bug#5054: 23.1.50; buffer-menu truncated fields

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

>>> Does `Man-width' trigger a refit when the window gets resized?
>>
>> Do you think it should?  Maybe.  So when a window is split horizontally,
>> it would refit.  But this requires re-running the man command with the
>> new value of the environment variable COLUMNS.
>
> It probably should refit at least when run in a standalone frame and the
> user maximizes the frame or sizes it back to normal.

I see there is more serious problem.  With `emacs -Q' in a wide frame,
`M-x man' displays the truncated page, because the default value of
`Man-notify-method' is "friendly" (this is a subjective name and I think
actually this option is not friendly at all!), and `man' runs the
formatting command with the value of `COLUMNS' equal to the frame's width,
but later `man' splits the frame horizontally and displays in a half-width
window the manual formatted to the full frame width.  Perhaps `man' should
be able to predict the window's width for `COLUMNS' before running the
formatting command.  Do you know a function in window.el that would
predict the width that the current window will have after splitting
horizontally?

>> I think that ruler-mode has a good UI where it's easy to see
>> the position of the handle for dragging.
>
> The header line of ruler-mode looks good indeed.  Remains the question
> whether we want a generic interface, so `list-processes' can use it as
> well, and maybe also `dired', the various message modes, file managers,
> table headers ...

A generic interface would be a big plus.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/