (x_output_vertical_divider): use bevel_area. * redisplay-output.c (output_display_line): check display_lines for face information before using defaults. (bevel_modeline): new function, calls bevel_area with appropriate values. * redisplay-msw.c (bevel_modeline): moved to redisplay.c. (mswindows_redraw_exposed_area): redraw exposed gutters. (mswindows_bevel_area): new redisplay device method. (console_type_create_redisplay_mswindows): add bevel_area device method. * indent.c (string_column_at_point): add column_at_point but for strings. * glyphs-x.c (image_instantiator_format_create_glyphs_x): only instantiate widgets that we have a toolkit for. * general.c: add Qgutter. * frame.h (struct frame): add display lines for gutters and visibility flags. * frame.c (set_frame_selected_window): mark gutters changed. * emacs.c (main_1): add gutter initialisation. * device.h (struct device): add gutter_changed flag and macros to manipulate it. * console.h (struct console_methods): new bevel area redisplay method. * buffer.h (REAL_INC_CHARBYTIND): new macro for strings as REAL_INC_BYTIND is for buffers. (INC_CHARPTR): ditto. * Makefile.in.in (objs): add gutter.o -------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Andy Piper Senior Consultant Architect, BEA Systems Ltd