Re: *scratch* considered harmful

[Dhruva Krishnamurthy]

jasonr> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:
jasonr> 
jasonr> >     I am surprised if it is Windows specific, it seems to be caused 
by the
jasonr> >     following change:
jasonr> > 
jasonr> >     2001-11-03  Richard M. Stallman  <address@hidden>
jasonr> > 
jasonr> >           * startup.el (fancy-splash-tail): Explain how to recover
jasonr> >           from a crash, if there was a crash.
jasonr> >           (command-line-1): Reorganize display of startup screen,
jasonr> >           to simplify the logic.  Use a temp buffer for it.
jasonr> > 
jasonr> > This change causes Emacs to display the start-up message using a
jasonr> > buffer named ` *temp*'.  I don't know what makes that visible to the
jasonr> > user.
jasonr> 
jasonr> The buffer name " *temp*" is displayed in the mode-line in Windows, and
jasonr> in "emacs -nw" on GNU/Linux for me. Under X on GNU/Linux, the string 
jasonr> "GNU Emacs" displays instead. I presume the difference is because X
jasonr> uses fancy-splash instead of the old text start-up message.

I noticed one other issue which I feel might the effect of the 
" *temp*" buffer issue. The following is the scenario or bug recipe:
1. Launch Emacs the usual way (with/without init file, does not
   matter).
2. Use gnuclientw.exe (since I am on windows) and open a text
   file. You need the gnuserv.exe and
   gnuclient.exe/gnuclientw.exe. The idea is to invoke the file with
   the current buffer as " *temp*". If you try using the M-x, you go
   in to "*scratch*" buffer and things are normal.
3. The file opens and is visible in the current file buffer.
4. Click on the buffer with the mouse (Left mouse button). You go
   into the "*scratch*" buffer. And the file buffer is no longer the
   current displayed buffer.
5. You need to switch buffer to get back to the file buffer.

This does not happen in the release and only on Emacs 21.1.50. I
guess the opening of file does not trigger the event which open the
"*scratch*" buffer or which closes the initial text message. So, even
though the file is opened, the mouse click causes the transition to
"*scratch*" buffer which is empty. Since "*scratch*" buffer was the
startup buffer earlier, only the message was removed and there was no
buffer switch and this did not cause the above behavior.

with regards,
dhruva