From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Two GTK related feature requests Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:43:43 +0000 (UTC) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1066827391 16580 80.91.224.253 (22 Oct 2003 12:56:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:56:31 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Wed Oct 22 14:56:27 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ACIXL-0004d9-00 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 2003 14:56:27 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1ACIXK-0005MY-00 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 2003 14:56:27 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1ACIUH-0006AB-0C for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:53:17 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1ACIMZ-0000Yz-Ac for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:45:19 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1ACILg-0000FS-Lx for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:44:57 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.114.245] (helo=rattlesnake.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1ACIL4-0008Ri-BF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:43:46 -0400 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.115) Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:43:43 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:17334 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:17334 * "Tabbed editing". People using modern web browsers will know what I mean. It is very addictive. Essentially it would add buttons at the top of the Emacs window, one button for each buffer. Clicking on one button will change focus to that buffer. ... To try this out, I am using tabbar.el from http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/emhacks/tabbar-1.3.tar.gz The user interface created by tabbar.el does not scale. Right now I have 41 open buffers, which is fewer than usual. To see the various groups of files, I need a window width of 125 characters To see the file names in just the `text' group, I need a window that is 147 characters wide. My normal window width is the conventional 80 characters. The `tabbed editing' notion is interesting but I am not sure that any of the obvious solutions work in the long run. For example, one could fill the tab line when needed, so that characters to the right of the fill-column are moved down to another line. But this suggestion uses up screen real estate. Newbies will say that they never keep more than a dozen buffers open at once and that the current method will work for them -- but it is awkward to design features that work for newbies and fail as the newbies become more expert. A vertical list is a possibility. That is what `list-buffers' provides, as does clicking on the `Buffers' item in the menu bar. Unfortunately, even now, with only 41 open buffers, my menu bar `Buffers' list runs out the bottom of the screen (it has a little arrow at the bottom) -- this makes this feature less convenient than the buffer list provided by buff-menu.el. In windows, such as X, perhaps the names could be put in another frame, like speedbar does. However, speedbar does not scale well either -- not for my directories -- but might work on a `tabbed' buffer list, since the number of open buffers is likely to be smaller than the number of files in a directory. (For example, in one directory right now I have 2361 personal `how-to-*' files, including backups, but as I said, only 41 open buffers.) Because it does not scale, I do not use speedbar; consequently, I do not know the advantages or disadvantages of this possibility. -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.teak.cc bob@rattlesnake.com