Re: Rename `mini-' options

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>]

Miles Bader writes:

 > The variable in question _is_ existing practice -- it was introduced
 > almost a decade ago, in Emacs 21.

OK, then fix the docs to explain the difference between "mini-window"
and "minibuffer window", and use the concept appropriately.

But this is another case where I'm glad that XEmacs hasn't kept up to
GNU Emacs "existing practice".  I think it's perfectly reasonable to
document the echo area as "borrowing" the minibuffer window, rather
than creating a new concept of "mini-windows" (which don't actually
exist, anyway).

 > That (long obsolete) mode does something _different_ than
 > resize-mini-windows:  it only applies to the minibuffer.

Actually, it doesn't.  At least in the XEmacs implementation, the echo
area really does borrow the minibuffer window, so to the extent that
the minibuffer expansion persists (which it normally does, as
repetitions of similar long prompts etc. are common), so does the echo
area.  There were also some fragile hacks that allowed the echo area
to expand as well.

 > Thus even if referring to "minibuffer-window" makes sense for that
 > mode, that doesn't mean it makes sense for Emacs' builtin behavior.

Maybe not.  I think that says more about your sense of "sense" than it
does about Drew's proposal, though. :-)

 > [I suppose you could argue against the "echo area"/"minibuffer" split,
 > and say we should just refer to them both as "the minibuffer"
 > (or whatever), but that's a different argument (and certainly not
 > something that should happen right now, as it's a big change).]

My point, and Drew's, is that as far as the *window* goes, that *is*
existing practice.  Even the documentation of the *-mini-* functions
refers to the "minibuffer window", not to the "mini-window", and so do
you long-time developers.