marick%cthulhu@GSWD-VMS.ARPA (Brian Marick) (01/14/87)
I think it would be useful for GNU Emacs under X windows to be able to spawn new windows to use. I have several reasons: 1. I find Emacs somewhat cumbersome with more than two windows. (Granted, I may not have tried hard enough to get used to using more windows.) Consequently, I usually run with my screen tiled into three windows, each running Emacs, with other Emacs processes hidden or iconified. 2. Stacking and overlapping and sliding windows is useful. 3. The X cut buffer between separate Emacs processes isn't enough. I'd like to be able to use registers, etc. So, for example, I'd like my version of find-file-other-window to wait for mouse input. If I wanted to replace a window's contents with the new buffer, I'd point and click left mouse. If I wanted to split a particular window and put the new buffer into one half, I'd point and click middle mouse. If I wanted to spawn a new window, I'd click right mouse and get the usual X rubber band for sizing the new window. First Question: Is this sort of thing worth having? If so, I'd like to throw some money at a graduate student. I don't have the time, and lots of grad students need money. I only have enough money for about half-time support over a summer. I haven't grovelled around very much in the Emacs C code, so I don't have a good feel for how hard it would be. Second Question: Could a reasonable job be done in a summer? I'm assuming someone who's a reasonable programmer, proficient with C, basic knowledge of Lisp, knows how to use Emacs but hasn't ever gotten down to the C level. A "reasonable" job means that I expect that the end result will need cleaning up, will sometimes break, and will be missing some features. Brian Marick, Wombat Consort Gould Computer Systems -- Urbana ...ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!marick ARPA: Marick@GSWD-VMS