Hydras not showing hints

[sho-87]

I'm having some difficulty figuring out how to get hints to display with hydra. My config is here but the relevant parts look like this:

(use-package hydra :ensure t
  :config (setq hydra-is-helpful t
                hydra-lv t
                lv-use-separator t)
  )

(defhydra hydra-buffer (:color blue :hint nil)
  "Buffer Management"

  ("b" helm-mini "buffer list" :column "Buffer")
  ("d" kill-this-buffer "kill buffer")
  ("D" sh/kill-all-buffers "kill all buffers")

  ("h" tabbar-backward "prev tab" :color red :column "Tab")
  ("l" tabbar-forward "next tab" :color red)

  ("q" nil "close" :color blue :column nil)
)

The hydra is bound to SPC b

When I press the binding, a window pops up that correctly shows me 2 columns, but 1) the q bind does not show anywhere, and 2) I cant see any hints:

How do I set this up so I have 2 columns (with the 5 binds), and q in the hint bar?

Also, a hydra like this doesnt seem to show up at all (none of the bindings are visible):

(defhydra hydra-zoom (:color red :hint nil :columns 3)
  ("+" text-scale-increase "in")
  ("-" text-scale-decrease "out")
  ("r" (text-scale-adjust 0) :color blue "reset")
  ("q" nil "quit" :color blue)
  )

I feel like the hydra window height is too small and cutting off the bottom part where the hint would show. For example, I dont see a line separator between the hints and the hydra heads even though I've set the option in :config. Or is there something else in my config that is screwing up the height of that window?

I'm on emacs 25 and windows 10

[abo-abo]

Remove :hint nil from your code.

[sho-87]

I've tried a number of different variations of this, and changing the code to the following (removing :hint nil) still gives the same problem:

(defhydra hydra-buffer (:color blue)
  "Buffer Management"

  ("b" helm-mini "buffer list" :column "Buffer")
  ("d" kill-this-buffer "kill buffer")
  ("D" sh/kill-all-buffers "kill all buffers")

  ("h" tabbar-backward "prev tab" :color red :column "Tab")
  ("l" tabbar-forward "next tab" :color red)

  ("q" nil "close" :color blue :column nil)
)

[abo-abo]

Works fine for me:

(eval hydra-buffer/hint)
;; =>
;; #("Buffer Management:
;; Buffer              | Tab
;; ------------------- | -----------
;; b: buffer list      | h: prev tab
;; d: kill buffer      | l: next tab
;; D: kill all buffers |
;; [q]: close."
;;   79 80 (face hydra-face-blue)
;;   101 102 (face hydra-face-red)
;;   113 114 (face hydra-face-blue)
;;   135 136 (face hydra-face-red)
;;   147 148 (face hydra-face-blue)
;;   170 171 (face hydra-face-blue))

[sho-87]

ok I think Ive narrowed it down to the tabbar package

Do your hints still show if you have that installed? I wonder why its causing strange interaction with hydra...

(use-package tabbar :ensure t
  :init (tabbar-mode)
  )

[abo-abo]

Still works for me with tabbar. I never used it though, so something might break only with extensive usage.

[LevPetrovitch]

Sorry to reopen this, but I've the same problem. Tested with the simple example from the documentation (copied from the hydra-examples.el file) but here is what I get (binded to f7, because I already use f2) I do not use tabbar, so the hypothesis of the OP is wrong, unless the problem is in some dependencies of tabbar that I've installed for other reasons than support tabbar

[LevPetrovitch]

Nailed it! (well, almost). The problem comes from the which-key package, which is trying to be helpful by showing the bindings (is the reason why it's installed, after all).

Now that I found where the problem is, I only need to solve it

[LevPetrovitch]

I found a simple workaround which consists in not using the "automatic binding" feature of hydra, i.e. leaving awesome-keymap and awesome-binding empty, and explicitly bind awesome-hydra/body to whatever you want. If I understand correctly how hydras work, this is due to the fact that no binding to the head is created this way.