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https://github.com/davidshepherd7/frames-only-mode

Make emacs play nicely with tiling window managers by setting it up to use frames rather than windows
https://github.com/davidshepherd7/frames-only-mode

emacs tiling-window-manager window-manager

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Make emacs play nicely with tiling window managers by setting it up to use frames rather than windows

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README 

        
# Frames only mode



[![CI](https://github.com/davidshepherd7/frames-only-mode/workflows/CI/badge.svg)](https://github.com/davidshepherd7/frames-only-mode/actions) 

[![MELPA](https://melpa.org/packages/frames-only-mode-badge.svg)](https://melpa.org/#/frames-only-mode)



An emacs global minor mode to use emacs frames (i.e. operating system windows)

instead of emacs' internal windowing system. This combines particularly well

with

[tiling window managers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager)

such as [XMonad](http://xmonad.org/).



There's a fairly rough screencast showing the kind of things you can do with this [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi1BwRYJr6k).



## Typical Setup



In combination with `frames-only-mode` I recommend:



* Running emacs as [server-client](http://wikemacs.org/wiki/Emacs_server).

* Binding a hotkey to open new emacs frames (see below).

* Using [helm](https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm),

  [ivy](https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper) or

  [ido](https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/introduction-to-ido-mode) instead

  of the default completion interface.



Bind this shell command to a hotkey to automatically open a useful buffer in

a new frame (usually your most recently viewed buffer which isn't currently open):



    emacsclient -c -n -e '(switch-to-buffer nil)'



## Advanced Configuration



### Integrating with command line git



To make this work nicely with git (e.g. to pop up a new frame when we run git commit from the command line) we need to set the editor to run an emacsclient in a new frame. However, unlike the case for running emacsclient instances from the window manager, we don't want it to detach from the console. We can achieve this by adding the following to the `~/.gitconfig` file:



```

[core]

    editor = emacsclient -c

```



If instead we only used `editor = emacsclient` it would try to open a new buffer in an existing frame. This often results in the commit message buffer showing up in a different workspace(!), or in the terminal.



### Automatically killing (closing) certain frames



Sometimes when a buffer is closed/buried you want to kill the containing frame,

for example when pressing `q` in a help buffer. For things in Emacs itself this

is usually configured by default, but for other things you can control this

behaviour using `frames-only-mode-kill-frame-when-buffer-killed-buffer-list`.



For example to automatically kill frames for buffers named `*foo*`:



```

  (add-to-list 'frames-only-mode-kill-frame-when-buffer-killed-buffer-list "*foo*")

```



This variable also supports using regular expressions by using a cons cell where

the car (first) element is `'regexp` and the cdr (second) is the regexp. This is a

little tricky because transient buffers are typically named with `*` characters

at the start and end of their names which need escaping. For example to

automatically kill frames for popup buffers from po-mode which are named like

`*foo.po*` do:



```

  (add-to-list 'frames-only-mode-kill-frame-when-buffer-killed-buffer-list '(regexp . "\\*.*\\.po\\*"))

```



(note the double-backslash escaping of the regexp special character here *

because we want to treat it as a normal literal character).



### Integration with default emacs completion



If you use the default emacs completion (or ido with a popup completion buffer)

then `frames-only-mode-use-windows-for-completion` can be used to control

whether the `*Completions*` buffer is displayed in a frame or an emacs window.

The default is to use an emacs window, which works well with any window manager.

Alternatively the `*Completions*` buffer can be disabled entirely by setting

`completion-auto-help` to `nil`.



## Changelog



### Unstable



* Add support for eshell completion

* Fix some customize group weirdness

* Fix sometimes leaving additional frames open after quitting magit

* Regexp support in kill-frame-when-buffer-killed-buffer-list



## Other links



This mode originated in

[a blog post](http://techtrickery.com/tearing-out-the-emacs-window-manager.html)

which has some additional details.