Re: Efforts to attract more users?

[Stephen Eilert <spedrosa@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 12:24 AM, Bernardo Barros
<bernardobarros2@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2010/7/9 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>:
>> I saw it once, and it used tabs a lot for switching between different views.
>> We need to be able to do that too.
>
> Hi, Richard. Aquamacs-Emacs implemented tabs too. Just like Firefox and Eclipse.
>
>

Not exactly.

I think that Richard is actually refering to "perspectives". A
"perspective" in Eclipse is actually a collection of windows (using
Emacs terminology). For instance, one can have a Java perspective,
with a big editing window in the middle, a class tree on the left,
class symbols on the right and a console on the bottom of the screen.
And then a "Debug perspective", with the stack trace on top left,
variables top right, editing in the center, and whatever else the user
wants to display.

You can do that in Aquamacs, if you take the time to configure it,
splitting and switching to the desired buffers, for each tab. Just to
lose it when Emacs close (mitigated by desktop-save) or when something
switches one of the buffers you have painstakingly configured.

In Eclipse, you can hide the frames temporarily, resize them, add or
remove, or maximize the editing window. But usually you do not want to
mess with them, as they contain useful information and are sort of
"persistent".

There are also per-file tabs, but these should  be (and are, in
Eclipse) distinct from the perspectives. Using Aquamacs' approach the
two are mixed, so one would spend quite a lot of time fighting the
interface.

I seem to recall a discussion a while ago about "persistent windows".
That, along with tabs, would duplicate Eclipse's perspectives quite
nicely.

What prevents people I know from switching to Emacs is that Emacs has
no notion of "projects", and operations affecting files in a given
project. While I think Eclipse's approach to be overkill, the way
Textmate does it appears to be enough.


--Stephen

Sent from my Emacs