Re: virtual space?

[Kevin Rodgers]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> > From: "Michael Durland" <mdurland@ix.netcom.com>
> > Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
> > Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 01:26:00 GMT
> >
> > > Emacs has an optional feature to cause it pop up a new frame
> > > (``window'' in your parlance) to display comlpetion results.  See the
> > > documentation of the variable `special-display-buffer-names'.  Why
> > > isn't this sufficient?
> >
> > Is there a way to show these spawned special frames without an actual
> > "frame" around them?  That is, just the window contents with no title bar,
> > no resizing border, etc.  Just the actual contents inside the frame?
>
>
> I don't understand why is this an issue (can you explain?), but it
> sounds like the default Emacs behavior, whereby the possible
> completions are shown in a window in the same frame, should satisfy
> your needs, since there's no new frame borders involved.  What am I
> missing?


He liked your suggestion to display the *Completions* buffer in its own
frame, via special-display-buffer-names.  But he wants it displayed
without any window manager decorations.

> > That way it could appear on top of the existing frame and have the
> > appearance that it is part of the same frame.
>
> A separate window popped by Emacs by default in the same frame is, in
> fact, part of the same frame.  What's wrong with that?

He wants the buffer/window to have a separate (special) frame.


> > I found how to specify some properties
> > of the frame, like position and size, but I didn't figure out how to specify
> > system properties like what "style" the spawned frame has.
>
> What do you mean by the frame's ``style''?

I think he wants a new frame property (e.g. window-manager-decorations) that he
could specify in special-display-frame-alist.

...


> > With a real frame, the "frame stuff" gets in the way of the actual
> > contents, which in this case would be numbers with tick marks as
> > periods.
>
> It is possible, at least in principle, to have frames without borders
> (that's how Emacs creates tooltips, a.k.a. ``balloon help''), if that
> is important, although I don't think you can do that now in Emacs.

Exactly -- but why not?


--
Kevin Rodgers