C-x 4 b RET does not restores wrong other window

C-x 4 b RET does not restores wrong other window

[Ture Pålsson]

In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit)
 of 2002-03-20 on paddington
configured using `configure  --prefix=/sw/emacs/21.2'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: sv_SE
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: C
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Symptoms and how to reproduce:

1. Start emacs with emacs -q --no-site-file

2. Type C-x 2 C-x 2. This should give you three windows, all showing
   the *scratch* buffer, with the cursor in the topmost one.

3. Type C-h f c o n s RET. This gives you the help text for 'cons' in
   the middle window, and the text "Type C-x 4 b RET to restore other
   window.  C-M-v to scroll the help." in the echo area. The cursor is
   still in the topmost window.

4. Type C-x 4 b RET. I expected this to switch the middle window from
   the *Help* buffer back to *scratch*, but instead it switched the
   bottom window from *scratch* to *Messages*.

Re: C-x 4 b RET does not restores wrong other window

[Richard Stallman]

When there are three windows, in general--there is no single command
that will restore the proper window to its previous state.  I am not
sure what change to make to improve this situation.  Do you want
to work on it?

Re: C-x 4 b RET does not restores wrong other window

[Kevin Rodgers]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1501 bytes --]

rms@gnu.org (Richard Stallman) writes:
>ture@lysator.liu.se (Ture Pålsson) writes:
>> 1. Start emacs with emacs -q --no-site-file
>> 
>> 2. Type C-x 2 C-x 2. This should give you three windows, all showing
>>    the *scratch* buffer, with the cursor in the topmost one.
>> 
>> 3. Type C-h f c o n s RET. This gives you the help text for 'cons' in
>>    the middle window, and the text "Type C-x 4 b RET to restore other
>>    window.  C-M-v to scroll the help." in the echo area. The cursor is
>>    still in the topmost window.
>> 
>> 4. Type C-x 4 b RET. I expected this to switch the middle window from
>>    the *Help* buffer back to *scratch*, but instead it switched the
>>    bottom window from *scratch* to *Messages*.
>>
> When there are three windows, in general--there is no single command
> that will restore the proper window to its previous state.  I am not
> sure what change to make to improve this situation.  Do you want
> to work on it?

I thought that that winner-mode would handle this as requested, but
doing `M-x winner-mode' first and doing `C-x <left>' instead of `C-x 4
b' doesn't work either: it only changes the window-buffer
correspondence so that there are still 3 windows.  Maybe winner-mode
should advise the describe-* functions, or with-output-to-temp-buffer,
to DTRT.  (If so, print-help-return-message should have a clause to
detect winner-mode, and display the winner-undo key binding instead of
switch-to-buffer-other-window.)

-- 
Kevin Rodgers <kevinr@ihs.com>