Re: GUI vs TTY when saving & restoring framesets

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Eli.

On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 21:11:03 +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2017 18:55:37 +0000
> > Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
> > From: Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden>

> > > > the order in my desktop file.

> > > Why is that a problem?  The order of buffers in the desktop file is
> > > not something a user is supposed to look at, or care about.

> > I care a great deal about it.  I have set up keys <f1> to <f11> in the
> > global key map to mean "switch to frame Fn".  Thus, rather than just
> > being an arbitrary GUI window, each frame is associated with a particular
> > function key.  I even have "Fn" in the mode line to see which frame I'm
> > in.

> > Usually when I close an Emacs session, I quickly type <f6>, <f5>, ....,
> > <f1> to order the buffers in my .emacs.desktop.  When I start Emacs (in a
> > Linux tty, usually, with desktop-restore-frames nil) I do, repeatedly,
> > C-x 5 b <cr> to set up the same buffers in the "same" frames.  For this,
> > I need the buffers to be loaded in the right order, WITHOUT *scratch* as
> > an interloper.  At the moment, this isn't happening in master in some
> > circumstances.

> I don't really understand the need for this.

I need to be able to switch quickly between (specific) frames using the
keyboard.  And by quickly I mean QUICKLY.  There's no method faster than
with a single key press.  It's just the way I work.

> I always have several frames in my sessions, each one with its buffer,
> and when I restore the sessions, each frame comes up with the same
> buffer it had when I shut down Emacs, no complicated frame-walking
> dance necessary, neither before shutting down Emacs nor after
> restarting it.

Something similar happens when I use the defaults.  But the buffers come
up in the "wrong" frames (i.e. associated with a different <fn> key),
making it not useful for me.  Anyhow, I've had this use of <fn> for 15
years now, and 15 years ago there was nothing like frames in the desktop
file.

> Maybe this stuff you do is the culprit?

I don't really think so.  It's been working for a decade and a half.  I
think it more likely that Juanma didn't see any need to preserve the
association of particular frames with particular buffers when extending
desktop to handle frames.  Indeed the notion of "particular frames" is,
so far, probably idiosyncratic to me, rather than to Emacs.  But it would
be nice if desktop could preserve the ordering of the frames and buffers,
too.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).