Emacs 31 introduces native frame transposition, a significant improvement for multi-monitor setups. This new feature allows users to quickly and smoothly move frames between different monitors, preserving their relative size and position. Previously, moving frames across monitors often resulted in distorted sizing or placement. With native frame transposition, Emacs now understands monitor geometries, enabling a seamless transition and a more consistent user experience across displays. This enhancement provides a more intuitive and efficient workflow for users working with multiple monitors.
The blog post "Native frame transposition coming to Emacs 31" by Prot details a significant improvement to Emacs' window management functionality in the upcoming version 31. Specifically, it addresses the long-standing issue of inefficient and sometimes buggy behavior when rearranging Emacs frames (top-level windows). Previously, transposing frames, or swapping their positions on the screen, relied on a complex and resource-intensive process of destroying and recreating the frames entirely. This older method, while functional, suffered from several drawbacks. It could be slow, especially with complex frame setups involving multiple windows and buffers. More importantly, it could lead to the loss of frame-specific state information, such as the precise window sizes and positions within each frame, as well as any custom decorations or toolbars associated with the frames.
Emacs 31 introduces native frame transposition, a completely revamped approach that operates at a lower level, directly manipulating the windowing system's representation of the frames. This avoids the need for the destructive recreation process. Instead, Emacs 31 can now efficiently swap the positions of frames without losing any of their associated state. This results in a noticeably smoother and faster frame transposition experience, particularly noticeable on systems with multiple monitors or complex window configurations. The blog post highlights the benefits of this change, emphasizing the improved performance and the preservation of frame state. It also provides specific command examples, illustrating how users can leverage the new functionality, such as using windmove-swap-states-left and windmove-swap-states-right to transpose frames with adjacent ones. These commands facilitate quick and seamless reorganization of the Emacs workspace, enhancing overall user productivity and providing a more refined window management experience. The author expresses enthusiasm for this new feature, portraying it as a significant step forward in Emacs' window management capabilities.
Summary of Comments ( 43 )
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43619437
Hacker News users generally expressed excitement about native frame transposition in Emacs 31. Several commenters highlighted the performance improvements this change brings, particularly for complex window configurations or remote sessions. Some discussed existing workarounds they'd used, like
ace-window, while others anticipated how this would simplify their Emacs configurations. A few users also pointed out potential benefits for tiling window managers and speculated about possible future enhancements, such as transposing frames across different monitors. The overall sentiment was positive, viewing the change as a welcome quality-of-life improvement for Emacs users.The Hacker News post "Native frame transposition coming to Emacs 31" sparked a discussion with several insightful comments.
One commenter expressed excitement about the feature, highlighting its potential to significantly improve the user experience when working with multiple frames, especially when using Emacs in a tiling window manager. They elaborated that the current behavior, where transposing frames requires manual resizing, is inconvenient and disruptive to the workflow. This new feature promises a smoother and more intuitive way to rearrange frames.
Another user pointed out a practical application of this feature for users who present from their Emacs setup. Currently, maximizing a frame often leads to undesirable results, but with the native frame transposition, switching to a presentation setup and back could become seamless and hassle-free.
A different commenter focused on the technical details, mentioning that this feature utilizes the underlying window manager's capabilities for frame management. They also clarified that the functionality depends on the window manager's support and might not work universally across all window managers. Specifically, they noted that tiling window managers, such as i3, do not usually handle frame sizing within their paradigm, and that transposing in this manner might not be ideal even if technically possible.
Another discussion thread branched into the broader context of Emacs development. A user raised concerns about the relatively slow pace of development compared to other projects like Neovim. This led to a discussion about the different development philosophies, community dynamics, and the challenges of maintaining a large and complex project like Emacs. Some defended Emacs, emphasizing its stability, extensibility, and the active community that continues to contribute to its development. They cited the independent nature of Emacs' development as a reason for why features may appear at a different pace compared to a project like Neovim, where some design decisions might come from external pressures. It also touched upon the relative importance of native frame transposition compared to other features that some users might prefer were prioritized differently.
Finally, a few comments simply expressed appreciation for the author of the original blog post for sharing the information about the upcoming Emacs feature. They acknowledged the value of such posts in keeping the community informed about the latest developments.