Re: view mode: `q' does not delete frame

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <address@hidden>
> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:44:21 -0800
> 
> See emacs-devel list messages of 9/8 and 9/9/2005, subject "quitting
> help buffer". RMS's conclusion was "It doesn't fail for me, so there's
> nothing I can do." By that he meant that for him `q' always deleted
> the frame.

Richard, is this indeed so? does `q' on your system indeed delete the
frame that shows the *Apropos Zippy* buffer, in "emacs -Q", and
without any customizations except setting pop-up-frames?  After
reading the code (see below), I'm surprised that things could work for
you as Drew expects them to.

> emacs -q
> 
> M-x set-variable RET pop-up-frames t
> 
> M-x apropos-zippy RET wash RET
> 
> Try `q' in the frame *Apropos Zippy*. It does nothing. I want it to
> delete the frame.

I looked into this and found a small mess.

First, view-mode is only supposed to delete the frame if you set
view-remove-frame-by-deleting to a non-nil value; otherwise it
iconifies the frame.  Did you set that variable? if not, View Mode is
not supposed to do what you want.

But don't rush to set it just yet, `cause that's just the tip of an
iceberg.  The apropos and help commands don't invoke the full
view-mode as it was supposed to be, via view-mode-enter; instead, they
call view-mode directly, and arrange for what happens when you type
`q' in the function `print-help-return-message'.  That function sets
the variable help-return-method, but it doesn't support pop-up-frames,
only pop-up-windows, special-display-buffer-names and
special-display-regexps.  If I use one of the special-display-*
variables to include *Help* and *Apropos* buffers in the respective
lists, the frames that show those buffers are deleted when I press
`q'.  I'm guessing that you didn't set special-display-* variables to
include any of the buffers mentioned in this thread.

But even setting special-display-* doesn't work for `apropos-zippy',
since it fails to call `print-help-return-message', like the other
help commands do, and thus help return method is left at its default.
This is a bug in yow.el, I think.

So, unless someone finds where I'm wrong in my conclusions, I think we
should modify `print-help-return-message' to support pop-up-frames,
and add a call to `print-help-return-message' in `apropos-zippy'.  Any
objections or further insights, anyone?

Finally, I'd like to respond to your gripes (expressed in some quite
strong language, too strong if you ask me) in your original message
back in September about the names of the View-* functions that exit
the view mode in various ways.  I do agree that some of the names are
not descriptive enough, so I suggest the following changes in those
names:

  View-quit                  -> View-quit (no change)
  View-quit-all              -> View-quit-restore-all-windows
  View-exit                  -> View-exit-view-mode
  View-exit-and-edit         -> View-edit
  View-leave                 -> View-quit-keep-current-buffer
  View-kill-and-leave        -> View-quit-kill-current-buffer

WDYT?