RE: [Emacs-diffs] emacs-24 r117559: Fix bug #18636 with documentation of multi-monitor displays.

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: emacs-devel-bounces+drew.adams=oracle.com@gnu.org
> [mailto:emacs-devel-bounces+drew.adams=oracle.com@gnu.org] On Behalf
> Of Eli Zaretskii
> Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 1:04 PM
> To: Glenn Morris
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: [Emacs-diffs] emacs-24 r117559: Fix bug #18636 with
> documentation of multi-monitor displays.
> 
> > From: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
> > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 15:52:31 -0400
> >
> > Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >
> > > +Position of the top-left corner and size of the work area in
> pixels as
> > > +@samp{(@var{x} @var{y} @var{width} @var{height})}.  This is
> different
> > > +from @samp{geometry} in that the various system windows, such
> as the
> > > +task bar and side bar, are excluded from the work area.
> >
> > There were very few previous mentions of "task bar" in Emacs, but
> all
> > were written as "taskbar" rather than "task bar".
> 
> AFAIK, "taskbar" is a non-word.  In any case, these are terms from
> outside world that users are well familiar with, so we don't need to
> worry how much we use them in our manuals or how exactly we spell
> them.
> 
> > I also think the details here are likely to be OS-specific. I
> think
> > "taskbar" is mainly a MS-Windows term?
> 
> I don't think so (AFAIR, KDE at least uses that term as well), but
> feel free to add whatever other terms are used for that thing.
> 
> > Eg on X with XFCE, the equivalent would be "panels", I guess, and
> > these have zero affect: geometry == workarea.
> 
> There's nothing in what I wrote that contradicts the possibility
> that
> workarea geometry is identical to the whole screen.  In fact, on any
> monitor but the primary one, this is always the case, at least on
> Windows.
> 
> > "side bar" was never mentioned before now.
> 
> It's popular terminology, not something specific to Emacs.
> 
> > I would suggest maybe rewording this to be less definitive, and
> > basically just say that the precise details are likely to be
> > OS-specific.
> 
> I found it very hard to be OS-agnostic here and still convey the
> ideas.  The whole issue is obscure (the fact that not many systems
> have more than one monitor doesn't help), and its previous
> description
> was more confusing than enlightening.  Feel free to improve, of
> course, but I rather think we should add terminology from other
> platforms, not remove what's already there, as doing the latter will
> make it obscure again.

BTW, what is the reason for the order we have among the `geometry'
and `workarea' components?  Why not use the same order as for the
X Window `geometry' spec?

X Window `geometry': -geometry WIDTHxHEIGHT+XOFF+YOFF
Emacs `geometry': X Y WIDTH HEIGHT

I presume that the component values are the same for Emacs as for
the X Window spec (are they exactly the same things?), but we
start with X(OFF) and Y(OFF) instead of WIDTH and HEIGHT.