Re: how could the mighty emacs lack --fullscreen ?

[Jan D.]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> 
>     Is it feasible to have a splash-screen that displays messages during 
> startup
>     and after .emacs is read, it goes away and is replaced with the initial 
> frame?
> 
> That would be possible.  It is not really that different from what
> Emacs does now--why would it be better?

It would make the initial frame move about less when first created.  For
instance, if one has 
 (menu-bar-mode -1)
or (assuming the fullscreen patch):
 (setq initial-frame-alist (list (cons 'fullscreen 'fullheight)))

in .emacs, the window first appears with the default size, and after that it is
modified.  This is no big deal, it just looks "jumpy".


Another aspect is that the (sometimes strange) difference between the first
frame and subsequent frames could be removed.  For instance (as reported a few
days ago as a bug), with this in .emacs:
  (tool-bar-mode -1)

and starting Emacs with -g 80x40, the first frame has less that 40 rows (40 -
tool-bar-lines), but subsequent frames do have 40 rows.


Also reported as a bug is that starting emacs with -g -0-0 and (menu-bar-mode
-1) or (scroll-bar-mode nil) in .emacs, fails to put Emacs at -0-0 (well, it is
there first, but immediately the window changes, so when startup is complete,
it is not at -0-0).


With a splash screen, all of .emacs has been read before showing the first
frame.  Then one could perhaps make command-line options override other
settings (I think this is what users expect).


Yes, perhaps all of this can be made in .Xdefaults instead.  I think there is
an advantage if they both behave the same.  After all, customize is easy to use
from within emacs.  The help one gets from apropos and C-h C-f also makes it a
bit easier to find the .emacs setting than the X resource.

The thing I had in mind is a window showing the Emacs image and one or possibly
two lines of text showing the text that appears in the minibuffer when one
starts Emacs.  A bit like Gimp looks at start.

        Jan D.