Hide list of minor modes in mode-line

Question

I use quite a few minor modes and usually I know which minor mode is enabled in every major mode. If I really want to see the full list, I can run C-h v minor-mode-list.

At the same time, my mode line get really clogged, so when I vertically split frame, sometimes I cannot read end of the mode line.

Actual question: how to disable showing of minor modes list in mode line? For example, now it may look like this:

-:--- main.c        All (7,12)     (C/l FlyC SScr Abbrev Fill) [main] 16:19 0.45

I want it to look more concise:

-:--- main.c        All (7,12)     (C/l) [main] 16:19

Answer 1

Diminish mode (available in Melpa) will do this.

(diminish 'projectile-mode)

Answer 2

As mbork commented, you can use delight.el to selectively modify or disable minor (and indeed major) mode text in the mode line.

One of the advantages is that it takes care of the eval-after-load (which you need to write manually with diminish.el in most use-cases), which makes the configuration cleaner. You still need the same information -- the name of the mode, and the library which implements it (which Emacs will tell you if you ask it about the mode) -- but you can wrap it all up into a single form:

 (require 'delight)
 (delight '((some-mode nil "some-library")
            (some-other-mode nil "some-other-library")))

(Or follow the link above for some real usage examples.)

I would recommend taking this approach, because even if you don't want most minor mode lighter text, there's a good chance that you'll find some of them useful (and you can still modify those ones to be shorter).

If you truly want to eliminate all minor mode lighter text (and again, I don't recommend it), you could modify the mode-line-modes variable. The mode line variables changed a while back, so you may want to use M-x find-variable RET mode-line-modes RET and then manually adapt your default definition, editing out the section concerning minor-modes-alist.

Of course then you'd need to maintain it, which isn't so flash, so you might prefer replacing the minor-mode-alist symbol within the existing value. The following is somewhat implementation-specific, but certainly nicer than setting mode-line-modes in its entirety, and you can toggle it on and off.

(define-minor-mode minor-mode-blackout-mode
  "Hides minor modes from the mode line."
  t)

(catch 'done
  (mapc (lambda (x)
          (when (and (consp x)
                     (equal (cadr x) '("" minor-mode-alist)))
            (let ((original (copy-sequence x)))
              (setcar x 'minor-mode-blackout-mode)
              (setcdr x (list "" original)))
            (throw 'done t)))
        mode-line-modes))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c m") 'minor-mode-blackout-mode)

Answer 3

Here is what worked for me:

(defvar hidden-minor-modes ; example, write your own list of hidden
  '(abbrev-mode            ; minor modes
    auto-fill-function
    flycheck-mode
    flyspell-mode
    inf-haskell-mode
    haskell-indent-mode
    haskell-doc-mode
    smooth-scroll-mode))

(defun purge-minor-modes ()
  (interactive)
  (dolist (x hidden-minor-modes nil)
    (let ((trg (cdr (assoc x minor-mode-alist))))
      (when trg
        (setcar trg "")))))

(add-hook 'after-change-major-mode-hook 'purge-minor-modes)

Thanks to Drew's comment, I've improved realization of this solution. Now it uses benefits of association lists and should be a bit more efficient ;-)

Answer 4

Use Rich-minority with config:

(require 'rich-minority)
(rich-minority-mode 1)
(setf rm-blacklist "")

I also have the thought like you, but I shorten the mode-line more paranoid:

• Remove all unwanted spaces
• Remove all spaces and "min-width" of the buffer position info field.

;; Remove all unwanted spaces
(setq-default mode-line-format
          '("%e" mode-line-front-space mode-line-mule-info mode-line-client mode-line-modified mode-line-remote mode-line-buffer-identification mode-line-position
        (vc-mode vc-mode) " "
        mode-line-modes mode-line-misc-info mode-line-end-spaces))
;; Remove all spaces and "min-width" of position info on mode-line
(setq mode-line-position
      `((1 ,(propertize
         " %p"
         'local-map mode-line-column-line-number-mode-map
         'mouse-face 'mode-line-highlight
         ;; XXX needs better description
         'help-echo "Size indication mode\n\
mouse-1: Display Line and Column Mode Menu"))
    (size-indication-mode
     (2 ,(propertize
          "/%I"
          'local-map mode-line-column-line-number-mode-map
          'mouse-face 'mode-line-highlight
          ;; XXX needs better description
          'help-echo "Size indication mode\n\
mouse-1: Display Line and Column Mode Menu")))
    (line-number-mode
     ((column-number-mode
       (1 ,(propertize
        "(%l,%c)"
        'local-map mode-line-column-line-number-mode-map
        'mouse-face 'mode-line-highlight
        'help-echo "Line number and Column number\n\
mouse-1: Display Line and Column Mode Menu"))
       (1 ,(propertize
        "L%l"
        'local-map mode-line-column-line-number-mode-map
        'mouse-face 'mode-line-highlight
        'help-echo "Line Number\n\
mouse-1: Display Line and Column Mode Menu"))))
     ((column-number-mode
       (1 ,(propertize
        "C%c"
        'local-map mode-line-column-line-number-mode-map
        'mouse-face 'mode-line-highlight
        'help-echo "Column number\n\
mouse-1: Display Line and Column Mode Menu"))))))
      )

Now, I can always see Twittering-mode notification and Org-mode's timer :D

Answer 5

It's worth noting that use-package supports diminish and delight. If you use it to manage your packages you can hide the minor modes in the mode line adding the :diminish or :delight keywords.

(use-package abbrev
  :diminish abbrev-mode
  :config
  (if (file-exists-p abbrev-file-name)
     (quietly-read-abbrev-file)))

Answer 6

I'll throw my solution to this into the ring as well:

(defun modeline-set-lighter (minor-mode lighter)
  (when (assq minor-mode minor-mode-alist)
    (setcar (cdr (assq minor-mode minor-mode-alist)) lighter)))

(defun modeline-remove-lighter (minor-mode)
  (modeline-set-lighter minor-mode ""))

modeline-set-lighter allows you to set the lighter of a minor mode to any string you like. modeline-remove-lighter allows you to remove the lighter of a minor mode completely.

Then, at the end of my init-file I just call these functions for the minor modes whose lighters I want to modify:

(modeline-remove-lighter 'auto-complete-mode)
(modeline-remove-lighter 'git-gutter+-mode)
(modeline-remove-lighter 'guide-key-mode)
(modeline-remove-lighter 'whitespace-mode)
(modeline-set-lighter 'abbrev-mode " Abbr")
(modeline-set-lighter 'auto-fill-function (string 32 #x23ce))

Answer 7

You can also bluntly remove all minor modes, in the following way:

(setq mode-line-modes
      (mapcar (lambda (elem)
                (pcase elem
                  (`(:propertize (,_ minor-mode-alist . ,_) . ,_)
                   "")
                  (t elem)))
              mode-line-modes))

This will also work for minor modes defined in the future, since it just completely removes the use of minor-mode-alist from the mode-line-format.

Answer 8

I don't see the point of installing fancy named extensions for something as simple as:

(setcar (alist-get minor-mode minor-mode-alist) "")

For example:

(dolist (mode '(projectile-mode
                whitespace-mode
                hs-minor-mode
                outline-minor-mode
                auto-fill-function))
  (setcar (alist-get mode minor-mode-alist) ""))

You can do any sort of stuff this way. Replacing text is obvious from the above. Also, for example, to put flymake mode at the start of the list:

(let ((mode (assq #'flymake-mode minor-mode-alist)))
  (setq minor-mode-alist (cons mode (remq mode minor-mode-alist))))

Answer 9

If you don't want to do diminish/delight on every package. You could try minions it will hide all minor mode and can be toggled using mouse. Or you can use awesome-tray which you can use to refine what to show in modeline.