RE: [External] : display-buffer-alist actions

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > > I've read and re-read the documentation for
> > > display-buffer-alist and I cannot quite understand it.
> >
> > (You're not alone.)
> >
> > I suspect it's not just a doc problem.  It's
> > the behavior that's complex.
> 
> The behavior is complex since the task is.  The approach is not
> unnecessarily complex in my eyes.

I agree (to the extent that I understand it).
I've said as much several times before.

It provides a comprehensive solution, which is
necessarily complex.

My complaint is that we don't also provide some
simple to use constructs for simple use cases.

In particular, I've very glad we still have
the `special-display' stuff available.  Simple,
great for some simple use cases.  But when the
new, comprehensive solution was created (a
_good_ thing), Emacs simultaneously deprecated
`special-display'.  We _have_ it, but we're
discouraged from using it.

That deprecation I object to.

But I do appreciate that it's still supported.
I hope it will continue to be so.  And I still
have hopes that the deprecation will be lifted
from it someday.  Users are in general unaware
of it now (it was removed from the manual etc.),
even though it's very good for the simple use
cases it handles.

> > That leads to complicated doc, whether or not the doc is correct.
> 
> At least in my (master) Emacs the docs contain a node
> 
>   (info "(elisp) The Zen of Buffer Display")
> 
> It's quite nice and easy to understand.  Must be quite new I guess.

Thanks for pointing it out.  I'll take a look.
It's not that new apparently - it's in Emacs
26.3, at least.