Re: just-the-text Emacs frame

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:00:27 +0200 Julien Danjou <address@hidden> wrote: 

#+begin_src: emacs-lisp
(defun make-special-frame ()
  (let* ((width 200)
         (height 500)
         (ff (make-frame `((visibility . nil)
                           (width . 20)))))
    (x-change-window-property "_NET_WM_STRUT_PARTIAL" `(,width 0 0 0 0 ,height 
0 0 0 0 0 0) ff
                              "CARDINAL" 32 t)
    (x-change-window-property "_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE" 
'("_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DOCK") ff
                              "ATOM" 32 t)
    (make-frame-visible ff)))
#+end_src

JD> This, under awesome and Metacity, creates a new frame and reserves 50
JD> pixels on the left of the screen for the frame. It does not affect any
JD> other Emacs frame.

JD> Both awesome and metacity drops the window decoration because they
JD> recognise the window as a dock, and reserve the space. I think this is
JD> exactly what Ted wants, except portability.

Under XMonad, that creates a strut panel but the panel won't take any
keyboard input, which is a problem.  When I try to close it from the WM,
the WM targets another frame instead (the strut panel is not a normal
window, as expected).  It can be closed from the menus, but if I turn
off the menus as I intend, there will be no way to easily close that
frame.

I guess I can install a right-click handler, but I wonder if it's not
better to let emacs-panel manage all the popup frames it creates,
arranging them along the screen edges.  The lack of keyboard input
handling concerns me.  Does keyboard input work in other WMs?  I realize
this is way beyond the intended use of Emacs, so don't take it as a
complaint, more of an investigation :)

Thanks
Ted