Re: managing windows in two frames

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>]

>> `display-buffer' decisions are currently not based on a prefix argument
>> given.
> Right; that's new. I find it very convenient.

But it's fundamentally broken (the prefix arg is an argument to the
command being run, and the relationship between the command being run
and the call to `display-buffer' can be arbitrary).
IOW it's perfectly fine for personal use but we can't use that in
lisp/window.el.

>> Maybe we can reconcile your idea with Stefan's proposal to use
>> special prefixes for `display-buffer'-based functions.
> Searching the emacs-devel archives, I found:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2011-09/msg00299.html
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2011-08/msg00481.html
> That doesn't give a very concrete proposal; can provide a better link?

Make C-x 5 a prefix key which sets display-buffer-overriding-action for
the duration of the next command.

So C-x 5 C-x C-f will do the same as what you currently get with C-x 5 f
(of course, we'd also preserve a C-x 5 f binding for backward
compatibility, and we wouldn't need find-file-other-frame any more,
although we'd also have to keep it for backward compatibility).

Of course, other such prefixes could be used, such as C-x 4.  And as
Martin mentions, we'd want one that can say "display in current
window".  That should be no harder to define than C-x 4 or C-x 5.

More generally you could define such a prefix key that lets you specify
a particular window to use in the next command.


        Stefan