Emacs: Mode Line (Status Bar)

What is Mode Line

mode line is a line at the bottom of a window pane that shows info about the current Buffer.

• Hover mouse on any part of the mode line to show tooltips on what it means.
• Mouse click the mode line part to do something useful, typically cycle alternative states.

Mode Line Display Meaning

it has this form

      CS:CH-DFR  BUF      POS LINE   (MAJOR MINOR)

• CS → character set. File Encoding.
• CH → change status
• D → D appears if the window is dedicated to its current buffer.
• FR → the selected frame name. It appears only on text terminals. The initial frame's name is F1.
• BUF → buffer name
• POS → cursor position
• LINE → line number
• Major Mode
• Minor Mode

File Encoding and Newline Convention

The first part shows file encoding and newline convention used.

• Emacs: File Encoding (Unicode, UTF-8)
• Emacs: Newline Convention

The first character indicates encoding. U means Unicode.

Example

U(Unix)

Unicode encoding with unix newline

U(Dos)

Unicode encoding with Microsoft Windows newline

U\

Unicode encoding with Microsoft Windows newline when on Windows.

U(Mac)

Unicode encoding with Classic Mac OS newline (1990s)

Modified Status

This is 3 characters.

Example

---

file not changed

**-

file is modified

%%-

read only

%*-

read only and modified

If the last character is @, the file is on a remote machine.

Buffer Name

If the buffer is a file, it usually is the file name

Cursor Position

ALL

all content are shown.

Top

cursor is at the top of buffer

nn%

cursor is at nn percent of buffer

Bot

cursor is at the bottom of buffer

Line Number

L27

at line 27

(27,4)

at line 27, column 4. (when column-number-mode is on.) 〔see Emacs Init: Show Cursor Column Position〕

Major Mode Name, Minor Names

shows the current Major Mode and few Minor Mode and or possibly some other info.

Recursive Edit

if the (MAJOR MINOR) part is bracketed by square brackets, e.g.

[(MAJOR MINOR)]

It means you are in recursive edit.

• Emacs: Recursive Edit

Reference

• Mode Line (Emacs Manual)