RE: ipa and ispell

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

>  > While inserting an annotation, I used ispell to check a 
>  > word, it worked several times (I think) and then
>  > subsequently, the debugger was entered
>  > after ispell's correct spelling message:
>  >
>  > Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Attempt to split 
>  > minibuffer window") split-window(nil 2)
> 
> We have to fix that eventually,

We do? Fix what? Fix ispell? OK. Change Emacs to handle attempts to split the
minibuffer window other than by raising an error? No - why?.

> maybe using a new function to pop up a
> window below all "normal" windows just above the minibuffer-window, or
> by popping up a new frame, or by temporarily replacing the contents of
> the minibuffer-window or some other window.

I didn't follow this thread - apologies if I misunderstand. But I wonder about
the need you claim.

Can't the code in question (in this case presumably ispell) just check whether
the window it would normally split is a minibuffer window and then DTRT itself,
whatever that might be? 

Your proposed solutions are actions that ispell itself might decide to take. If
user input is needed at that point, it could enter a recursive minibuffer. If it
is just a matter of displaying information, there are plenty of ways to do that
- bind `pop-up-windows' or `pop-up-frames', split some other window than the
minibuffer, put info in the mode-line or a tool-tip, use `message' or
`minibuffer-message'...

I don't see the need for something special here, and I don't see a general Emacs
bug or a missing needed feature. Sounds like an ispell bug, instead. If code
blindly attempts to split the minibuffer window, then that code should just be
changed to DTRT, no?

I don't see it as _imperative_ ("we have to fix that") for Emacs to do something
special if a program tries to split the minibuffer window.