Re: Infrastructural complexity.

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

>> Yes, I meant to save window configurations across sessions in
>> ~/.emacs.desktop.  There are corresponding tasks in etc/TODO:
>>
>> ** Make desktop.el save the "frame configuration" of Emacs (in some
>>   useful sense).
>
> Did anyone ever specify what the "useful sense" of saving a frame
> configuration is?

I guess "useful" means an ability to restore a frame configuration
to the state that was before saving.

>> ** Give desktop.el a feature to switch between different named
>>   desktops.
>
> I don't use desktop so I suppose this means to let the user choose (at
> the beginning of a session) among different saved desktops.  Does
> this have any peculiar relevance for window configurations (as soon as
> it has been resolved in a more general sense)?

I misread this task as "a feature to switch between different named
frame configurations" that makes sense for the current discussion.

>> ECB layout definitions are powerful but rely on `defadvice' and
>> IMO they are over-complicated.
>
> Removing the defadvice dependency is a goal of the window groups
> concepts.  In what sense are ECB layouts over-complicated?

ECB layouts are too specific to the code browser and can't be used
stand-alone that would be a useful feature.  But there are many good
ideas in ECB.  It uses procedural definitions for layouts like:

(ecb-layout-define "left1" left
  (ecb-set-directories-buffer)
  (ecb-split-ver 0.3)
  (ecb-set-sources-buffer)
  (ecb-split-ver 0.5)
  (ecb-set-methods-buffer)
  (select-window (previous-window))
  (ecb-split-hor 0.5)
  (ecb-set-history-buffer)
  (select-window (next-window (next-window))))

Such procedural definitions insure that created and restored
window trees will be the same.  Maybe desktop.el should try
saving window trees with similar procedural structures where
content of each restored window will be filled with either
a file or the result of `desktop-buffer-mode-handlers'.
I mean replacing `ecb-set-directories-buffer', `ecb-set-sources-buffer',
`ecb-set-methods-buffer' in the example above with a single call
to `desktop-create-buffer'.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/