Re: Annoying change in "other window" behavior

[MBR <mbr@arlsoft.com>]

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On 8/23/2011 4:26 AM, suvayu ali wrote:
> In any case these commands have always used the other-window. I will 
> have to say you either had some special configuration which is not
> working with Emacs 23 or you remember incorrectly.
>
> I just tested this with Emacs 21.4.1.
>
I'm sure I'm not remembering incorrectly because I still have both 
installations.  I recently installed Ubuntu in a separate partition on 
my laptop.  Emacs 21.3.1 runs when I boot Windows XP, and Emacs 23.2.1 
runs when I boot Ubuntu.  The behavior differences I'm describing should 
all be implemented in Lisp, and should therefore not depend in any way 
on the OS under which Emacs is running.

I did discover something more about 23.2.1's behavior after I posted.  
It seems the behavior depends on the width of the top-level window (what 
Emacs calls a "frame").  If I have two vertically-stacked Emacs windows 
in a small Emacs frame and type C-x C-b, *Buffer List* is displayed in 
the other pre-existing Emacs window.  But if I have the same two 
vertically-stacked Emacs windows in a large Emacs frame (I frequently 
work with one Emacs frame maximized) when I type C-x C-b, instead of 
displaying *Buffer List* in the other pre-existing Emacs window, it 
behaves as if I'd run M-x split-window-horizontally before running M-x 
list-buffers.

Just to be sure, I double-checked 21.3.1's behavior (i.e. the old 
version), and it doesn't do this.  Unless it's starting with only one 
Emacs window and has no choice but to split it into two, it always 
reuses a pre-existing Emacs window.

So, there can be no doubt that somebody added a new feature that makes 
this window-splitting behavior dependent on the width of the frame, 
which it never used to be.  I'd really like to turn this feature off.

    Mark


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