no customisation of default window-splitting orientation (enhancement)

no customisation of default window-splitting orientation (enhancement)

[Edward Welbourne]

This bug report will be sent to the Free Software Foundation,
not to your local site managers!
Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not have
translators to read other languages for them.

Your bug report will be posted to the bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org mailing list,
and to the gnu.emacs.bug news group.

In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-debian-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2002-03-22 on raven, modified by Debian
configured using `configure  i386-debian-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-pop=yes --with-x=yes --with-x-toolkit=athena --without-gif'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  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: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

Many commands in emacs split the window if there's only one active
when they're invoked; they don't generally have any cause to care
whether horizontally or vertically, but they all split vertically
(i.e. with a horizontal divider halving the window height).  This made
perfect sense for as long as I was working on a screen with of order
80 columns; but now I'm using a window with 183 columns (one pane of
my fvwm is taken up by an emacs window with minimal decor) so my
preferred splitting orientation is horizontally (halve width with a
vertical divider); I `only' get 67 lines on screen at a time.

Some buffers (notably those (sometimes) created by commands that split
the window) close their window when they are closed - e.g. sending a
mail closes the window in which it was composed.  This made perfect
sense when I was on a screen where a split window was painful and only
tolerated because I needed to see one buffer while editing another.
However, now it means that I have to C-x 3 after closing such a
buffer, before doing anything that'd want to split the window if it
found only one window active; otherwise, I end up with a vertical
split rather than my preferred horizontal split.

It would be nice to have some way of telling all those functions,
which ensure they have a second window, (or, more likely, telling the
command to which they all delegate) that I prefer to split
horizontally rather than vertically.

Recent input:
a t i o <M-backspace> <M-backspace> <M-backspace> n 
o SPC c o n f i g SPC f o r C-g C-h i C-s s p l i t 
M-b C-s C-s C-s C-s C-x C-x m <return> M-> u C-s s 
p l i t C-r C-r C-s C-s C-e m <return> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <mouse-1> <C-down-mouse-2> <C-mouse-2> C-x 
0 C-x o C-h v t r u <tab> p a <tab> <return> M-x s 
e t - v a <tab> <return> M-p <return> n i l <return> 
C-x o M-x M-p M-p <return>

Recent messages:
byte-code: Quit
Mark saved where search started [2 times]
unzipping emacs-24.gz...done
Mark set
unzipping emacs-1.gz...done
Mark saved where search started
unzipping emacs-11.gz...done
scroll-bar-toolkit-scroll: Beginning of buffer
scroll-bar-toolkit-scroll: End of buffer
Type C-x 4 b RET to restore the other window.  C-M-v to scroll the help.

Re: no customisation of default window-splitting orientation (enhancement)

[Richard Stallman]

These features might make sense--would you like to write the code?

Re: no customisation of default window-splitting orientation (enhancement)

[Edward Welbourne]

> These features might make sense--would you like to write the code?

I'd like to, sure.  I may take a while.
I'll spend some evenings looking into it and get back to you with
either questions or a patch ;^>

First obvious question: is there (do you already know of the top of
your head) a single function that's what commands generally delegate
to when deciding they need an other window into which to put output ?

	Eddy.
--
note to self@home: split-window; configurable whether horiz/vert by
default when done by commands that automatically produce output in
other window.