Re: split-window-preferred-function

[martin rudalics <rudalics@gmx.at>]

 > What would that do?

The same as `split-height-threshold' - horizontally spoken ;-)

 > Judging from the name I think it would inhibit splitting if the
 > resulting window would be smaller than that threshold and reuse the
 > least recently used window instead.  I'd welcome such a feature (I
 > usually don't want windows that are smaller than 80 columns), but
 > wouldn't we need the same for height, too?

We have that already but hardly anyone is aware of it.  Its default
value is 500 (lines, nota bene).  The purpose of these variables is
trivial: Windows less than that are not split by `display-buffer'.

 > Additionally we might need something like `split-window-special-regexp'
 > for buffers that should not obey this threshold.  For example I can
 > imagine that a minimum width of 80 columns is not what users expect for
 > a buffer displaying a speedbar-like file tree.  But maybe that's not
 > needed if all modes that use such special buffers call `split-window'
 > with explicit `size' parameter.

We'd probably have `display-buffer' obey buffer-local values.  All this
can be written easier as soon as `display-buffer' is available in Elisp.