RE: debugger with pop-up-frames non-nil: keeps creating new frames

[Drew Adams]

    > My objection is to something iconifying and
    > deiconifying while I'm in the middle of using it.

    So making it invisible/visible instead of iconified/deiconified wouldn't
    help, would it?

In the middle, no, that wouldn't help.

I thought we were discussing what to do when the user finishes debugging
(`q' or `c' that returns to top level). If you wanted to keep the
size&position of the *Backtrace* frame, so it would reappear in the same
place the next time you used the debugger, then invisibility would help (if
it worked correctly).

    The current code should not do either of them "in the middle of
    using it" any more.

Agreed.

If that's fixed, then the only question is how to treat `q' and `c' (at top
level). You like iconification of the empty frame, to keep the
size&position. I like deletion of the frame, to not have an empty iconified
frame hanging around. If invisibility worked well, that would be a solution
that satisfied both of us, I believe.

    > I don't mean to defend Windows, but I don't feel it has a
    problem wrt frames
    > (except wrt mouse-follows-focus).

    I use(d) focus-follows-mouse under XP quite happily.

I think there's may be some other option that I need to set. I would like
the frame focus to follow the mouse, but without the focussed frame raising.
I haven't been able to get that.

    > BTW, as long as you're in the debugger code (feature-creep
    warning): What
    > about using function-called-at-point (or symbol-at-point) to
    provide the
    > default function to debug in debug-on-entry (as in
    describe-function)? Most
    > of the time you use the debugger you're in an emacs-lisp
    buffer, so picking
    > up a lisp symbol would be helpful.

    Patch welcome,

My company refuses to sign papers, so I can't send patches. I'm pretty much
limited to abstract discussion, according to RMS.

I was thinking of the kind of thing describe-function does to default the
function name. In Emacs 22, I guess it's this:

(interactive
   (let ((fn (function-called-at-point))
         (enable-recursive-minibuffers t)
         val)
     (setq val (completing-read (if fn
                                    (format "Describe function (default %s): " 
fn)
                                  "Describe function: ")
                                obarray 'fboundp t nil nil (symbol-name fn)))
     (list (if (equal val "")
               fn (intern val)))))

I do this in my own Emacs 20 code for describe-function (haven't yet updated
it for Emacs 22):

(interactive
   (let ((fn (or (and (fboundp 'symbol-nearest-point)(symbol-nearest-point))
                 (function-called-at-point)))
         (enable-recursive-minibuffers t))
     (list (intern (completing-read
                    "Describe function: " obarray 'fboundp t
                    (and fn (symbol-name fn)) nil
                    (and fn (symbol-name fn)) t)))))

I prefer my function symbol-nearest-point instead of
function-called-at-point, so the cursor doesn't need to be on the symbol,
and I (heretically) prefer a default (i.e. init) value in the minibuffer,
for editing (even in cases like this, where REQUIRE-MATCH is non-nil - the
function I want might be a variant of the one under the cursor).