RE: How to restore the layout?

[Drew Adams]

>  > Strictly speaking they are not part of the current state, but of some
>  > previous state.  X does not differ between maximized, fullscreen or
>  > normal windows, they are all just windows.  The window manager makes
>  > that distinction, and probably holds that data, but it is private and
>  > unacessable.
> 
> So this means that, as stated earlier, we'd have to remember the
> pre-maximize/minimize coordinates ourselves in the frame structure and
> update them whenever we minimize/maximize a frame.

FWIW, that is what I do in frame-cmds.el.  The frame maximization there
is not a real maximization (it just fills the available screen, keeping
borders, title etc.).  But it does record the current parameters before
doing that, so toggling it restores the original size, position, etc.

Of course, such recording is done only by the (my) Emacs maximize-frame
function; it is not done if the frame is maximized in another way, 
outside Emacs.

But yes, it would be good to be able to capture the window mgr info
for restoring.

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en/download/frame-cmds.el