The other day I wrote about Protesilaos Stavrou’s video on customization the Emacs mode line. James Dyer saw the video too was inspired to make his own customizations. There’s nothing unusual about that, of course, but I was struck by how easy it was for him to build his own minimal mode line.
Dyer has distilled the complicated information from Prot’s video into a sort of minimal effective use case. His mode line is very simple and shows the buffer name only for the active window. I’m not sure why you’d want that but it nicely illustrates the method Prot uses to eliminate nonessential information for windows without focus.
If you’re interested in customizing your mode line, Dyer’s post serves as an excellent go-by. You can start with his code and tweak it until you have something that works for you. If you liked Prot’s video but were putting off doing your own customization because it seemed too complicated, take a look at Dyer’s post. It may help you get going.