Hi Al, > On 10/12/2025, Paul D. Nelson wrote: >> Question: in the above scenario, should the old preview appear (covering >> the TeX source, like it did before we modified) as soon as point moves >> away, rather than just for a brief moment while the preview generates? > > This behaviour is inherited from the current way of viewing previews. In > particular, when text is modified the preview is opened, and remains > open until it is re-generated. > > I believe this is a reasonable behaviour. If I am editing text which > corresponds to a preview, then I likely want to go back to it to edit it > again and hiding it every time the cursor leaves the region creates > unnecessary friction while editing source. Also, I believe a reasonable > expectation is that the text should be replaced with a preview only if > the preview accurately reflects the source, otherwise the source should > always be visible.
OK, thanks for discussing. I agree that it's reasonable. > If you are referring to the fact that the preview should not be "closed" > in the brief time while it is being regenerated (i.e. the source should > be visible), then I can look into modifying this behaviour (though I > suspect it will be annoying to fix due to the mechanism of replacing > images that is currently employed). OK, probably not worth it for now. >> A related point: the docs suggest that that 'always and 'off-point >> should yield the same behavior for previews away from point, but this is >> not the case after modifying a preview and moving point away. > > I think it is the case that they are the same from the perspective of > showing/hiding overlays and frames which show symbols or previews (they > should be exactly the same when `preview-keep-stale-images` is nil). I > guess you are referring to what is being shown (icons vs previews). If > so, this is related to the other point I raised with the inconsistency > of `preview-keep-stale-images=t` and `preview-visibility-style = > 'off-point`. So I discuss it below. > >> I would have thought that "reusing the image" here would refer to what >> happens when point moves away from the modified TeX source, like in my >> response above. >> >> In fact, with >> >> preview-visibility-style = 'off-point, >> >> does preview-keep-stale-images make any difference at all? > > I may be misunderstanding you, but this is exactly my point. > > With preview-visibility-style = 'off-point, when the cursor enters the > preview, the source is shown and an icon appears. When the cursor moves > away, the source is hidden and the preview reappears. This is the basic > use case: show the source at point; otherwise show the preview hiding > the source. > > Now consider editing under the same setting. The cursor enters the > source, the icon appears, and the source is modified. As argued above, > the source should then remain visible when the cursor leaves to avoid > unnecessary editing friction. Given that, and with > preview-keep-stale-images set to t, what should happen when the cursor > leaves the source? > > Currently, preview-keep-stale-images is effectively ignored and the icon > remains. This matches buframe behaviour: a stale preview is never shown > away from point. I also think this is consistent with 'off-point: when > the source is visible, the user does not want to see the preview. Yes, seems consistent to me so far. > The alternative is to replace the icon with the stale preview when the > cursor leaves. I tried this initially and found it jarring. The preview > appears with the source while the cursor is away, then is replaced with > an icon when the cursor re-enters the visible source. It felt like a > pointless visual gimmick with no clear benefit. OK, makes sense. I'm happy to leave this aspect as it is for now. Another related point: when preview-keep-still-images is t and preview-visibility-style is 'off-point, as the preview starts regenerating, the construction icon flashes. I feel like setting preview-keep-still-images to t should universally suppress the construction icon. It does when preview-visibility-style is 'always, so why not also when it is 'off-point? (If it did, then preview-keep-still-images would retain some relevance in the 'off-point case.) Some other notes: If I recall correctly, I did get the chance to test the latest buframe code on a multi-monitor setup earlier this week and that it continued to misbehave, but I didn't get the chance to look closely at this. One thought about deprecation: I think the now-obsolete variable preview-leave-open-previews-visible should have a custom setter that sets preview-visibility-style to 'always and preview-keep-still-images to t, since that would give the most faithful reproduction of previous behavior. (Happy to elaborate or provide code if that'd help.) Thanks, best, Paul _______________________________________________ bug-auctex mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-auctex
