Here is the order in which the functions are called
M-x man -> Man-getpage-in-background -> Man-notify-when-ready -> display-buffer (if Man-notify-method variable is set to 'friendly, which is its default value)
You will get help about display-buffer-alist when you do `C-h f display-buffer`.
You can also do `C-h v display-buffer-alist` and that will point you to the `display-buffer` function documentation.
You can learn more about Display Action Functions by evaluating (info "(elisp) Display Action Functions") or doing `C-h i g (elisp) Display Action Functions`.
Using the shackle package allows you to set the display actions from a higher level without having to customize the display-buffer-alist manually.
If you are interested in customizing display-buffer-alist manually, there are few examples on
emacs.stackexchange.com which might help you:
Hi,
Thanks for the hint. I haven't looked into it yet, indeed.
display-buffer-alist is not very user-friendly (and isn't mentionned in
the docstring of `man'). Your shackle config file looks easier but I
don't see an obvious way to say "re use an existing window which
displays a buffer of the same mode". Maybe I should just try it and
see...
Nicolas Richard.
Kaushal Modi <kaushal.modi@gmail.com> writes:
> You can do the window control by customizing the `display-buffer-alist` variable. That's a suggestion if you haven't
> yet looked at it.
>
> Personally, I use the shackle package which is an interface to customization of that variable. I mention this because
> I control where the man/woman buffers open using this package (
> https://github.com/kaushalmodi/.emacs.d/blob/master/setup-files/setup-shackle.el )