On 2014-12-17 Wed 07:32, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> In term.el, I found a function that does what I want
>> (`term-window-width') but requiring term.el only to use this
>> function seems inappropriate.  Duplicating this function is not
>> perfect either.
>
> That function is in term.el because term.el is its only user.  We
> might consider moving it to a more general place, but please describe
> the use case where you needed it.

I'm the author of a number of extensions for Helm (helm-bibtex,
helm-dictionary, helm-mu).  These extensions display the results of a
search in the form of tables.  See here for an example:

  https://github.com/tmalsburg/helm-bibtex/raw/master/screenshot.png

I want to use the full number of available columns for displaying data
but avoid line breaks at all cost because they would mess up the table
layout.  That's why I need a robust way to determine the maximal number
of characters that I can put on a line.  `term-window-width' is better
at doing that then `window-width' because it corrects (window-width) in
a number of special cases.  (It's not perfect, though, because like
`window-width' it ignores the size of the font in the window and
pretends the window is using the default size.)

  Titus