Consider turning on preserving window point

Consider turning on preserving window point

[Mark Oteiza]

Hi,

This is an old bug for changes done in 23 that broke the behaviour of
keeping window point the same in buffers.

https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=4041

It had been suggested to be enabled in subsequent releases, but this
never happened.  AFAICT there has been virtually no mention on this list
of switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point, and no bugs regarding it
since then. It appears to have been mentioned in Bug#16692.

In both bugs it appears apparent the desire is to make editing the same
buffer in multiple windows more useful.

Mark

Re: Consider turning on preserving window point

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 14:58:38 -0400
> From: Mark Oteiza <mvoteiza@udel.edu>
> 
> This is an old bug for changes done in 23 that broke the behaviour of
> keeping window point the same in buffers.
> 
> https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=4041
> 
> It had been suggested to be enabled in subsequent releases, but this
> never happened.  AFAICT there has been virtually no mention on this list
> of switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point, and no bugs regarding it
> since then. It appears to have been mentioned in Bug#16692.

FWIW, I have switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point set to t since
about forever.

Re: Consider turning on preserving window point

[Tino Calancha]

> In both bugs it appears apparent the desire is to make editing the same
> buffer in multiple windows more useful.
Thank you.  I didn't know about 'switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point'.
It is useful: I have enabled it in my setup.
I agree it may be worth to enable this option by default.

[PATCH] Preserve buffer point in windows by default (Bug#4041).

[Mark Oteiza]

* doc/lispref/windows.texi: Mention new default.
* etc/NEWS: Mention new default.
* lisp/window.el (switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point): Default to t.
---
On 19/05/16 at 02:58pm, Mark Oteiza wrote:
> This is an old bug for changes done in 23 that broke the behaviour of
> keeping window point the same in buffers.
> 
> https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=4041
> 
> It had been suggested to be enabled in subsequent releases, but this
> never happened.  AFAICT there has been virtually no mention on this list
> of switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point, and no bugs regarding it
> since then. It appears to have been mentioned in Bug#16692.
> 
> In both bugs it appears apparent the desire is to make editing the same
> buffer in multiple windows more useful.

 doc/lispref/windows.texi | 5 +++--
 etc/NEWS                 | 3 +++
 lisp/window.el           | 2 +-
 3 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/lispref/windows.texi b/doc/lispref/windows.texi
index 9a09b35..94b4f3a 100644
--- a/doc/lispref/windows.texi
+++ b/doc/lispref/windows.texi
@@ -2171,8 +2171,9 @@ Switching Buffers
 @code{switch-to-buffer}.
 @end defopt
 
-By default, @code{switch-to-buffer} shows the buffer at its position of
-@code{point}.  This behavior can be tuned using the following option.
+By default, @code{switch-to-buffer} unconditionally tries to display
+the buffer at its previous position in the selected window.  This
+behavior can be tuned using the following option.
 
 @defopt switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point
 If this variable is @code{nil}, @code{switch-to-buffer} displays the
diff --git a/etc/NEWS b/etc/NEWS
index d1eadd5..3d337df 100644
--- a/etc/NEWS
+++ b/etc/NEWS
@@ -680,6 +680,9 @@ name it), with the proviso that on some systems (e.g. Windows)
 have the equivalent of a primary selection.
 
 +++
+** 'switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point' now defaults to t.
+
++++
 ** New option 'switch-to-buffer-in-dedicated-window' allows you to
 customize how 'switch-to-buffer' proceeds interactively when the
 selected window is strongly dedicated to its buffer.
diff --git a/lisp/window.el b/lisp/window.el
index bd5275b..f699e21 100644
--- a/lisp/window.el
+++ b/lisp/window.el
@@ -7147,7 +7147,7 @@ window-normalize-buffer-to-switch-to
 	    buffer))
     (other-buffer)))
 
-(defcustom switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point nil
+(defcustom switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point t
   "If non-nil, `switch-to-buffer' tries to preserve `window-point'.
 If this is nil, `switch-to-buffer' displays the buffer at that
 buffer's `point'.  If this is `already-displayed', it tries to
-- 
2.8.3

Re: [PATCH] Preserve buffer point in windows by default (Bug#4041).

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 22:06:29 -0400
> From: Mark Oteiza <mvoteiza@udel.edu>
> 
> * doc/lispref/windows.texi: Mention new default.
> * etc/NEWS: Mention new default.
> * lisp/window.el (switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point): Default to t.

Looks good to me, thanks.  One comment:

> +By default, @code{switch-to-buffer} unconditionally tries to display
> +the buffer at its previous position in the selected window.  This
> +behavior can be tuned using the following option.
>  [...]
> +(defcustom switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point t
>    "If non-nil, `switch-to-buffer' tries to preserve `window-point'.
>  If this is nil, `switch-to-buffer' displays the buffer at that
>  buffer's `point'.  If this is `already-displayed', it tries to

The "unconditionally" part in the first text and "tries to" in the
second are somewhat at odds, IMO.  I think the latter text is more
accurate (because preserving window-point might not always work), so I
think we should make the manual text closer in spirit to the doc
string.

Other than that, please push to master.