Re: Extend gdb to filter registers

[John Yates]

On Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 12:14 PM martin rudalics <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> - Whether a window can be split does not depend on whether it is
>    dedicated in some way or not.  Dedicatedness affects exclusively
>    whether you can display another buffer in that window.

Yes, I know that.  My original point was that the semantics are
not intuitive.  A user writing some code to create an arrangement
of windows and then marking them dedicated could easily think
that those windows are thereafter stable,  that they will never be
split by display-buffer.  What is not called out in any documentation
that I have seen is that a dedicated window is still a candidate for
splitting; that some other property must protect it if one's  intent
is for it never to be split.

> A better alternative is to specify buffer display actions that do not
> split windows or provide a suitable 'split-window-preferred-function'.

I strongly disagree.  I view having to interact with display-buffer
as an ever fraught proposition.  I understand the motivation for
display-buffer's existence and the remarkable job that it does.

But when creating an arrangement of stable windows I much
prefer a declarative solution that clarifies my intent.

> (3) making the window's frame unsplittable.

I do not want to disable splitting altogether, only of certain
windows.  Thus an unsplittable frame solution is not practical

> (2) making windows fixed-size

Making a windows fixed-size seems - at best - a kludge.
It provides no way to state my intent.  Instead I achieve
that intent - namely preventing certain windows from
getting split - indirectly by specifying an unrelated property.
The dissonance here is that I actually do _not_ want my
windows (in this case gdb-mi's dedicated windows) to
be fixed-size.  I regularly resize those windows by dragging
their  borders.  Would that continue to be possible once I
make the windows fixed size?

> (1) setting 'split-height-threshold' and 'split-width-threshold'
> accordingly

Using ridiculously large splitting thresholds does allow
me to have stable windows that never get split while
continuing to be resizeable via dragging.  The unfortunate
side-effect is that it prevents display-buffer from managing
the large amount of screen space I have provided for
displaying source buffers.

An unsplittable window property sure seems appealing :-)

The semantics are straight forward.  And I find it hard to
imagine that the implementation would be very difficult.
I expect that the biggest efforts would be documentation,
NEWS, etc.

/john