way to discriminate between Emacs.app or terminal launch of Emacs in init.el

way to discriminate between Emacs.app or terminal launch of Emacs in init.el

[christopherpenrose]

I would like to have a logic switch in init.el that either detects that I am launching via Terminal in OS X or launching via Emacs.app on OS X. Is there a way to do this?

I am quite happy using Emacs in a terminal, and am often inconvenienced using Emacs.app for all my emacs needs, despite netsperts who proclaim that I am gimping myself.

Re: way to discriminate between Emacs.app or terminal launch of Emacs in init.el

[christopherpenrose]

For now I am simply using emacs-version in a conditional. Yosemite still has Emacs 22 and I can simply use that as a distinction for now.  Is there a terminal type variable or such that might work better?

Re: way to discriminate between Emacs.app or terminal launch of Emacs in init.el

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

christopherpenrose@gmail.com writes:

> I would like to have a logic switch in init.el that either detects
> that I am launching via Terminal in OS X or launching via Emacs.app on
> OS X. Is there a way to do this?
>
> I am quite happy using Emacs in a terminal, and am often
> inconvenienced using Emacs.app for all my emacs needs, despite
> netsperts who proclaim that I am gimping myself.


You can use window-system
It'll be nil in the terminal, and ns for Emacs.app.
Other values are possible.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                 http://www.informatimago.com/
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a
dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to
keep the man from touching the equipment.” -- Carl Bass CEO Autodesk

RE: way to discriminate between Emacs.app or terminal launch of Emacs in init.el

[Drew Adams]

> > I am quite happy using Emacs in a terminal, and am often
> > inconvenienced using Emacs.app for all my emacs needs, despite
> > netsperts who proclaim that I am gimping myself. 
> 
> You can use window-system
> It'll be nil in the terminal, and ns for Emacs.app.
> Other values are possible.

I think this is what's recommended, but I can't tell you why
`display-graphic-p' is supposed to be better here. ;-)

(if (fboundp 'display-graphic-p)
    (display-graphic-p)
  window-system)

Re: way to discriminate between Emacs.app or terminal launch of Emacs in init.el

[Stefan Monnier]

> I think this is what's recommended, but I can't tell you why
> `display-graphic-p' is supposed to be better here. ;-)

The "better" is mostly for Elisp packages.  One of the reasons is that
it takes an argument, so it can check whether a given frame is graphical
or is a tty (after all, a single Emacs session can have both).
The other is that window-system can have value `pc' when running in the
FreeDOS port, and that port does not offer graphics mode.

In the use case of the OP, it probably just doesn't matter.


        Stefan

Re: way to discriminate between Emacs.app or terminal launch of Emacs in init.el

[Alexis]

christopherpenrose@gmail.com writes:

> I would like to have a logic switch in init.el that either 
> detects that I am launching via Terminal in OS X or launching 
> via Emacs.app on OS X. Is there a way to do this?

i'm on Debian Linux, but i use `framep` to detect whether i'm 
starting `emacsclient` from X or from the console:

    (framep OBJECT) 
 
    Return non-nil if OBJECT is a frame.  Value is: 
      t for a termcap frame (a character-only terminal), 
     'x' for an Emacs frame that is really an X window, 'w32' for 
     an Emacs frame that is a window on MS-Windows display, 'ns' 
     for an Emacs frame on a GNUstep or Macintosh Cocoa display, 
     'pc' for a direct-write MS-DOS frame.


Alexis.