Frame symbol in the mode line on a windowing system

Frame symbol in the mode line on a windowing system

[Dieter Wilhelm]

Hi

Does anybody have code to display Frame names or numbers or symbols in
the mode line on an (X-)Window system?  I do not see on which frame
I'm working when in fullscreen mode and in terminal mode there are
hints F1, F2, etc.

-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany

Re: Frame symbol in the mode line on a windowing system

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Dieter Wilhelm <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de>
> Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:11:04 +0200
> 
> Does anybody have code to display Frame names or numbers or symbols in
> the mode line on an (X-)Window system?  I do not see on which frame
> I'm working when in fullscreen mode and in terminal mode there are
> hints F1, F2, etc.

F1, F2, etc. are _not_ hints, they are actual names of the frames on a
tty.  You can change that with the set-frame-name commands (and later
switch to a frame with a specific name with select-frame-by-name).

I think %F is what you want -- it's replaced with the frame name.
Emacs uses the variable mode-line-frame-identification for it, which
is computed differently on X and on a tty.

Re: Frame symbol in the mode line on a windowing system

[Dieter Wilhelm]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Dieter Wilhelm <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de>
>> Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:11:04 +0200
>> 
>> Does anybody have code to display Frame names or numbers or symbols in
>> the mode line on an (X-)Window system?  I do not see on which frame
>> I'm working when in fullscreen mode and in terminal mode there are
>> hints F1, F2, etc.
>
> F1, F2, etc. are _not_ hints, they are actual names of the frames on a
> tty.  You can change that with the set-frame-name commands (and later
> switch to a frame with a specific name with select-frame-by-name).
>
> I think %F is what you want -- it's replaced with the frame name.
> Emacs uses the variable mode-line-frame-identification for it, which
> is computed differently on X and on a tty.

Hi Eli

Thanks again for the hint.  It might be helpful when

  (info-other-window "(elisp)%-Constructs") 

would mention that the %-constructs are not always working when used
in a string like this

  (setq mode-line-frame-identification "-%F ") ; this is here not working

but rather in a list

  (setq mode-line-frame-identification '("-%F "))

I found it finally documented for the variable mode-line-format.  For
somebody using them for the first time its not immediately obvious.
Just my two €Cents.

      Dieter
-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany