Re: [Emacs-diffs] emacs-24 r117559: Fix bug #18636 with documentation of multi-monitor displays.

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 15:52:31 -0400
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> > +Position of the top-left corner and size of the work area in pixels as
> > +@samp{(@var{x} @var{y} @var{width} @var{height})}.  This is different
> > +from @samp{geometry} in that the various system windows, such as the
> > +task bar and side bar, are excluded from the work area.
> 
> There were very few previous mentions of "task bar" in Emacs, but all
> were written as "taskbar" rather than "task bar".

AFAIK, "taskbar" is a non-word.  In any case, these are terms from
outside world that users are well familiar with, so we don't need to
worry how much we use them in our manuals or how exactly we spell
them.

> I also think the details here are likely to be OS-specific. I think
> "taskbar" is mainly a MS-Windows term?

I don't think so (AFAIR, KDE at least uses that term as well), but
feel free to add whatever other terms are used for that thing.

> Eg on X with XFCE, the equivalent would be "panels", I guess, and
> these have zero affect: geometry == workarea.

There's nothing in what I wrote that contradicts the possibility that
workarea geometry is identical to the whole screen.  In fact, on any
monitor but the primary one, this is always the case, at least on
Windows.

> "side bar" was never mentioned before now.

It's popular terminology, not something specific to Emacs.

> I would suggest maybe rewording this to be less definitive, and
> basically just say that the precise details are likely to be
> OS-specific.

I found it very hard to be OS-agnostic here and still convey the
ideas.  The whole issue is obscure (the fact that not many systems
have more than one monitor doesn't help), and its previous description
was more confusing than enlightening.  Feel free to improve, of
course, but I rather think we should add terminology from other
platforms, not remove what's already there, as doing the latter will
make it obscure again.