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

[Drew Adams]

    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.

Yes, that's what I ended up doing. I found that option after I filed the
report in September, though. I guess the apropos-zippy behavior is
independent of the previously reported problem.

    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.

Yes, I have special-display-regexps's = ("[ ]?[*][^*]+[*]").

    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.

I guess that's all this last gripe concerns, then: `apropos-zippy'. I was
thinking this was related to the previous report and, frankly, I had
forgotten that I had found and set view-remove-frame-by-deleting.

I would prefer, of course, that if pop-up-frames = non-nil, the behavior of
view-remove-frame-by-deleting would follow automatically (by default). For
example, instead of having the default value be nil, have it be (not
pop-up-frames).

    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?

Sorry about the sarcasm (one person's funny is another person's annoying). I
was frustrated with view-mode, but I didn't mean to harm any humans while
venting against it.

My take on the names:

The functions are all ways of quitting view-mode, so they should all start
with View-quit (or View-exit or ...) - no mixing of synonyms (exit etc.).
None of them should be called just View-quit, as none of them seems to be
the "main" (default) way of quitting, and even if one were, people would
still wonder what it does specifically.

Judging by the doc strings, these names come to mind:

 - View-quit-keep-buffer
 - View-quit-edit-buffer
 - View-quit-kill-buffer
 - View-quit-restore-all-buffers
 - View-quit-restore-other-buffer (but it's not clear which buffer is
restored).

My main question about the names cannot be addressed for this release: Is it
really necessary to have so many ways to quit? Could this proliferation be a
sign that the design is not as it should be? Why does quitting a mode need
to be so concerned about which context to restore? Perhaps the restoration
context should be passed when the mode is entered? Or perhaps the caller
should control it some other way. And so on. It seems odd to me that a
function is so concerned with how it was called.

Thanks,

  Drew