Re: How to get rid of *GNU Emacs* buffer on start-up?

[Xah Lee <xah@xahlee.org>]

On Sep 22, 9:29 am, Nikolaj Schumacher <m...@nschum.de> wrote:
> XahLee<x...@xahlee.org> wrote:
> > many apps, including most browsers and text editor, can start without
> > a window present. (on the Mac)
>
> >  In fact, i think that's most apps behave on the Mac these days. (as
> > opposed to must having a window present. (on Windows, this is somewhat
> > irrelavent since each app are often in its own window with menu bar))
>
> > In AquaMacs for example, you can close all buffers, windows, frames,
> > without quiting the app.
>
> Correct.  That's how apps are supposed to behave on Macs according to
> the human interface guidelines.  It's more document than app based.
>
> However this mechanism can't simply be adapted for other operating
> systems.  On Windows and most X systems, closing the last window is
> expected to terminate the application and there's no way to access a
> window-less application (other than notification area hacks).  So this
> is not a viable solution.

Yes. Though that doesn't constitute a good argument against Untitled
for replacement of *scratch*.

In Windows, emacs can simply start with a Untitled document. Same with
X.

To be a bit complete... let me give a rough describtion about this in
various OS. On Mac (both Find thru the 1990s as well as OS X since
about 2001), as you know, each app has a menu bar at the top of the
screen. In the past, some apps will always have a window. Once you
close the last Window, it is equivalent to quitting the program. That
is, you won't be able to have a menu bar of the app without any
windows. In the history of mac apps, however most apps does not adopt
this approach. That is, you could close all windows and just leave the
app running with nothing but a menu bar. However, as far as my
experience goes, apps that require you to have a window present is
pretty much gone these days. Off hand i cant think of a app now in Mac
that requires you having at least one window present.

In Windows, as most of you know, each app runs inside a window, with
the app's menu in the Window. On Windows, however, there are also 2
different styles though. One is that each window represent a instance
of a running program. The other is that all instance of a app runs
inside one frame of a window. More specifically, each file, document,
etc is represented as a window inside the app's window. This window
within window style is pretty much disppeared as far as i know. (for
those tech geekers who likes to nickpick without regard to the whole,
they will retort that it is not true each instance runs a window...
but i'm just giving a brief, simplified description of the UI style)

In X, used by unixes and linuxes... before about 2000, they are pretty
much chaotic. Only with the inception of KDE and Gnome, where they
basically copied Windows wholesale, then you have a situation pretty
much like Windows where each file or document of a app appears in a
window with the app's menu bar at top of the window.

the above is just some rough description of styles of windows and apps
in Mac, Windows, X. Alan was saying that there must be something
running, possibly as a reason against getting rid of the *scratch*
buffer. I was saying, that it is not necessarily true, and it doesnt
constitute a reason against ridding *scratch* because you can just
have a Untitled doc as in most apps in Mac, Windows, as well as X.

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄