definitely a newbie question

definitely a newbie question

[Robert P. J. Day]

  just started with emacs, and it's not clear how, if i have
more than one window up already, how, in one operation, i can
open a new file in a *new* additional window.

  if i have just one window up, then "C-x 4 f <filename>"
(find-file-other-window) will split the screen horizontally
and open that second file.

  however, if i try this on a third file, it will just replace
the contents of the other window, rather than splitting the
screen into three windows, which is what i want.

  is there a way to do this easily?  or should i first split
one of the existing windows, then switch to an alternate file
in one of those windows?

rday

Re: definitely a newbie question

[Todd Kokoszka]

On Sun 22 Sep 2002 at 15:05:27 -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> 
>   just started with emacs, and it's not clear how, if i have
> more than one window up already, how, in one operation, i can
> open a new file in a *new* additional window.
> 
>   if i have just one window up, then "C-x 4 f <filename>"
> (find-file-other-window) will split the screen horizontally
> and open that second file.
> 
>   however, if i try this on a third file, it will just replace
> the contents of the other window, rather than splitting the
> screen into three windows, which is what i want.
> 

Emacs uses a buffer for each file. If you have one window open and want to
open another file, you can just C-x C-f and it will replace the active
buffer with the buffer of the file you found. If you type C-x b, you can
switch to a different buffer. It defaults to the most recent buffer. 

If you want to look at both files at once, you can type C-x 2 which will
split the window in 2 and this can display one buffer in each. C-x o will
allow you to switch between these two buffers. 

You should use C-h i to get to the info reader in Emacs and choose the
Emacs section. Look at the section Major Structures of Emacs, including
Files, Windows and Buffers. 

Todd

>   is there a way to do this easily?  or should i first split
> one of the existing windows, then switch to an alternate file
> in one of those windows?
> 
> rday
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Help-gnu-emacs mailing list
> Help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs
> 

RE: definitely a newbie question

[Tom Davey]

Robert P. J. Day writes:

>   just started with emacs, and it's not clear how, if i have 
> more than one window up already, how, in one operation, i can 
> open a new file in a *new* additional window.

Hmm. I did a quick scan of the manuals and doc strings, and it's not
clear to me either. 

>   is there a way to do this easily?  or should i first split 
> one of the existing windows, then switch to an alternate file 
> in one of those windows?

I think you've come up with the quickest method short of writing a
custom function. It would seem to be easy to alter
find-file-other-window to create an additional window no matter how many
windows already exist. I'm a newbie myself, though, so I wouldn't be
surprised is somebody else on this excellent list has a better answer. 

-- 
Tom Davey
tom@tomdavey.com
blog: http://www.monstersfromtheid.com/

Re: definitely a newbie question

[Kai Großjohann]

"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com> writes:

>   is there a way to do this easily?  or should i first split
> one of the existing windows, then switch to an alternate file
> in one of those windows?

Surely the easiest way is to always do C-x 2 C-x 4 f.

kai
-- 
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