Re: [wmii] emacs minibuffer frame

You might want to look into wmi the precursor of wmii which worked a
lot like you wish wmii would behave.

There recently was a thread to find the latest available version of wmi.

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 4:50 PM, Robert C Corsaro <rcorsaro_AT_optaros.com> wrote:
> 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 - 15:08:39 UTC