Re: hs-hide-block-behavior

On Mon, 10 Aug 2026 at 18:12, Juri Linkov <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> I consider the following definition of the cursor
> from (info "(emacs) Glossary") to be authoritative:
>
> Cursor
>      The cursor is the rectangle on the screen which indicates the
>      position (called point; q.v.) at which insertion and deletion takes
>      place.  The cursor is on or under the character that follows point.
>      Often people speak of "the cursor" when, strictly speaking, they
>      mean "point".
>

Yes, the job of the cursor is to indicate the position of the insertion (or
deletion) point. The point is between two characters, marked by the left
edge of the cursor (when using a left to right writing system). A character
is inserted at point, a backward delete command deletes the character
before the point, and a forward delete deletes the character after point.

So when the Customization UI provides a choice whose title is
> "Hide the block after cursor", this looks fine from the user's
> perspective.  OTOH, it also makes sense to name the symbol 'after-point'.
>

Here's the problem: "after cursor" can be taken to mean what is to the
right of the cursor, i.e. what comes after the right edge of the (block)
cursor (again assuming a left to right writing system). This is in
contradiction with both the quote from the glossary above and the paragraph
from the Elisp manual I quoted two days ago.

The terms "after point" and "after cursor" seem to be treated as synonyms
in this discussion, which I strongly disagree with, for the reason I have
given above. If, on the other hand, "after cursor" should in fact be
interpreted to mean "after the left edge of the cursor taking up the whole
width of the character cell" then that is clear as mud, IMO.