RE: Rant on ...

[Drew Adams]

> FWIW, I chose this different solution for my init file: when I hit a
> certain key at any line in the debugger buffer, I get a popup window
> that shows the according (clicked) frame as pretty printed lisp
> expression in emacs-lisp-mode.  Having a separate buffer has its
> advantages, since this expression can be really huge.  The tricky
> part is to get the correct frame number to pass to `backtrace-frame'.
> 
> Another command pops up a buffer containing the whole backtrace as a
> list of lisp expressions.  I chose to bind print-circle -> t for
> this, because the frames can share large structures.  With print-circle -> 
> nil, the individual frame are better readable, but the whole thing
> gets even huger.

That too sounds good.

Lots of room for improvement in *Backtrace* buffers.  For me,
the most important improvements would be (1) getting rid of the
bytecode and (2) being able to toggle expansion/contraction of
`...'.  But all the other suggestions made so far sound good too.

Getting rid of the bytecode is important for communicating by
copying/pasting backtrace text.  You cannot copy/paste it all
when some of it is bytecode - you only get the first part of it
- up to some binary character - and the rest is truncated away.

So you have to grab separate bits of it that are not bytecode,
and try to piece those together again, to be able to communicate
the backtrace to someone.