Let Emacs move the cursor off-screen
elisp, emacs, scroll
Solution
There is a new package available on GNU ELPA called `scroll-restore` that attempts to remedy this problem. So far, I have encountered a few bugs, but the package seems to work as-advertised for the most part.
You can test it out by installing it with
M-x package-install RET scroll-restore RET
After the package is installed, you can enable the minor mode with
M-x scroll-restore-mode
Personally, I am binding it to the Scroll Lock key because it seems so incredibly apropos! This is what I am adding to my init file:
(require 'scroll-restore)
(scroll-restore-mode 1)
;; Allow scroll-restore to modify the cursor face
(setq scroll-restore-handle-cursor t)
;; Make the cursor invisible while POINT is off-screen
(setq scroll-restore-cursor-type nil)
;; Jump back to the original cursor position after scrolling
(setq scroll-restore-jump-back t)
;; Toggle scroll-restore-mode with the Scroll Lock key
(global-set-key (kbd "<Scroll_Lock>") 'scroll-restore-mode)
This is a direct copy of an answer posted here: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/2273/93
Problem
Is it possible to let Emacs have the cursor be moved off-screen, like most GUI text editors work? This is one of the biggest things that bothers me when I use Emacs over any GUI editor. When I scroll down, the cursor is "pushed forward" by the top of the buffer. I had previously thought that this was completely impossible, because this is hard-wired into the architecture of Emacs, but then I saw multiple-cursors, which does exactly this for the secondary cursors (assuming you prevent the scrolling functions from acting on the secondary cursors). Is it maybe possible to use multiple-cursors to have the main cursor in some hidden buffer, and the effective cursor being what I actually edit with? Or maybe some other clever trick? Or maybe my Googling has failed me and this is really already possible without any magic?