From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard M Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Terminology in multi-tty primitives Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:27:03 -0500 Message-ID: References: <87zlies8wo.fsf@xemacs.org> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1230676138 27677 80.91.229.12 (30 Dec 2008 22:28:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:28:58 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eliz@gnu.org, cyd@stupidchicken.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Dec 30 23:30:05 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LHn6B-00086E-C5 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:30:03 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:33093 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LHn4x-0005B8-HK for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:28:47 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LHn4L-0004zO-GJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:28:09 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LHn4J-0004yM-G9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:28:08 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=48864 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LHn4J-0004yC-6P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:28:07 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:48747) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LHn4I-0005Cy-UT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:28:07 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1LHn3H-0000gH-U8; Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:27:03 -0500 In-reply-to: <87zlies8wo.fsf@xemacs.org> (stephen@xemacs.org) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:107431 Archived-At: I used to agree with you, but The Kids These Days (ie, those who have grown up with WIMPy interfaces) think of a window as a (foreground) process. If the window goes away, the process stops. But that is generally false. If you iconify a window, the application continues working -- you just don't see what it displays. For instance, if you iconify a terminal, the processes running in it do not stop. In particular, on a GUI the difference between a kill -STOP'ed emacs and one with no visible windows is hardly important to the user, who must do something unusual to resurrect it. To de-iconify the Emacs frame just requires moving the mouse to the icon, or to the tab in the bar at the bottom of the screen, and clicking. I don't think that is unusual. So the "withdraw frame" function (which happens to be called `suspend-frame') just keeps withdrawing frames, and when the last one is withdrawn, emacs goes to sleep. It doesn't go to sleep. If it was waiting for a command, it continues waiting and there is no easy way for it to receive one.