Minor modes each put a word on the mode line to signify that they're active. This can cause other displays, such as % of file that point is at, to run off the right side of the screen. For some minor modes, such as mouse-avoidance-mode, the display is a waste of space, since users typically set the mode in their .emacs & never change it. For other modes, such as my jiggle-mode, it's a waste because there's already a visual indication of whether the mode is in effect. A diminished mode is a minor mode that has had its mode line display diminished, usually to nothing, although diminishing to a shorter word or a single letter is also supported. This package implements diminished modes. You can use this package either interactively or from your .emacs file. In either case, first you'll need to copy this file to a directory that appears in your load-path. `load-path' is the name of a variable that contains a list of directories Emacs searches for files to load. To prepend another directory to load-path, put a line like (add-to-list 'load-path "c:/My_Directory") in your .emacs file. To create diminished modes interactively, type M-x load-library to get a prompt like Load library: and respond `diminish' (unquoted). Then type M-x diminish to get a prompt like Diminish what minor mode: and respond with the name of some minor mode, like mouse-avoidance-mode. You'll then get this prompt: To what mode-line display: Respond by just hitting if you want the name of the mode completely removed from the mode line. If you prefer, you can abbreviate the name. If your abbreviation is 2 characters or more, such as "Av", it'll be displayed as a separate word on the mode line, just like minor modes' names. If it's a single character, such as "V", it'll be scrunched up against the previous word, so for example if the undiminished mode line display had been "Abbrev Fill Avoid", it would become "Abbrev FillV". Multiple single-letter diminished modes will all be scrunched together. The display of undiminished modes will not be affected. To find out what the mode line would look like if all diminished modes were still minor, type M-x diminished-modes. This displays in the echo area the complete list of minor or diminished modes now active, but displays them all as minor. They remain diminished on the mode line. To convert a diminished mode back to a minor mode, type M-x diminish-undo to get a prompt like Restore what diminished mode: Respond with the name of some diminished mode. To convert all diminished modes back to minor modes, respond to that prompt with `diminished-modes' (unquoted, & note the hyphen). When you're responding to the prompts for mode names, you can use completion to avoid extra typing; for example, m o u SPC SPC SPC is usually enough to specify mouse-avoidance-mode. Mode names typically end in "-mode", but for historical reasons auto-fill-mode is named by "auto-fill-function". To create diminished modes noninteractively in your .emacs file, put code like (require 'diminish) (diminish 'abbrev-mode "Abv") (diminish 'jiggle-mode) (diminish 'mouse-avoidance-mode "M") near the end of your .emacs file. It should be near the end so that any minor modes your .emacs loads will already have been loaded by the time they're to be converted to diminished modes. To diminish a major mode, (setq mode-name "whatever") in the mode hook.