The mode line is at the bottom of every Emacs Window aside from MiniBuffer windows.[1] It has useful summary information about the buffer shown in the window, including its name and current modes.
Here is a screenshot that shows three windows with their mode lines:
For complete information on the contents of mode lines, see mode line in the EmacsManual. The information in a mode line usually includes the following:
** – modified since last save-- – not modified since last save%* – read-only, but modified%% – read-only, not modified *Help* and drews-lisp-20 are read-only (unmodified); buffer shrink-fit.el is writable and unmodified. shrink-fit.el is in major mode Emacs-Lisp (and in no minor mode). In Emacs 22, you can click the major-mode and minor-mode names for additional behavior. [(Emacs-Lisp)] – then you are in a recursive edit. You may want to do `C-]’ (command ‘abort-recursive-edit’) to get out of it. ‘C0’) of line 234 (‘L234’) of buffer shrink-fit.el.‘Top’ – the beginning of the buffer is shown in the window‘Bot’ – the end of the buffer is shown in the window‘All’ – all of the buffer is shown in the window48% of buffer shrink-fit.el is not shown.- – no code conversion, except possibly end-of-line translation= – no code conversion or end-of-line translation1 – ISO Latin 1 code conversion-). (Unix) – newline character separates lines(DOS) or \ – carriage-return plus linefeed separates lines(MAC) or / – carriage-return separates lines (Unix)).See also ModeLineConfiguration.
CategoryDisplay CategoryGlossary CategoryWindows CategoryModeLine?