52.1 Refreshing the Screen

The function redraw-frame redisplays the entire contents of a given frame. See Frames.

Function: redraw-frame &optional frame no-preempt

This function clears and redisplays frame frame.

frame defaults to the selected frame if omitted.

Normally, redisplay is preempted as normal if input arrives. However, if optional second arg no-preempt is non-nil, redisplay will not stop for input and is guaranteed to proceed to completion.

Even more powerful is redraw-display:

Command: redraw-display &optional device

This function redraws all frames on device marked as having their image garbled. device defaults to the selected device. If device is t, all devices will have their frames checked.

Processing user input takes absolute priority over redisplay. If you call these functions when input is available, they do nothing immediately, but a full redisplay does happen eventually—after all the input has been processed.

Normally, suspending and resuming SXEmacs also refreshes the screen. Some terminal emulators record separate contents for display-oriented programs such as SXEmacs and for ordinary sequential display. If you are using such a terminal, you might want to inhibit the redisplay on resumption. See Suspending SXEmacs.

Variable: no-redraw-on-reenter

This variable controls whether SXEmacs redraws the entire screen after it has been suspended and resumed. Non-nil means yes, nil means no.

The above functions do not actually cause the display to be updated; rather, they clear out the internal display records that SXEmacs maintains, so that the next time the display is updated it will be redrawn from scratch. Normally this occurs the next time that next-event or sit-for is called; however, a display update will not occur if there is input pending. See Command Loop.

Function: force-cursor-redisplay &optional frame

This function causes an immediate update of the cursor on frame, which defaults to the selected frame.