emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Eddie Hillenbrand]

I'm using emacsclient with emacs --daemon, but I find myself wanting a
different behavior than the standard options provide.

It would be nice if emacsclient could create a window system frame
only when one doesn't exist and if one does exist simply reuse that
frame.

I know I can get this behavior by initially invoking emacsclient with
-c and then subsequently invoking it without the -c, however I'd
prefer not to think about whether I need to include the -c when
opening files.

Thankfully there is the --eval option. I wrote some Elisp that can be
passed to emacsclient to provide this behavior, but it occurred to me
that it may be general enough to include in emacsclient as a standard
option.

I'm proposing adding a -C option that would "create a new frame if one
doesn't exist otherwise use the current Emacs frame." I'd be happy to
make the required changes and submit a patch. Is this general enough
to be implemented?

Re: emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 18:47, Eddie Hillenbrand <eh88@nau.edu> wrote:

> I'm proposing adding a -C option that would "create a new frame if one
> doesn't exist otherwise use the current Emacs frame." I'd be happy to
> make the required changes and submit a patch. Is this general enough
> to be implemented?

Can you get what you want via server-window?

    Juanma

Re: emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Eddie Hillenbrand]

On Mar 16, 2012, at 10:52 AM, Juanma Barranquero wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 18:47, Eddie Hillenbrand <eh88@nau.edu> wrote:
> 
>> I'm proposing adding a -C option that would "create a new frame if one
>> doesn't exist otherwise use the current Emacs frame." I'd be happy to
>> make the required changes and submit a patch. Is this general enough
>> to be implemented?
> 
> Can you get what you want via server-window?

That looks promising.

Re: emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Eddie Hillenbrand]

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On Mar 16, 2012, at 11:39 AM, Eddie Hillenbrand wrote:

>> Can you get what you want via server-window?
> 
> That looks promising.

Unfortunately, the frame is created before this variable is examined. Anything I could do here would be clunky.

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Re: emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 21:09, Eddie Hillenbrand <eh88@nau.edu> wrote:

> Unfortunately, the frame is created before this variable is examined.
> Anything I could do here would be clunky.

I suggest you send a bug report to <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>, explaining
what you want to do starting from emacs -Q.

That will help determining whether what you want is a new feature or
some (mis)behavior to fix.

    Juanma

Re: emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Stefan Monnier]

> I'm proposing adding a -C option that would "create a new frame if one
> doesn't exist otherwise use the current Emacs frame."

I think I'd prefer a solution that doesn't require adding options to
emacsclient (i.e. where the choice is expressed via a customization in
.emacs).


        Stefan

Re: emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Eddie Hillenbrand]

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On Mar 17, 2012, at 3:36 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote:

> I think I'd prefer a solution that doesn't require adding options to
> emacsclient (i.e. where the choice is expressed via a customization in
> .emacs).

I thought about taking that route, but at the command line the user may want to create a frame if one doesn't exist or the user may want to create a frame regardless of other frames. I'm not sure how to provide both without adding an option to emacsclient.


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Re: emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Stefan Monnier]

>> I think I'd prefer a solution that doesn't require adding options to
>> emacsclient (i.e. where the choice is expressed via a customization in
>> .emacs).
> I thought about taking that route, but at the command line the user may want
> to create a frame if one doesn't exist or the user may want to
> create a frame regardless of other frames. I'm not sure how to provide both
> without adding an option to emacsclient.

Assuming you manage to get the "reuse frame when possible" to be the
default behavior, than -c will still let the user choose to force
creation of a new frame.

BTW, have you tried

   emacsclient --display "$DISPLAY" <file>


-- Stefan

Re: emacsclient: create a new frame if one doesn't exist

[Eddie Hillenbrand]

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On Mar 19, 2012, at 12:57 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote:

> Assuming you manage to get the "reuse frame when possible" to be the
> default behavior, than -c will still let the user choose to force
> creation of a new frame.

I didn't think of that. I like it, that's the way I'll implement it.

>   emacsclient --display "$DISPLAY" <file>

On my machine (Mac OS X) that always creates a tty frame.

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