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Re: When do you prefer frames instead of windows?


From: Rainer M Krug
Subject: Re: When do you prefer frames instead of windows?
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 09:52:04 +0100
User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4 (darwin)

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

>> The usefulness of frames is evident for buffers that update their
>> content according to the current buffer (like Speedbar and ECB).
>> Besides this kind of use, when do you prefer frames instead of
>> windows?
>
> Personally, almost always.  A window-manager window (Emacs frame)
> is more flexible than an Emacs window - more features/possibilities.
>
> Emacs windows were conceived long, long ago - before window
> managers were supported/recognized by Emacs and even, for the
> most part, before they existed.  They are vestigial organs that
> have some limited uses but are generally not the best way to
> interact, IMO.
>
> I generally don't like apps to try to lock everything they do into
> a single window-mgr window (frame) and provide their own internal
> windows within that frame.  That applies to Emacs also.  Whenever
> possible/practical, I free such internal windows to become normal
> window-mgr windows.  With Emacs this is even better, as you can
> manipulate frames using the keyboard, not just the mouse.
>
> However, out of the box, support for using Emacs frames is pretty
> primitive.  So I jump through a bunch of configuration hooks to
> be able to use them easily (including keyboard manipulation).
>
> Just one (minority) opinion.
>
> I would ask an opposite question: IF you could use Emacs frames
> as easily as you can use Emacs windows, in what scenarios would
> you prefer using Emacs windows, and why?

In the old Windows (95, 98, 2000 - after that I gave up with Windows)
there were also the options to have in e.g. the Turbo Pascal IDE the
windows in one application window (as "windows" under emacs) or as
separate windows (as frames under emacs). And everybody had different
preferences. And I think it it the same here.

One major advantage under Linux when using frames instead of windows, is
"focus follows mouse" - you can simply switch between different emacs
frames by moving the mouse, which you can't when using windows. I know -
I take cover - real emacs user don't use the mose, but for me it was
faster to move the mouse then switching to a different frame, especially
when more then one frame was present.

Now I am using a Mac - not because I don not like Linux anymore, but
because I think the hardware is simply brilliant - with OSX (Linux does
not play nicely along with the retina display and the touch pad the last
time I teried it out) the focus does not follow the mouse, so I am using
frames as kind of topical separation for my buffers.

One other advantage of using frames is multiple monitors - one frame per
monitor.

Cheers,

Rainer

>
>

-- 
Rainer M. Krug
email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
PGP: 0x0F52F982

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