Re: Should ending successful Isearch with C-g restore the relative window position?

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: <dmoncayo@gmail.com>, <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 06:58:49 -0800
> 
> > Recentering is the default, always was.
> 
> Just the _default_?
> 
> Does that mean that there is a simple user setting that changes the behavior
> from the default so that it returns things as they were before searching?

I doubt that.  You could try scroll-preserve-screen-position, but it
doesn't do a perfect job, and I'm not even sure it will change
anything in the situation you described.

What I meant by "is the default, always was" is that the recentering
behavior was originally the only one available, so it predates any
scroll-* variables; therefore, it is small wonder that you find this
behavior in old versions of Emacs, where the scroll-* variables aren't
available or behave differently.

The non-default behavior, triggered by customizing some of the
scroll-* variables, can put point on the first or the last window line
(depending on the direction of movement), or make sure point is never
too close to the window edge.  But that's about all.  Emacs was never
programmed to predictably return to the same place on the screen (and
it isn't easy, either, due to variable fonts).