Hide hydra temporarily?

[TLINDEN]

Hi,

given the following hydra:

(defhydra hydra-windows (:color blue)
  ("a" shrink-window-horizontally :color pink)
  ("d" enlarge-window-horizontally :color pink)
  ("w" shrink-window :color pink)
  ("s" enlarge-window :color pink)
  ("q" nil :color red))

would it be possible that the hydra hides temporarily while I am adjusting window sizes? Say, hide for 1 second when one of a,d,w,s has been hit, otherwise re-appear. The reason why I'm asking is that the window sizes are not at the end result as long as the hydra is shown. So If I have 4 windows and want one of them to be bigger, I start the hydra and start adjusting. However, now there are 5 windows, my 4 plus the hydra window. I need to stop adjusting, hit q to hide the hydra, take a look if the resulting sizes are to my liking and repeat the process if not.

I'd suggest something like this:

(defhydra hydra-windows (:color blue)
  ("a" shrink-window-horizontally :color pink :hide 1)
  ("d" enlarge-window-horizontally :color pink :hide 1)
  ("w" shrink-window :color pink :hide 1)
  ("s" enlarge-window :color pink :hide 1)
  ("q" nil :color red))

(1 would be one second).

best regards,
Tom

[abo-abo]

Hi Tom. Sorry for the late reply.

Here's an easy solution to the problem of windows not being the final size:

(hydra-set-property 'hydra-windows :verbosity 1)

You can also play around with hiding and showing the hint dynamically:

(defhydra hydra-windows (:color pink)
  ("a" shrink-window-horizontally)
  ("d" enlarge-window-horizontally)
  ("w"
   (progn
     (hydra-set-property
      'hydra-windows
      :verbosity 0)
     (shrink-window 2)))
  ("s" enlarge-window)
  ("?" (hydra-set-property 'hydra-windows :verbosity 1))
  ("q" nil :color blue))

Here, w will hide the doc, but ? will show it once more.

[countvajhula]

This is great, thanks @abo-abo ! I was just about to create an issue requesting this feature, i.e. a way to show/hide the hydra on demand. The reason is, I'm using hydra primarily as a backend for a modal interface, rather than as a menu-driven interface, e.g. for symex.el (and also more generally in this package). For this purpose, it would sometimes be desirable to launch the hydra "invisibly" by default, and then bring up the menu as needed. It looks like toggling the verbosity parameter is just what I'm looking for.

[abo-abo]

@countvajhula You're welcome.

I've documented this approach on the wiki. So I think this can be closed.