diff --git a/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py b/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
index 906ffe3..c747915 100644
--- a/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
+++ b/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
@@ -1849,6 +1849,28 @@ class InteractiveShell(Configurable, Magic):
         # code out there that may rely on this).
         self.prefilter = self.prefilter_manager.prefilter_lines
 
+
+    def auto_rewrite_input(self, cmd):
+        """Print to the screen the rewritten form of the user's command.
+
+        This shows visual feedback for things like::
+        
+            In [1]: /f x
+            ------> f(x)
+
+        Which helps the user understand that the input line was transformed
+        automatically.
+        """
+        rw = self.displayhook.prompt1.auto_rewrite() + cmd
+
+        try:
+            # plain ascii works better w/ pyreadline, on some machines, so
+            # we use it and only print uncolored rewrite if we have unicode
+            rw = str(rw)
+            print >> IPython.utils.io.Term.cout, rw
+        except UnicodeEncodeError:
+            print "------> " + cmd
+            
     #-------------------------------------------------------------------------
     # Things related to extracting values/expressions from kernel and user_ns
     #-------------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/IPython/core/prefilter.py b/IPython/core/prefilter.py
index d2e86ac..d56008f 100755
--- a/IPython/core/prefilter.py
+++ b/IPython/core/prefilter.py
@@ -916,15 +916,7 @@ class AutoHandler(PrefilterHandler):
                     newcmd = '%s(%s)' % (ifun.rstrip(), the_rest)
 
         if auto_rewrite:
-            rw = self.shell.displayhook.prompt1.auto_rewrite() + newcmd
-            
-            try:
-                # plain ascii works better w/ pyreadline, on some machines, so
-                # we use it and only print uncolored rewrite if we have unicode
-                rw = str(rw)
-                print >>IPython.utils.io.Term.cout, rw
-            except UnicodeEncodeError:
-                print "-------------->" + newcmd
+            self.shell.auto_rewrite_input(newcmd)
             
         # log what is now valid Python, not the actual user input (without the
         # final newline)
diff --git a/IPython/core/prompts.py b/IPython/core/prompts.py
index 753659c..10761cc 100644
--- a/IPython/core/prompts.py
+++ b/IPython/core/prompts.py
@@ -385,7 +385,7 @@ class Prompt1(BasePrompt):
         return str_safe(self.p_str)
 
     def auto_rewrite(self):
-        """Print a string of the form '--->' which lines up with the previous
+        """Return a string of the form '--->' which lines up with the previous
         input string. Useful for systems which re-write the user input when
         handling automatically special syntaxes."""
 
diff --git a/IPython/zmq/zmqshell.py b/IPython/zmq/zmqshell.py
index dce0644..1d13680 100644
--- a/IPython/zmq/zmqshell.py
+++ b/IPython/zmq/zmqshell.py
@@ -377,7 +377,19 @@ class ZMQInteractiveShell(InteractiveShell):
     def magic_pylab(self, *args, **kwargs):
         raise NotImplementedError('pylab support must be enabled in commandl in options.')
 
+    def auto_rewrite_input(self, cmd):
+        """Called to show the auto-rewritten input for autocall and friends.
 
+        FIXME: this payload is currently not correctly processed by the
+        frontend.
+        """
+        new = self.displayhook.prompt1.auto_rewrite() + cmd
+        payload = dict(
+            source='IPython.zmq.zmqshell.ZMQInteractiveShell.auto_rewrite_input',
+            transformed_input=new,
+            )
+        self.payload_manager.write_payload(payload)
+        
     def ask_exit(self):
         """Engage the exit actions."""
         payload = dict(