frames dedicated to buffers, or, always see specific buffers in a specific frame

[João Távora]

>> yes, you understand correctly.
>
> So for making this general purpose you should use `pop-to-buffer'
> instead of `display-buffer'.

Yes, that works too. Why exactly is this more general purpose?

>> control how `display-buffer' but not
>
> ... only, I presume ...

Sorry I mean "a lot of control over how it gets called, but not when
it gets called"

>> when it is called. The advice is because I
>> want ibuffer and ido to work with this as well.
>
> These should refrain from using `switch-to-buffer(-...)' and use
> `pop-to-buffer' with the `display-buffer-same-window' directive instead.
> Wherever this bothers you, file a bug report so it gets fixed.

it didn't bother me until now, let's see if I use this frequently...

 Also, ido has these `ido-default-buffer-method' and
`ido-default-file-method' that can be set to various options to
control how buffer appears.

But the way these options implemented does not bring them all to
`display-buffer', which sometimes precludes user's control. Should't
they be implemented via `display-buffer-alist', keeping any of the
user's entries on top?

> [...]  Couldn't you use some more human predicate for this purpose?

Yes, I could of course, but was too lazy. I could use any
buffer-checking predicate. There could be some kind of var
`joaot/browse-buffer-predicates' tried in order by
`joaot/browse-buffer-p'.

>
> This was the intention of `display-buffer-alist' and IIRC at some time I
> had already removed all calls of `switch-to-buffer' from the Emacs code
> base.  Somehow this got reverted later.

Pity. But what about making `switch-to-buffer' delegate to
`display-buffer' too? It could dinamically bind `display-buffer-alist'
to display and select the buffer, but keeping any existing entries
(probably set by the user, or other programs) on top.

If that resulted in `switch-to-buffer' not switching to the buffer's
window, it could not be considered unexpected behaviour, since
ultimately the user set `display-buffer-alist' himself.

> `switch-to-buffer' is the traditional means to interactively show a
> buffer in the selected window.  It shouldn't be used in Lisp code.

Yes I see. But see above for a (possibly naive) fix.

> This doesn't sound right.  When `display-buffer' has found a window it
> should stop right there.  Anything else would constitute a bug.  If you
> can reproduce it, step through it with the debugger to find out what
> goes wrong.

My fault, sorry. The function displaying the buffer must return a
window object, anything else results in funny behaviour.

Anyway, it's working nicely now, thanks for the help.

--
João Távora