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Re: window groups


From: Thomas Lord
Subject: Re: window groups
Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:49:44 -0700
User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 (X11/20060808)

martin rudalics wrote:
> That's the case I was talking about fixing and I was talking about
> fixing it only in a very narrow case: that the user hasn't done anything
> to change the window configuration other than triggering the pop-up
> window and then dismissing the pop-up window.

But that's the typical use case of `save-window-excursion'.  Or am I
missing something?

About "missing something" on more than just this qusetion -- er, yes.
No blame, unless to me. I'm a stranger here, more or less. And I'm only just starting to return to paying attention to Emacs internals. I gather I'm not explaining
myself with contextually effective clarity.   Oh well.  I won't dwell on it.

About "save-window-excursion" -- yes, you're missing something there,
too.   When a help window pops up (say, for describe-function) it persists
outside of any save-window-excursion.   I am proposing that, using window
properties and various hooks, a user should be able to delete that window
and restore the previous window configuration of the same frame provided
that the user has not otherwise modified the window configuration.

I'm implying a one-level-undo, of sorts and in limited cases, for the window
configuration of a frame.   Data for such an "undo" could be saved as
window properties and tended by hook functions.




> For various reasons I found the original description really difficult
> to understand and believe in.   Other people have already pointed out
> some ways in which it "isn't lispy".   I would add that it is pretty
> complicated but only a weak rationale is given for the complexity.
> It's complicated because it adds 3 parameters (that seem hard to
> explain) to split-window.

The SAFE argument is something I need to get rid of these strange
window-min-height|width bindings you find in Elisp code.  These bindings
are misleading because people sometimes believe that they will prevent
the emanating windows from being deleted later on.  While the SAFE
parameter comes handy for resizing window groups these can happily live
without it.


It sounds like you are addressing confusion by adding confusingness.
In your original description, what does "safe defaults" mean?



The INVERT argument is used for creating the new window on the "other
side" of the original window.  I could merge it into the HORIZONTAL
parameter by providing two new values 'left and 'above in addition to
nil and t and we are left with one argument I have to add.

I see.   My own counter-proposal fails to address that very need.   So
I can agree something like that is desirable.




One additional argument would be needed anyway if you want to split the
frame root window instead of a visible one.

Well, I proposed *one*.   And you've got me convinced on a boolean
parameter for INVERT.

(I do appreciate your patience here.   I hope the worst case is that I'm
helping you simply explicate your proposal.  I still think it is too
complicated and these new agreements we've found are only a small
fraction of that complexity.   Again, consider the power of window
properties + hooks for most of what you want to do.   Right now we're
only agreeing on some API for editing the window tree but not agreeing
on anything close to "groups".    And, please: I do mean to exude humility
here.  I was pretty darn deep into Emacs internals a few years back and
pretty darn deep into Emacs applications and, for that matter, rather deep
into working on a rewrite before rudely interrupted.   I don't pretend
to be fully up to speed on the current mindset of the main developers
and state of the code -- just trying to get back closer to that state.)




> It's complicated because it adds a new
> primitive concept (window groups) and that concept comes with
> non-intuitive restrictions (like the non-nesting of groups and the
> non-existence of single-window groups).

Rather, these restrictions simplify both semantics and implementation.
Try to write down the semantics of nested groups in a few sentences.
The single-window restriction can be removed (though talking about a
window group when there's only one window doesn't strike me as overly
intuitive).


I'm just not sure "groups" are needed at all.  If something like groups are
needed, then one would want a nestable version.   They probably aren't
needed.   I think you're adding a new abstraction where none is needed.
That the semantics of nested groups may not have a reasonable solution
is a hint that groups may not be needed at all.

Emacs doesn't need to be able to precisely emulate Eclipse, especially if
in a simpler and more extensible way it can create a close substitute.
Emacs may well come out *better*.



> I take your word for it that, given those new features, you can implement > something that looks a lot like certain other IDEs. On the other hand,
> these features don't obviously have many other uses besides that - they
> aren't very "general," at least as far as I can tell from the description.

Well I use them all the time and I never use IDEs.

If you'll indulge me -- and again, who am *I* to ask -- could you
explain a bit?    I made that claim that these are obscure and not
general and you're making the opposite claim.   Yours is easier to
prove.   What examples should I look at, please?



I don't intend to implement any IDE features.  But I think that if and
when such features were integrated into Emacs it should be done in a
sane and safe way.


We agree about "safe and sane" -- the only question is what exactly
that means :-)



> Well, how about this? Modify split-window with just one new additional
> parameter which, if that parameter is 'root, then a top-level split is
> implied.
> If that parameter is nil, current behavior is implied. No other values
> for
> that parameter should be defined yet.
>
> I *suspect* (and its only a suspicion) that those alone are sufficient to
> accomplish everything you are trying to do with window groups, without
> even very much pain (and, perhaps with some added flexibility).

Modifying `split-window' to do what I described was straightforward.
The only twist was writing a subroutine to shift edges of subwindows
appropriately - something you have to do anyway when you split the frame
root window.

Lots of things that are "straightforward" can come back and bite you in
the rear end down the line. That's the main problem. There's an embarrassing
over-supply of the "straightforward change" but, experience shows, only a
tiny fraction of those changes are comfortable in the long run -- the others
become "legacy" (some examples of which you are wrestling with -- so
don't make more if you can avoid it).




The more complicated part was cloning a configuration previously saved
by `current-window-configuration'.  People asked for such a thing
although I personally don't use it.

Some of the GUI apps that I use, unrelated to Emacs, make use of a similar
feature and I find it to be one of the things I like about those apps.

I don't know that I would tie that cloning to Emacs' current concept of
window-configuration, though.




> Not to confuse things too much but let me also suggest how, in the future,
> the new split-window parameter that might be 'root could take on other
> values.   Every window is conceptually part of both a horizontal and

I suppose you mean "either" here not "both".

I mean "both" in this way:

Each window is part of a horizontal stack of H members and a
vertical stack of V members subject to the invariant that:

 (H >= 1 and V == 1) or (H == 1 and V >= 1)





> vertical stack of windows, containing 1 or more windows. One possibility
> is that if the new split-window parameter is a window, then the pop-up
> splits off the entire horizontal or vertical stack of which that window is
> a part.   This is a sneaky way to "expose the window tree to lisp" as
> Mile's
> puts it. (Additional sneakiness would be a function that, given a window, > returns an ordered list of all windows in the same horizontal or vertical
> stack.)

Would be very easy to implement but hardly useful.  People don't think
in terms of "stacks of windows".  That's why I propose groups as some
sort of abstraction.

I don't know (and I don't think you do, either) what "people think" in
some free-floating general way.
The "model" -- the mathematical abstraction -- of a window config is
a tree and there's just a few ways to characterize it. What I tend to believe
is that the more lucidly APIs and UIs can present the actual model, the
more clearly people will think and do useful things with it.   Are you
familiar with XDM as in DOM or XPATH?   To "present the window tree"
in APIs more than is already done we need a similar approach -- a way
to assign "addresses" to the tree in ways that correspond to how algorithms
navigate the tree. This would be a lot easier to talk about at higher bandwidth
with a whiteboard at hand :-)





> That would have use in IDE-style interfaces. For example, suppose that
> down the screen on the left are a series of narrow "navigation" windows
> and on the right there is an edit area, an interaction area, and a debugger
> area.    A "help window pop-up" could usefully be constrained to take
> up space just on the right of the screen.   That would be a natural
> generalization
> of using 'root and having it take up space on the whole screen.

If your edit area were split horizontally you'd be stuck.  My proposal
defines the edit area as a group and you will get your "help window"
below (or above) that group.


Excuse my brain-fart there and swap "horizontal" and "vertical" in
what I said and it should make perfect sense.

-t








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