Re: New keybinding suggestion: C-x _ for `shrink-window'

[Bastien <bzg@altern.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>       By default, resizing is done by increasing/decreasing window
>       width and height.  In this mode, use the up and down arrow keys
>       to enlarge or shrink the window and use the right and left arrow
>       keys to enlarge or shrink the window horizontally.
>
> So in this mode you don't control which border moves.

Right.  `shrink-window' and `enlarge-window' decide.

>       Resizing can also be done by moving the window borders.  In this
>       mode, use the arrow keys to move the corresponding border in the
>       arrow direction -- e.g. the left arrow key will try to move the
>       left border to the left.
>
> So in this mode you can only enlarge the window.

Right.

>     When the point is in window B and you're in move-borders mode, <left>
>     will move the left border of window B to the left, and <right> will move
>     its right border to the right.  But you might want to quickly move the
>     left border to the right.  So instead of finding window A and moving its
>     right border to the right, you'll negate the argument and move the left
>     border (which will move to the right instead of moving to the left.)
>
> Oh, so that's how you would use the window borders mode to make this
> window smaller.
>
> It seems unnatural, and I think it will be hard to remember.

I first used M-<arrows> to let the user move the border inwards.

Drew suggested to use `~' to negate the value of INCREMENT and I gave it
a try.  Actually, I think using M-<arrows> to move the border inwards is
better: no need for `~' and easy to remember.

> Perhaps the right thing to do is use arrow keys to select the border
> to move, and use + and - to grow or shrink the window using that
> border.

This is similar to Lennart's approach in bw-interactive.el:

  http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/elisp/bw-interactive.el

I reacted to his code by saying that the left arrow key should *both*
select the left border and move it to the left.  Hence window-edit.el,
where I prefer to keep both actions (i.e. selecting and moving) to be
performed with a single keystroke.

IMO using the Meta key to move inwards instead of outwards is simpler
than first selecting the border and then moving it.

I'll implement back M-<arrow> for inwards border moves, while keeping
`~' for a while, let's see what people prefer.

-- 
Bastien