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Blinking Cursor Turns 54

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Re: Blinking Cursor Turns 54

#3

Post by tpmx »

I've been using Emacs since 1996. One of the many reasons I like it is the default non-blinking full block cursor. It brings a certain calmness to the editing process. No stress or distraction. It feels so clean.

It's interesting how very subtle design decisions like these matter so much.

Re: Blinking Cursor Turns 54

#4

Post by csdvrx »

Interestingly enough, disabling cursor blinks on the intel 950 iGPUs resulted in increased powersaving: https://lwn.net/Articles/317922/ and http://tuxdiary.com/2015/09/29/save-battery-intel-linux/

A few years later, I checked that with powertop when I was using my thinkpad in uni and it was true and measurable!

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but it's funny how UI features can tax the power budget in unsuspected ways.

Re: Blinking Cursor Turns 54

#5

Post by newsbinator »

csdvrx wrote: post #4

Interestingly enough, disabling cursor blinks on the intel 950 iGPUs resulted in increased powersaving: https://lwn.net/Articles/317922/ and http://tuxdiary.com/2015/09/29/save-battery-intel-linux/ A few years later, I checked that with powertop when I was using my thinkpad in uni and it was true and measurable! I'm not sure if it's still the case, but it's funny how UI features can tax the power budget in unsuspecte…

And moving your mouse around made Windows 95 faster!

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/294907-why-moving-the-...

Re: Blinking Cursor Turns 54

#6

Post by dang »

tpmx wrote: post #3

I've been using Emacs since 1996. One of the many reasons I like it is the default non-blinking full block cursor. It brings a certain calmness to the editing process. No stress or distraction. It feels so clean. It's interesting how very subtle design decisions like these matter so much.

Is that the default? The cursor in my Emacs blinks and I don't believe I told it to.

Edit: M-x blink-cursor-mode FTW - thanks!

Re: Blinking Cursor Turns 54

#7

Post by Teckla »

tpmx wrote: post #3

I've been using Emacs since 1996. One of the many reasons I like it is the default non-blinking full block cursor. It brings a certain calmness to the editing process. No stress or distraction. It feels so clean. It's interesting how very subtle design decisions like these matter so much.

I prefer a blinking cursor, otherwise I often find it hard to find the cursor on the screen.

Also prefer block cursor to underline cursor for the same reason.

Re: Blinking Cursor Turns 54

#8

Post by chhickman »

newsbinator wrote: post #5
csdvrx wrote: post #4

Interestingly enough, disabling cursor blinks on the intel 950 iGPUs resulted in increased powersaving: https://lwn.net/Articles/317922/ and http://tuxdiary.com/2015/09/29/save-battery-intel-linux/ A few years later, I checked that with powertop when I was using my thinkpad in uni and it was true and measurable! I'm not sure if it's still the case, but it's funny how UI features can tax the power budget in unsuspecte…

And moving your mouse around made Windows 95 faster! https://www.extremetech.com/computing/294907-why-moving-the-...

You can still observe a related effect to this in Windows 10. Open up any large(ish) file in NotePad++ or most any other editor and place the cursor in the text and drag to the bottom of the screen so it starts scrolling. If you hold the mouse still at that point it will scroll through a couple dozen every half second or so, but if you wag the mouse side to side it will scroll through hundreds at a time in the same span.
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