Re: [RFC] Option to kill `emacs --daemon' when closing the last client frame

[Jim Porter]

On 10/19/2021 9:36 PM, Tomasz Konojacki wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Oct 2021 21:20:35 -0700
> Jim Porter <jporterbugs@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've been experimenting with using `emacs --daemon' and found one part of it to 
> > be somewhat surprising. If I set `ALTERNATE_EDITOR' to the empty string and run 
> > emacsclient, it runs `emacs --daemon' and connects to it; so far so good. But 
> > when I close the Emacs client, the Emacs daemon sticks around; I'd prefer the 
> > daemon to stop as well.
>
> You will get that behaviour if you put (server-start) in your init.el
> and set --alternate-editor to the emacs binary, not just an empty string.

Right, that's what I currently do. However, I've run into a couple 
problems that have made me think `emacs --daemon' would be a better 
solution. Under a non-daemon[1] configuration:

1) `org-protocol://' links don't work if Emacs isn't already running. 
This is because org-protocol advises `server-visit-files' to detect when 
a link with that protocol is passed as a file argument on the command 
line. Since this argument is passed to the "alternate" Emacs, it's not 
handled in `server-visit-files' and so the org-protocol code never runs.

2) The first place Emacs is opened is the "primary" instance. This isn't 
usually a problem when you only run Emacs graphically, but if mixing GUI 
and terminal instances, it'd be nice to allow closing the first instance 
and keep the others open. For example, if you start editing in a 
terminal Emacs and open a GUI Emacs client, the GUI Emacs can only live 
as long as the terminal one.

The first issue is probably fixable for non-daemon configurations, but 
the second is more fundamental and pushed me over the edge to (trying 
to) swap to `emacs --daemon'.

- Jim

[1] An "aengel" configuration?