Re: Emacs bindings in other programs

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Martin Rubey <axiomize@yahoo.de> writes:

> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
>> > What happens to me all the time is that I hit C-x b and expect emacs
>> > switch to the dvi or pdf viewer, or konqueror or whatever, or, if in such
>> > an application, switch back to emacs...
>> 
>> With doc-view.el you can view your dvi/pdf files directly inside Emacs.
>
> Yes, but I'm really after something else.  There will always be applications
> that are "outside" of emacs but nevertheless great to use.
>
> Apart from that, I'd be surprised if docview were as fast as a traditional
> viewer for larger documents.  (Especially when I'm editing them, so caching
> won't help)
>
> Martin

Note that you can call other X apps from within emacs as a sub-process, you
just can't run them 'within' emacs itself. The downside is that you don't
get real integration. for example, auctex will start xdvi to view a dvi
file, browse-url can start/send urls to an external browser and I think
there are a couple of packages out there that can be used to cause dired to
open specific viewers for certain file types. Many emacs mail readers also
support this for mime types that cannot be shown natively in
emacs. However, because its not truely integrated into emacs, you cannot do
things like switch to the buffer with the normal (or even add-on) buffer
switching mechanisms. 

I've taken a slightly different approach. I'm running the sawfish window
manager, which is written in 'rep', a lisp/scheme like window manager that
is extensible in a similar way to emacs. I use its mechanisms to switch
workspaces, apps, windows etc. I also have some integration between emacs
and sawfish.

Tim



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