From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Daniel Brockman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Should killing a help or compile buffer also delete the window? Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 07:45:38 +0200 Message-ID: <87is2c7mnx.fsf@brockman.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1114321504 19468 80.91.229.2 (24 Apr 2005 05:45:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 05:45:04 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Apr 24 07:45:02 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DPZvR-0002Br-DN for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 07:45:01 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DPa0h-0008Nm-JI for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 01:50:27 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DPa0Q-0008NZ-T8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 01:50:11 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DPa0O-0008My-Ae for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 01:50:10 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DPa0O-0008HM-0R for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 01:50:08 -0400 Original-Received: from [80.91.229.2] (helo=ciao.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA:16) (Exim 4.34) id 1DPZyi-0002Yw-5T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 01:48:24 -0400 Original-Received: from root by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1DPZqg-0001wD-SI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 07:40:06 +0200 Original-Received: from c-4db670d5.028-10-67766c2.cust.bredbandsbolaget.se ([213.112.182.77]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 07:40:06 +0200 Original-Received: from daniel by c-4db670d5.028-10-67766c2.cust.bredbandsbolaget.se with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 24 Apr 2005 07:40:06 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-Lines: 40 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: c-4db670d5.028-10-67766c2.cust.bredbandsbolaget.se X-Face: :&2UWGm>e24)ip~'K@iOsA&JT3JX*v@1-#L)=dUb825\Fwg#`^N!Y*g-TqdS AevzjFJe96f@V'ya8${57/T'"mTd`1o{TGYhHnVucLq!D$r2O{IN)7>.0op_Y`%r;/Q +(]`3F-t10N7NF\.Mm0q}p1:%iqTi:5]1E]rDF)R$9.!,Eu'9K':y9^U3F8UCS1M+A$ 8[[[WT^`$P[vu>P+8]aQMh9giu&fPCqLW2FSsGs User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:kKBBi7Gco4xTNej2TZUtxzsKD9M= X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:36319 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:36319 I've always found it annoying that Emacs seems to have a habit of leaving junk windows around whenever you invoke something that needs to display information in a temporary buffer. I think it just gives a really sloppy impression, especially when you aren't used to it. Two of the most common examples might be `M-x compile' and `C-h f'. It also happens with things like `M-x grep' and `M-x locate'. I realize that you can't expect Emacs to know when you are done with a window unless you actually tell when. The obvious way to tell when is to type `C-x 1' or `C-x 0', but this leaves the temporary buffer lingering, which makes me nervous. When I was new to Emacs, I would always kill a garbage buffer before deleting its temporary window. Eventually, I discovered `C-x 4 0' and started using that. As time went by (and I got lazier), I gradually began to accept the fact that you really can't avoid having a bunch of old garbage buffers unless you spend a lot of time chasing them down, so I started just doing `C-x 1', though it always made me feel dirty. Now to the point of this message. Some time ago I started using Dictionary Mode[1], which has caused me to once again pick up the habit of killing temporary buffers. As you might know, killing a dictionary buffer automatically kills the window as well, unless the window was already there when the dictionary buffer was created. This makes a lot of sense to me --- so much sense that the normal Emacs behavior has once again started to annoy me. I believe the Right Thing to do when the user kills a temporary buffer whose window was created as a side-effect of displaying the buffer in question is to restore the old window configuration. At least when the automatically created window hasn't been used for anything else, Emacs should take the hint and get the window out of the user's face. I'm sorry if this is an old argument, or if this is not the right time to discuss this matter. -- Daniel Brockman [1] http://www.myrkr.in-berlin.de/dictionary/