Flymake complains X is not available even when configured not to use X

Question

Running the Flymake mode in a text-mode console Emacs session, how can I tell Flymake to display its messages in the text console instead of trying to communicate with X?

Emacs 23 running on various environments, including Debian and Ubuntu.

I have flymake-gui-warnings-enabled set to nil, but when I flymake-display-err-menu-for-current-line it complains:

X windows are not in use or not initialized

Yes, I know that; Emacs is running across an SSH connection without X. That's why I disabled GUI use by Flymake. How can I tell Flymake not to try using the GUI, and instead to say what it has to say in the Emacs windows?

Answer 1

I've found the "tooltip" error messages plain annoying anyway so I have this in my .emacs that displays flymake error messages in the minibuffer. This is something which I got off the net somewhere. It was called flymake-cursor.el. Credit belongs to the chap who wrote it first. You don't need the pyflake bits which are specific to the Python tool I use as a flymake helper. The main function is show-fly-err-at-point which allows you to use your regular cursor to hover on a highlighted line for the message.

;; License: Gnu Public License
;;
;; Additional functionality that makes flymake error messages appear
;; in the minibuffer when point is on a line containing a flymake
;; error. This saves having to mouse over the error, which is a
;    ; keyboard user's annoyance

;;flymake-ler(file line type text &optional full-file)
(defun show-fly-err-at-point ()
  "If the cursor is sitting on a flymake error, display the
message in the minibuffer"
  (interactive)
  (let ((line-no (line-number-at-pos)))
    (dolist (elem flymake-err-info)
      (if (eq (car elem) line-no)
      (let ((err (car (second elem))))
        (message "%s" (fly-pyflake-determine-message err)))))))

(defun fly-pyflake-determine-message (err)
  "pyflake is flakey if it has compile problems, this adjusts the
message to display, so there is one ;)"
  (cond ((not (or (eq major-mode 'Python) (eq major-mode 'python-mode) t)))
    ((null (flymake-ler-file err))
     ;; normal message do your thing
     (flymake-ler-text err))
    (t ;; could not compile err
     (format "compile error, problem on line %s" (flymake-ler-line err)))))

(defadvice flymake-goto-next-error (after display-message activate compile)
  "Display the error in the mini-buffer rather than having to mouse over it"
  (show-fly-err-at-point))

(defadvice flymake-goto-prev-error (after display-message activate compile)
  "Display the error in the mini-buffer rather than having to mouse over it"
  (show-fly-err-at-point))

(defadvice flymake-mode (before post-command-stuff activate compile)
  "Add functionality to the post command hook so that if the
cursor is sitting on a flymake error the error information is
displayed in the minibuffer (rather than having to mouse over
it)"
  (set (make-local-variable 'post-command-hook)
       (cons 'show-fly-err-at-point post-command-hook))) 

Answer 2

Here's basically the answer of Noufal Ibrahim but the pyflakes part has been removed. More specifically I'm using flymake-ler-text directly to extract the text part of the error. I've only tried with epylint. Works like a charm.

;; show error in the mini buffer instead of in the menu.
;; flymake-ler(file line type text &optional full-file)
(defun show-fly-err-at-point ()
  "If the cursor is sitting on a flymake error, display the message in the minibuffer"
  (interactive)
  (let ((line-no (line-number-at-pos)))
    (dolist (elem flymake-err-info)
      (if (eq (car elem) line-no)
          (let ((err (car (second elem))))
            (message "%s" (flymake-ler-text err)))))))

(defadvice flymake-goto-next-error (after display-message activate compile)
  "Display the error in the mini-buffer rather than having to mouse over it"
  (show-fly-err-at-point))

(defadvice flymake-goto-prev-error (after display-message activate compile)
  "Display the error in the mini-buffer rather than having to mouse over it"
  (show-fly-err-at-point))

(defadvice flymake-mode (before post-command-stuff activate compile)
  "Add functionality to the post command hook so that if the
cursor is sitting on a flymake error the error information is
displayed in the minibuffer (rather than having to mouse over
it)"
  (set (make-local-variable 'post-command-hook)
       (cons 'show-fly-err-at-point post-command-hook))) 

Answer 3

You can download a more complete version of flymake-cursor.el at:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/flymake-cursor.el

It has some optimizations that ensure it doesn't spam your mini-buffer while you cursor around at high speed.

Answer 4

A refinement of earlier solutions. Makes the error messages behave more like eldoc messages. Messages don't end up in the message buffer, messages don't flicker, and messages don't block other output. Uses lexically scoped variables rather than global variables.

Requires emacs 24. I believe the lexical binding comment must go at the top of your file.

I don't have an independent repository for this, but the most up to date version can be got from my emacs config on github.

;;; -*- lexical-binding: t -*-
;; Make flymake show eldoc style error messages.
(require 'eldoc)
(defun c5-flymake-ler-at-point ()
  (caar (flymake-find-err-info flymake-err-info (line-number-at-pos))))

(defun c5-flymake-show-ler (ler)
  (when ler
    ;; Don't log message.
    (let ((message-log-max nil)) 
      (message (flymake-ler-text ler)))))

(let ((timer nil)
      (ler nil))
 (defalias 'c5-flymake-post-command-action (lambda ()
    (when timer
      (cancel-timer timer)
      (setq timer nil))
    (setq ler (c5-flymake-ler-at-point))
    (when ler
      (setq timer (run-at-time "0.9 sec" nil
                               (lambda ()
                                 (when (let ((eldoc-mode t))
                                         (eldoc-display-message-p))
                                   (c5-flymake-show-ler ler))))))))

 (defalias 'c5-flymake-pre-command-action (lambda ()
    (when (let ((eldoc-mode t)) (eldoc-display-message-no-interference-p))
      (c5-flymake-show-ler ler)))))

(defadvice flymake-mode (before c5-flymake-post-command activate compile)
  (add-hook 'post-command-hook 'c5-flymake-post-command-action nil t)
  (add-hook 'pre-command-hook 'c5-flymake-pre-command-action nil t))

(defadvice flymake-goto-next-error (after display-message activate compile)
  (c5-flymake-show-ler (c5-flymake-ler-at-point)))

(defadvice flymake-goto-prev-error (after display-message activate compile)
  (c5-flymake-show-ler (c5-flymake-ler-at-point)))