Re: Suggestion: Add discussion of input focus handling to select-window; add select-frame-window

[Robert Weiner]

On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 12:26 PM, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:

There's a node "Input Focus" in the ELisp manual.  What is missing
from it to cover what you want?

In my scheme of Emacs-ware, there's no such thing as "redirecting
input to a window".

​When the user selects another window within the selected frame

or a select-window is done on the selected frame, user input

(typing) and programmatic input (insert) shifts from the prior

window to the new window.  No frame change has occurred yet

where user input like self-inserting characters goes is different.

How can this not be part of your Emacs model?

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  Input is redirected to a frame, and then t

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he

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selected window on that frame is usually

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the one that reacts to user

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input (I say "usually' because some input

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, like mouse gestures, can

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operate on n on-selected windows).

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​Some concept other than input focus is sending those inputs to the

selected window (maybe we limit discussion to keyboard inputs for now).

Maybe it could have a name and be described.

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> I read through parts of the Elisp manual.  The section on Windows does not explain

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> how to redirect user input ot an arbitrary window.  The top-level on Frames does

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> not either.  It is not until I get to the section on Input Focus that I get any

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> helpful information on this and that section refers only to frames, not selected

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> windows.

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Then perhaps the only stuff that's missing is some appropriately

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worded index entries that lead to "Input Focus", and maybe also short

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notes with cross-references elsewhere in the manual.

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Frame-level input focus is insufficient to describe the window to which

keyboard input goes in all cases.  It requires a combination of set input

focus and select-window, right?  Plus, if we want to see any changes in

buffer-to-window mappings during the course of a function, we must invoke

redisplay.  It is the description of the interrelations of these things that

is not described in a single place anywhere, especially with code samples,

making it difficult for programmers to see what must be done.

Bob