want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Walter Gillett]

This bug report will be sent to the Free Software Foundation,
not to your local site managers!
Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not have
translators to read other languages for them.

Your bug report will be posted to the bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org mailing list,
and to the gnu.emacs.bug news group.

In GNU Emacs 21.4.1 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
of 2005-05-18 on decompose.build.redhat.com
configured using `configure  --build=i386-redhat-linux 
--host=i386-redhat-linux --target=i386-redhat-linux-gnu --program-prefix= 
--prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin 
--sysconfdir=/etc --datadir=/usr/share --includedir=/usr/include 
--libdir=/usr/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec --localstatedir=/var 
--sharedstatedir=/usr/com --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info 
--with-pop --with-sound'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

With Emacs 21.4, when I hit Ctrl-X Ctrl-B to list all buffers, for example, 
I always get a vertical split whereas with a widescreen monitor, a 
horizontal split would be better.  My understanding from the GNU mailing 
list (see 
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2005-11/msg00630.html) is 
that this behavior is hardwired into the function pop-to-buffer and cannot 
be easily changed.  Would be great to have an option to customize this 
behavior.

-Walter Gillett

Recent input:
d o w - h o z <backspace> r i z o n t a l l Y & <backspace>
<backspace> y ) <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left>
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> C-k C-y <return>
C-x 1 <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1>
<return> C-y C-x C-s C-x <escape> <escape> <up> <up>
<return> C-x C-b C-x 1 <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <down-mouse-1>
<mouse-1> M-x b u g SPC <backspace> <backspace> <backspace>
r e p o SPC r t - e m SPC b u SPC <return>

Recent messages:
Wrote /home/wgillett/.emacs
Loading /home/wgillett/.emacs...
Loading advice...done
Loading /home/wgillett/.emacs...done
#<window 13 on .emacs>
Mark set
Wrote /home/wgillett/.emacs
Loading /home/wgillett/.emacs...done
Making completion list...
Loading emacsbug...done

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Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Juri Linkov]

> With Emacs 21.4, when I hit Ctrl-X Ctrl-B to list all buffers, for
> example, I always get a vertical split whereas with a widescreen
> monitor, a horizontal split would be better.  My understanding from
> the GNU mailing list (see
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2005-11/msg00630.html)
> is that this behavior is hardwired into the function pop-to-buffer and
> cannot be easily changed.  Would be great to have an option to
> customize this behavior.

I have a patch that implements such an option, and I have been using it
without problems for more than one year.  I refrained from submitting it
for adding to Emacs CVS due to the feature freeze.  During this time
users contacted me privately asking me to send them my patch.

So now I see that not including it to the next release would be a big
mistake.  More and more people have wide-screen monitors, and hardwiring
the current default is very annoying for them.

I could submit my patch to emacs-devel for review.

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

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertical

[Walter Gillett]

Juri-

That would be great, thanks!

-Walter

From: Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>
To: "Walter Gillett" <walter_gillett@hotmail.com>
CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally 
not vertically
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 11:19:09 +0200

 > With Emacs 21.4, when I hit Ctrl-X Ctrl-B to list all buffers, for
 > example, I always get a vertical split whereas with a widescreen
 > monitor, a horizontal split would be better.  My understanding from
 > the GNU mailing list (see
 > http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2005-11/msg00630.html)
 > is that this behavior is hardwired into the function pop-to-buffer and
 > cannot be easily changed.  Would be great to have an option to
 > customize this behavior.

I have a patch that implements such an option, and I have been using it
without problems for more than one year.  I refrained from submitting it
for adding to Emacs CVS due to the feature freeze.  During this time
users contacted me privately asking me to send them my patch.

So now I see that not including it to the next release would be a big
mistake.  More and more people have wide-screen monitors, and hardwiring
the current default is very annoying for them.

I could submit my patch to emacs-devel for review.

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

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Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertical

[Sebastian Tennant]

"Walter Gillett" <walter_gillett@hotmail.com> writes:

> Juri-
> 
> That would be great, thanks!
> 
> -Walter

Just in case... have you heard of iswitchb?

Forgive me if you have.

Just add

  (iswitchb-mode 1)

somewhere in your ~/.emacs and observe the changed behaviour.

(list-buffers) is mapped to `C-x C-b', so you can still use it, and `C-x b' is
now mapped to (iswitchb-buffer).  Cycle forward and back through buffers in the
echo area using C-s and C-r.  Select them with <RET>, kill them with C-k.  Add
patterns to iswtich-buffer-ignore if they needn't be listed.

It's far less disruptive and just as functional in my opinion.

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertical

[Walter Gillett]

No, I hadn't heard of iswitchb -- thanks. Certainly useful but doesn't 
address the problem I'm thinking about, namely the ability to globally set 
the window splitting behavior when a command needs to split the window to 
show a buffer. A specific example I'm thinking of is the SVN front-end, 
psvn.el (see http://www.xsteve.at/prg/emacs/). When you run svn-diff via 
this utility, it always splits the window vertically, because it calls the 
built-in function pop-to-buffer, and that's what pop-to-buffer always does 
(today). I was able to work around this by hacking psvn.el locally & 
replacing the call to pop-to-buffer with code that splits horizontally, but 
clearly it would be more convenient, elegant, and broadly useful if the 
behavior of pop-to-buffer could be configurable.

-Walter

From: Sebastian Tennant <sebyte@smolny.plus.com>
To: "Walter Gillett" <walter_gillett@hotmail.com>
CC: juri@jurta.org,  bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally 
not vertical
Date: 15 Dec 2005 22:01:30 +0000

"Walter Gillett" <walter_gillett@hotmail.com> writes:

 > Juri-
 >
 > That would be great, thanks!
 >
 > -Walter

Just in case... have you heard of iswitchb?

Forgive me if you have.

Just add

   (iswitchb-mode 1)

somewhere in your ~/.emacs and observe the changed behaviour.

(list-buffers) is mapped to `C-x C-b', so you can still use it, and `C-x b' 
is
now mapped to (iswitchb-buffer).  Cycle forward and back through buffers in 
the
echo area using C-s and C-r.  Select them with <RET>, kill them with C-k.  
Add
patterns to iswtich-buffer-ignore if they needn't be listed.

It's far less disruptive and just as functional in my opinion.

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® 
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Richard M. Stallman]

    So now I see that not including it to the next release would be a big
    mistake.  More and more people have wide-screen monitors, and hardwiring
    the current default is very annoying for them.

I really don't want to add new features.  Sometimes I agree to
redesign new features so that don't get their first release in
suboptimal form.  And sometimes I agree to fix a bug in a way that
includes a new Lisp-level feature, because there's no other way.

But I try to avoid that when it can be avoided, and this is an
occasion when it can be avoided.

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Juri Linkov]

>     So now I see that not including it to the next release would be a big
>     mistake.  More and more people have wide-screen monitors, and hardwiring
>     the current default is very annoying for them.
>
> I really don't want to add new features.  Sometimes I agree to
> redesign new features so that don't get their first release in
> suboptimal form.  And sometimes I agree to fix a bug in a way that
> includes a new Lisp-level feature, because there's no other way.

Many users who have widescreen monitors or use small fonts prefer resizing
Emacs frames to more than 160 columns wide.  Usually text in Emacs buffers
is no longer than 80 columns, and not using remaining horizontal space is
suboptimal in this case.  So users are forced to repeatedly type `C-x 3'
before invoking every command that splits a window into two windows.
This is very annoying.  The worst fact is that it is impossible now to
change this default window splitting behavior at the Lisp level, because
there are two places in window.c where the `horflag' argument of
`split-window' is hardcoded to nil:

window.c:3583:	window = Fsplit_window (window, Qnil, Qnil);
window.c:3597:	    window = Fsplit_window (window, Qnil, Qnil);

My patch replaces nil in these two places with the value of a new
user option which is nil by default.

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

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Johan Bockgård]

Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org> writes:

> The worst fact is that it is impossible now to change this default
> window splitting behavior at the Lisp level

`display-buffer-function'

-- 
Johan Bockgård

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Juri Linkov]

> `display-buffer-function'

This means that it is possible but not easy since it requires
rewriting `display-buffer' in Lisp.  I could try to do this unless
it will be decided to add a user option for this.

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

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Richard M. Stallman]

    window.c:3583:	window = Fsplit_window (window, Qnil, Qnil);
    window.c:3597:	    window = Fsplit_window (window, Qnil, Qnil);

    My patch replaces nil in these two places with the value of a new
    user option which is nil by default.

With that option, a user could elect either "always vertical"
or "always horizontal".  Is that really enough improvement?

I would rather add a hook that's more general, but after the release.
For now, someone could use display-buffer-hook and rewrite this
function in Lisp.

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Juri Linkov]

>     window.c:3583:	window = Fsplit_window (window, Qnil, Qnil);
>     window.c:3597:	    window = Fsplit_window (window, Qnil, Qnil);
>
>     My patch replaces nil in these two places with the value of a new
>     user option which is nil by default.
>
> With that option, a user could elect either "always vertical"
> or "always horizontal".  Is that really enough improvement?

My one-year experience with using "always horizontal" instead of
"always vertical" shows that in all cases that I tried this behavior
was expected and desirable.

However, there are some modes (like Calendar or Value Menu windows in
Customize) that doesn't take into account a window configuration where
windows are already split horizontally.  Such window configurations can be
created even by using `C-x 3', so fixing these modes to work with
horizontally split windows is a separate question.

> I would rather add a hook that's more general, but after the release.

Such a hook should have an argument for the buffer name (the same as the
first argument of display-buffer).  So setting this hook directly to
split-window-vertically or split-window-horizontally is not possible,
because these functions don't accept a buffer name argument.

Another variant is to add a user option with a list of buffer name regexps
that require horizontal split, but such a list is less general than a hook.

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

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally not vertically

[Richard M. Stallman]

Its usefulness, in my judgment, is not enough to
warrant adding it to Emacs.

Sorry to disappoint you.

Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally notverticall

[Walter Gillett]

For the next release, or for the forseeable future?

-Walter

From: "Richard M. Stallman" <rms@gnu.org>
Reply-To: rms@gnu.org
To: "Walter Gillett" <walter_gillett@hotmail.com>
CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally 
notvertically
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:08:21 -0500

Its usefulness, in my judgment, is not enough to
warrant adding it to Emacs.

Sorry to disappoint you.

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Re: want user option for pop-to-buffer to split window horizontally notverticall

[Richard M. Stallman]

I am not trying to think about things past the next release, now.