I am editing a large file. I would like the current line where the cursor is at to be always in the middle of the screen. Is this possible?
There is a mode for that: centered-cursor-mode. It can be installed from MELPA.
It does not play well with a couple of modes, so this is my configuration:
;; keep the cursor centered to avoid sudden scroll jumps
(require 'centered-cursor-mode)
;; disable in terminal modes
;; http://stackoverflow.com/a/6849467/519736
;; also disable in Info mode, because it breaks going back with the backspace key
(define-global-minor-mode my-global-centered-cursor-mode centered-cursor-mode
(lambda ()
(when (not (memq major-mode
(list 'Info-mode 'term-mode 'eshell-mode 'shell-mode 'erc-mode)))
(centered-cursor-mode))))
(my-global-centered-cursor-mode 1)
As @Nsukami mentioned, an alternative is the built-in scroll-lock-mode.
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Thank you for your solution. I applied your solution, but when I move by arrows, the position of current line changes and it is no more at the middle of screen. – Name Nov 18 '14 at 10:52
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Oh, I think I misunderstood your question then. centered-cursor-mode will keep the current line in the centre. When you move the cursor to another line, that line will be in the centre. – rekado Nov 18 '14 at 11:07
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@Name: do you want to disable scrolling completely so that no matter where the cursor is (even hundreds of lines away) the selected line remains in the middle of the screen? – rekado Nov 18 '14 at 11:10
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1@Name: disabling vertical scrolling altogether is rather extreme. Would it not be acceptable to split the window in two (
C-x 2) and scroll in one window while keeping the selected line in the other? – rekado Nov 18 '14 at 11:28 -
1IMHO,
scroll-lock-modeis not an alternative. It is broken. I loses centering in many cases, and doesn’t even try to re-center if you enter lines. – Torsten Bronger Oct 16 '20 at 20:53
C-lto manually recenter. – paprika Nov 18 '14 at 10:46M-x scroll-lock-mode– Nsukami _ Nov 18 '14 at 10:47