Re: [wmii] emacs minibuffer frame

Jonas Bernoulli wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have been using wmii for quite a long time now and am very satisfied
> with it. An other application I use a lot is emacs.
>
> By default emacs displays a minibuffer at the bottom of each window
> wasting some screen real estate.
>
> In case you are not familiar with emacs let me explain some terminology:
>
> * Minibuffers are a lot like dmenu. They are used to interactively
> read some input from the user.
> * A frame is what you call a client.
> * Frames can be split into multiple windows. So emacs-frame=x11-window
> and emacs-window=something we don't have to worry about in this
> context.
>
> So in other words: in emacs each client has an input-area, called
> minibuffer, at the buttom.
>
> However it is possible to have only one minibuffer which is "linked"
> to whatever emacs client has focus. So if you invoke some command in
> an emacs client that needs to read input from the user the minibuffer
> gets focus and knows which client it acts on.
>
> The problem is that I can't put the minibuffer anywhere in wmii. If I
> just make it a floating client it will cover up parts of other clients
> that it shouldn't.
>
> Since it is much like dmenu the logical thing to do would be to have
> wmii treat it like dmenu.
>
> So what I am hoping for is that when a client containing the
> minibuffer is created, wmii detects that and places it above dmenu,
> reducing the space available for managed clients.
>
> Then of course it would be nice if wmii only did that for views that
> contain emacs clients, but that is probably not so easy and not
> required to get started.
>
> It would even improve my user experience if wmii would simply add some
> space above dmenu, where I could manually put the minibuffer client.
>
> But of course I would prefer it if wmii would just treat the
> minibuffer client as a menu just like dmenu.
>
> So I guess this boils down to: how can I display multiple menus (dmenu
> and the minibuffer) at the same time, and how do I let wmii know that
> the minibuffer is such a menu?
>
> Many thanks for your help
>
> -- Jonas
>

Would another possible solution be windows that span multiple columns?
This would be nice, but it seems really hard the way wmii is designed.
Has anyone ever tried implementing such a solution? I have often
dreamed of wmii screens within windows and something like Alt-i to go
"into" a nested wmii and Alt-esc to go up a level. Of course, no dmenu
in nested wmii screens. Sorry, I'm rambling.
Received on Thu Jul 24 2008 - 14:50:26 UTC