How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Adam Sjøgren]

This is probably a stupid question, but when I start emacs I can use the
-geometry option to specify the size and position of the frame created.

If I create a new frame with emacsclient --create-frame I can't use
-geometry (and get a puny little window in my setup):

  /usr/bin/emacsclient: unrecognized option '-geometry'

How come?


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's        Adam Sjøgren
  never so bad that it can't get worse."                 asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Glenn Morris]

Adam Sjøgren wrote:

>   /usr/bin/emacsclient: unrecognized option '-geometry'

Try --frame-parameters instead.

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:04:21 -0500, Glenn wrote:

> Adam Sjøgren wrote:

>> /usr/bin/emacsclient: unrecognized option '-geometry'

> Try --frame-parameters instead.

  $ emacsclient --create-frame --frame-parameters 120x40+10+20
  Waiting for Emacs...
  *ERROR*: Wrong type argument: listp, 120x40+10+20
  $ 

Anyway, that wasn't really an answer to the question.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's        Adam Sjøgren
  never so bad that it can't get worse."                 asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren)
> Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:38:56 +0100
> 
> On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:04:21 -0500, Glenn wrote:
> 
> > Adam Sjøgren wrote:
> 
> >> /usr/bin/emacsclient: unrecognized option '-geometry'
> 
> > Try --frame-parameters instead.
> 
>   $ emacsclient --create-frame --frame-parameters 120x40+10+20
>   Waiting for Emacs...
>   *ERROR*: Wrong type argument: listp, 120x40+10+20
>   $ 

From "emacsclient --help":

  -F ALIST, --frame-parameters=ALIST
			  Set the parameters of a new frame

Emacsclient expects you to specify the geometry as an alist, not as an
X-style geometry spec.

> Anyway, that wasn't really an answer to the question.

It wasn't?  Why not?

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Tassilo Horn]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> > Adam Sjøgren wrote:
>> 
>> >> /usr/bin/emacsclient: unrecognized option '-geometry'
>> 
>> > Try --frame-parameters instead.
> [...]
>
> Emacsclient expects you to specify the geometry as an alist, not as an
> X-style geometry spec.
>
>> Anyway, that wasn't really an answer to the question.
>
> It wasn't?  Why not?

Well, the more general question is, why is the command line interface of
emacsclient not consistent with the command line interface of emacs, at
least in the cases where they could?

emacs has tons of "Display options" that specify the appearance of its X
frame, while emacsclient has not.

To try to give some answer: The emacs display options affect all frames
you are going to create from that instance, i.e., emacs --reverse-video
followed by C-x 5 2 will create another X frame in reverse video.  In
the emacsclient -c case, you'd probably only want to set the frame
parameters of exactly that frame.  Furthermore, emacsclient has 3
different invocation styles:

  1) use an existing frame: In that case, those options should probably
     be ignored
  2) create a new terminal frame: In that case, many options are not
     applicable at all, e.g., --geometry is not, but --reverse-video is
     ok
  3) create a new X frame: Only here the options would be generally
     applicable (but with different semantics as in the emacs case)

Well, that basically says only that it's probably quite some work to add
those options and handle all possible cases, so that nobody has
implemented it yet. :-)

Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
(What the world needs (I think) is not
      (a Lisp (with fewer parentheses))
      but (an English (with more.)))
Brian Hayes, http://tinyurl.com/3y9l2kf

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org>
> Cc: asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren),  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2011 14:35:20 +0100
> 
> Well, that basically says only that it's probably quite some work to add
> those options and handle all possible cases, so that nobody has
> implemented it yet. :-)

Exactly.  Patches are welcome, though.

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 06:25:41 -0500, Eli wrote:

> Emacsclient expects you to specify the geometry as an alist, not as an
> X-style geometry spec.

So '--frame-parameters' is another way of accomplishing the same goal -
specifying the geometry of a new frame.

>> Anyway, that wasn't really an answer to the question.

> It wasn't?  Why not?

What I was asking was why -geometry isn't accepted.

What you and Glenn Morris answered was something close, but slightly
different, see?

I am very happy to learn how to accomplish the goal - thank you both! -
but I'd _also_ like to know why emacsclient --create-frame doesn't
support -geometry.

If it is because it is wrong for emacsclient to do so, or because it has
been decided at some point that it mustn't, there is no point in looking
into adding that option.

If it is just because I am the only person who is too lazy to look up
the syntax for '--frame-parameters', yet still annoying enough to ask
about it, maybe there would.

I have been down the rabbithole of implementing features that only I
want, and - more importantly, others explicitly don't want, a couple of
times too many, so that is why I ask.


  Best regards,

     Adam

-- 
 "Industrispionasj"                                           Adam Sjøgren
 "Appelsinfromasj"                                       asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Glenn Morris]

Adam Sjøgren wrote:

> Anyway, that wasn't really an answer to the question.

The literal answer to the question wasn't very interesting.

Q1:
    /usr/bin/emacsclient: unrecognized option '-geometry'

    How come?

A1: Because emacsclient does not have a --geometry option.


Q2: Why doesn't emacsclient have a --geometry option?

A2: Because no-one has written one.


Q3: How do I control the size and position of a frame created by
emacsclient?

A3: Use the --frame-parameters option.


I thought question 3 was the only non-trivial one.

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:48:53 -0500, Glenn wrote:

> The literal answer to the question wasn't very interesting.

[...Q1/A1 snipped...]

> Q2: Why doesn't emacsclient have a --geometry option?

> A2: Because no-one has written one.

That was what I was trying to ask.

I'm not a native English speaker, I do think that is the most obvious
answer to the question "How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't
understand -geometry?" is to explain why it doesn't.

_If_ there was a reason (technical, design decision, or what have you)
the answer would have been an explanation of why. If there isn't, it
might make sense to think about taking a crack at whipping one up.

> Q3: How do I control the size and position of a frame created by
> emacsclient?

> A3: Use the --frame-parameters option.

> I thought question 3 was the only non-trivial one.

It doesn't answer the question of whether it makes sense to spend time
implementing -geometry or not, which depends on why it doesn't support
it already, at least in my - perhaps twisted - mind.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "In his words, Emacs is elegant, UNIX arcane."               Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Glenn Morris]

Adam Sjøgren wrote:

> _If_ there was a reason (technical, design decision, or what have you)
> the answer would have been an explanation of why. If there isn't, it
> might make sense to think about taking a crack at whipping one up.

Sorry. I'm not aware of any previous discussions of whether or not
emacsclient should have a --geometry argument. It would probably be in
one of the emacs mailing list archives somewhere if it had happened.

Personally I'm not sure there is a need for a specialized --geometry
argument, since it would just do a subset of what -F does.

Re: How come emacsclient --create-frame doesn't understand -geometry?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Glenn Morris writes:

 > Personally I'm not sure there is a need for a specialized --geometry
 > argument, since it would just do a subset of what -F does.

It's a very convenient abbreviation, especially since the syntax of
--frame-parameters requires quoting.

FWIW, XEmacs's gnuclient doesn't accept -geometry either, and the
reason it's not been done yet is as somebody explained earlier: it's
non-trivial to port the main program's code to handle it because that
code is set up to install it as the default for all future frames.

Steve