This still annoys me slightly after nearly 20 years of using Emacs.
In response to keypresses, it doesn't bother me too much, as I'm used to the Windows-style behaviour of PgUp/PgDn/etc. moving the caret, much as the Mac behaviour of not doing that is sometimes useful. But for mouse wheel scrolling, which I do a lot - precisely because on Windows this typically does not move the caret! - having point follow along has never felt right.
> But for mouse wheel scrolling, which I do a lot - precisely because on Windows this typically does not move the caret! - having point follow along has never felt right.
Iam pretty sure you can customzize that if you want.
> scroll-preserve-screen-position is a variable defined in ‘C source code’.
> Its value is ‘keep’
> Original value was nil
> Controls if scroll commands move point to keep its screen position unchanged.
> A value of nil means point does not keep its screen position except
> at the scroll margin or window boundary respectively.
> A value of t means point keeps its screen position if the scroll
> command moved it vertically out of the window, e.g. when scrolling
> by full screens. If point is within ‘next-screen-context-lines’ lines
> from the edges of the window, point will typically not keep its screen
> position when doing commands like ‘scroll-up-command’/‘scroll-down-command’
> and the like.
You’re misunderstanding. In those other apps the behavior is this: you open a document. You put the cursor on line 3 column 3. You use the mouse wheel or trackpad to scroll down to line 600. You hit cursor right. The cursor is now on line 3 column 4.
In emacs the cursor would be somewhere around line 600 instead.
It should be possible to save the cursor position, hide it if it moves away from view during scrolling, and restore it back on any command but scrolling, or at least at the firs cursor-movement command.
Conversely, I curse heavily at Mac programs where I can page down or scroll for a while, only to have an arrow press jump way the heck back in the document.
In response to keypresses, it doesn't bother me too much, as I'm used to the Windows-style behaviour of PgUp/PgDn/etc. moving the caret, much as the Mac behaviour of not doing that is sometimes useful. But for mouse wheel scrolling, which I do a lot - precisely because on Windows this typically does not move the caret! - having point follow along has never felt right.