bug#25946: 26.0.50; display-buffer ignores ignores reusable-frames in display-buffer-alist

[Jens Lechtenboerger <lechten@wi.uni-muenster.de>]

Hi there,

I fail to get display-buffer-alist working.

Recipe starting from 'emacs -Q':
Eval this expression:
(customize-set-variable
 'display-buffer-alist
 '(("\\*shell\\*"
    . (display-buffer-pop-up-frame . '((reusable-frames . t))))))
M-x shell
A shell frame opens as expected.
M-x shell
A new frame is opened, while I expected the existing one to be
reused.

Actually, I'm sure that I do not understand the documentation for
display-buffer (redirected from display-buffer-alist).  Maybe that
is a separate bug.

In previous versions of Emacs, I used special-display-buffer-names,
which is obsolete now and points to the variable used above,
display-buffer-alist.  It would be great if the documentation for
that variable explained what to do.  In particular, I would like the
frame to be special/dedicated such that it disappears if the buffer
is killed.  Is that lack of documentation a separate bug?

Best wishes
Jens


In GNU Emacs 26.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2017-02-24 built on debian-8
Repository revision: 91932fff1ded8ed3b4d39dd06891f26960153b9e