RE: definitely a newbie question

[Tom Davey]

Robert P. J. Day writes:

>   just started with emacs, and it's not clear how, if i have 
> more than one window up already, how, in one operation, i can 
> open a new file in a *new* additional window.

Hmm. I did a quick scan of the manuals and doc strings, and it's not
clear to me either. 

>   is there a way to do this easily?  or should i first split 
> one of the existing windows, then switch to an alternate file 
> in one of those windows?

I think you've come up with the quickest method short of writing a
custom function. It would seem to be easy to alter
find-file-other-window to create an additional window no matter how many
windows already exist. I'm a newbie myself, though, so I wouldn't be
surprised is somebody else on this excellent list has a better answer. 

-- 
Tom Davey
tom@tomdavey.com
blog: http://www.monstersfromtheid.com/