The watcher causes the mode line to blink

[ThibautVerron]

Hi,

The watcher changes the active buffer when calling the save function, which causes minor annoyance. For instance, if the mode line distinguishes between focused and unfocused buffers, it causes a blink every 2 seconds.

As far as I can tell, it's due to the call to magit-get-branch which uses a temporary buffer. Replacing the call with a direct system call "git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD" should fix it.

More generally, I'm not sure that running the heartbeat function on a timer is the best way to proceed. Hooking into window-buffer-change-functions and window-selection-change-functions instead would have the double advantage of capturing buffers which are used for less than 2 seconds, and to avoid calling the function thousands of times if the active buffer doesn't change.

But those variables are only for emacs >= 27.1.

[ThibautVerron]

Actually, I'm not sure that the cause for the blink is what I said.

When the watcher is called, the mode-line shows the work buffer as inactive. It remains that way until a key is pressed.

It also doesn't seem to happen for all buffers or all files.

Edit: And now, after a couple of restarts, it's completely gone. I know it was caused by activity watch because disabling and enabling the mode made the blink come and go, but if even I can't reproduce it anymore, I'm not sure if the issue should remain open.