From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Feng Shu Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs as WM Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 07:04:01 +0800 Message-ID: <87zjfe1t3y.fsf@news.tumashu-localhost.org> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1407539882 3161 80.91.229.3 (8 Aug 2014 23:18:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2014 23:18:02 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Aug 09 01:17:55 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XFtQ0-00023X-Rn for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 09 Aug 2014 01:17:53 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53528 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XFtQ0-0001se-CS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 08 Aug 2014 19:17:52 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:43320) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XFtPt-0001rd-0Z for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Aug 2014 19:17:50 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XFtPn-0003Jx-Ut for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Aug 2014 19:17:44 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:46585) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XFtPn-0003Jl-OZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Aug 2014 19:17:39 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XFtPY-0001eA-Ja for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Aug 2014 01:17:24 +0200 Original-Received: from 120.4.252.255 ([120.4.252.255]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 09 Aug 2014 01:17:24 +0200 Original-Received: from tumashu by 120.4.252.255 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 09 Aug 2014 01:17:24 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 85 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 120.4.252.255 User-Agent: Gnus/5.130012 (Ma Gnus v0.12) Emacs/24.4.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:YfR2AgkyBUc4tkUXXnCfCNM0QGQ= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:173496 Archived-At: John Yates writes: > Personally I regularly have the opposite itch: wanting to replace > emacs's frustrating window management with an external tiling WM (in > my case awesome). I use stumpwm, which is like emacs. > > /john > > On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 4:35 PM, Matthew Plant > wrote: > > I was curious about what people on this list thought about > application > embedding in Emacs. To a degree this is already supported with > ansi > term, but this obviously doesn't extend to GUI applications. For > those > of you familiar with Plan 9, think of how programs use the window > the > terminal they're launched in; embedding GUI apps in Emacs would > force > the program to run in a window owned by Emacs and fitted into a > buffer. > > The reason why I bring this up is because it would be relatively > easy to > do in a way that's not very platform agnostic. It's really easy to > replace the X libarary (forgive me for not using proper > nomenclature; > it'd lengthen this email tenfold) window creation functions with > one > that extends contol over the window. The degree of integration can > be > controlled by the number of replaced functions. If drawn text > wants to > be handled specially, those functions would be replaced. Some > method can > be specified for switching between emacs and the application > controlling > user input. > > This has some obvious advantages; for one, Emacs automatically > subsumes > all editors, including more WYSIWYG editors. Not only that, but > Emacs > essentially becomes a window manager, which I personally would > love. Because some apps, particular web browsers, do not always > require > special handling of the keyboard, switching between regular Emacs > buffers and the special app buffers would be generally seamless. I > could > imagine myself typing away in one Emacs buffer, momentarily moving > to > the mouse to click throught some online doxygen in my web browser > in the > buffer to the right. > > There are also a lot of disadvantages to this. For one, the > applications > would be pretty buggy without some effort to re-implement X > functions. Also, my co-worker points out that this would be > incongrous > with the current capabilities of Emacs, one of which is the easy > transfer of text betwixt buffers. Getting these two features to > work > harmoniously would be kind of difficult; lots of wrappers to > X/Gnome/whatever text writing functions would have to be made. > However, > copy and paste would work (I'm guessing) out of the box. > > I suppose it all boils down to what people want with the future of > Emacs. Personally, I would love to turn on my computer and have > Emacs be > there every step of the way. I genuinely think that Emacs is a > great > full interface to an OS. It is not a full OS however and never > should > be, which is why I like this idea as an in-between. > > -M --