Re: Suggesting `frame-split-biggest-window' Re: customize location and shape of a new window in a frame

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

martin rudalics <rudalics@gmx.at> writes:

>>> It would be nice to have some sort of basic, prefabricated layouts
>>> like the ones you sketched and choose from them (though a four window
>>> layout with a different window in each corner of them frame would
>>> still require to know whether the root window is a vertical or
>>> horizontal combination).  But I have no good idea yet which layout
>>> types are really needed and how to provide a suitable interface for
>>> accessing them.  IIRC the "Emacs IDE" had provisions for them but I
>>> have not heard from its developers for years.
>>
>> I thought this is what side windows are for? Maybe it would be tricky to
>> save and restore whole-frame window configurations (though there are
>> other tools for that), but side windows, combined perhaps with atomic
>> windows, seem like the right tool for making rectangular compositions.
>> The docs even say something about making Emacs look like a traditional
>> IDE, etc...
>
> The intention of side windows was to provide a framework for ECB (the
> Emacs Code Browser) to embed such layouts without the need to advice
> basic window functions.  Unfortunately, work on ECB seems to have
> stalled a decade ago and nobody seems very interested in continuing
> it.

Huh, thanks for the background. But in my experimentation, at least,
side windows seem to work perfectly well (especially in combination with
atomic windows). Is there any particular reason not to use them?