bug#30692: list-buffers has hardwired 80 character width from the 80's

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Cc: jidanni@jidanni.org,  30692@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:51:40 +0200
> 
> It wouldn't change how the file name is displayed at all -- it would
> continue to be truncated by the window width (i.e., it "pokes out").
> 
> As the "formula" today is that the file name takes about half the window,
> my proposed change would continue to keep that ratio (at least).  That
> is, if you make the window 100 characters wide, the buffer name would
> grow from 19 to...  (let's see)...  25-ish, and the file's visible area
> would increase from 40-ish to 55-ish.

So, as one makes the window wider, instead of using the additional
space to display more of the file name, we will use it to display more
of the buffer name?  Even if none of the buffer names is truncated?

> > In general, I'd say that we should be smarter about how we produce the
> > shortened versions of these long names, because I think otherwise
> > whatever we do there will be a scenario where the important part(s)
> > are hidden.  Which really is the single interesting part of this bug
> > report, if you ignore the "from the 80's" part, which is just a
> > teaser.
> 
> That would also be nice, but I think kinda orthogonal to this issue?

Not to me: if we could find a way to show the buffers in a way that
makes the differences between similar names apparent, maybe there
wouldn't be a need to make the buffer name wider.  But it's fine with
me not to handle the latter (and harder) issue for now.