From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: don provan Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: current directory Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 11:38:28 -0700 Message-ID: References: <87u020jnvr.fsf@mail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1161456056 8759 80.91.229.2 (21 Oct 2006 18:40:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 18:40:56 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Oct 21 20:40:55 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GbLmB-0005wy-D6 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 21 Oct 2006 20:40:55 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GbLmA-0004Bx-Ur for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:40:54 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 13:38:21 -0500 Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (windows-nt) Cancel-Lock: sha1:QdKKj0KTfx+9RJrVFSVqYz2lqk0= Original-Lines: 63 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.5.238.65 Original-X-Trace: sv3-nl89p206WAWQGx6z23BfQWy4iRHXAwT88ZMq+8WKI9xdQFpAn2KxTYwPl3m88hrDk4h34E8xLxlpskP!5fnh7qN9uOQBbnxt/jLNa8sT2Aikb4pGbYVHF4aXLwUzN84ONTLS4uF9n1aXug== Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:142541 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:38162 Archived-At: vb writes: > well, this is becoming a philosophical issue, but I'll comment on it > anyways: as soon as somebody gets to decide what is good for other > people, the other people are in trouble. LOL! You obviously aren't very familiar with emacs! Emacs provides all manner of options for adjusting anything to any behavior that's ever been suggested by anyone for any reason. And then *on top of that* you can implement any changes, improvements, or additions with a little lisp code. But the fact is that *something* has to be the default behavior, and in this case, the per-buffer current directory is an outstanding choice. The only reason it might give people some trouble is that more trivial editors encourage you to invoke the editor one time for one file, and then invoke it again for another file, etc., so that there's a one-to-one correspondence between editor session and file. Emacs is a development system, so most people use it to look at or modify many files in any given session. (Some people go so far as to use a single emacs sessions as their *entire user environment* and don't do *anything* outside emacs!) In that situation, it would be *insane* to insist that the user keep in mind some arbitrary "current directory" based on how emacs was invoked the very first time when there's a very specific and obvious directory location staring the user in the face. > Again, I am all for emacs doing whatever whoever thinks is good. But > let those who feel otherwise do what they want - otherwise this is > like a communist society: driving people to their happiness with an > iron fist. Fight on, Dude! > say I am editing a file which is longer than a few screenfulls. I > hit the 'page up' key a few times, and then hit the 'page down' key > the same number of times. I get back the screen there was > originally, but the cursor now is in the first line, not where it > was before these page scrolls. I'm not sure what editor you're thinking of, but what the other editors I'm familiar with do is leave the cursor on a page that you aren't currently looking at, making it amusing and confusing when you issue a command that actually depends on a cursor location that is not long in view. While someone mentioned a workaround, really the problem is that you aren't using the editor to accomplish what *you* want. Isn't what you really want to do hold your place with a finger, go off and look at something somewhere else, and then return to your finger? Emacs provides "marks" to do exactly that, so you can return to exactly the original spot with a single command rather than manually returning the view back to the original location by remembering how many pages you've moved up or down and issuing that many page movement command to get back. Or, to summarize, you seem to have been trained by simple editors and developed techniques to deal with them because they're so stupid. You might want to -- but I'm not forcing you! -- step back and think about what *you* really want to do when you're editing, and I wonder if you won't find that emacs provides a easy way to do *that* rather than an way to continue jumping through the hoops that your old editor taught you to jump through. You might find that the real bad guy here is your old editor.... -don