Re: How to have a frame dedicated to buffers of a certain kind? (was: use pdf-tools in Emacs.)

[Hongyi Zhao]

On Sun, Apr 30, 2023 at 4:08 AM Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > And this time the 3rd circle numbered window will be used to display
> > the LaTeX code and PDF alternately when I do the forward and backward
> > searching. This is not the result we hope to see.
>
> Here's a slightly improved version:
>
> (defun th/display-buffer-in-my-pdf-frame (buffer alist)
>   (if-let ((frame (car (seq-filter
>                         (lambda (f) (frame-parameter f 'th/pdf-frame))
>                         (frame-list)))))
>       (display-buffer-use-some-frame
>        buffer `((frame-predicate . ,(lambda (f)
>                                       (frame-parameter f 'th/pdf-frame)))))
>     (display-buffer-pop-up-frame
>      buffer (cons
>              '(pop-up-frame-parameters (th/pdf-frame . t))
>              alist))))
>
> ;; PDFs in a dedicated pdf frame.
> (add-to-list 'display-buffer-alist
>              `((derived-mode . pdf-view-mode)
>                th/display-buffer-in-my-pdf-frame))
>
> The problem remains that when double-clicking in the pdf-view-mode
> buffer to jump to the corresponding position in the tex file, the tex
> file buffer appears in a new window of the pdf frame.  The issue is that
> pdf-tools uses pop-to-buffer here:
>
> (defun pdf-sync-backward-search (x y)
>   "Go to the source corresponding to image coordinates X, Y.
>
> Try to find the exact position, if
> `pdf-sync-backward-use-heuristic' is non-nil."
>   (cl-destructuring-bind (source finder)
>       (pdf-sync-backward-correlate x y)
>     (pop-to-buffer (or (find-buffer-visiting source)
>                        (find-file-noselect source))
>                    pdf-sync-backward-display-action)
>     (push-mark)
>     (funcall finder)
>     (run-hooks 'pdf-sync-backward-hook)))
>
> But there you go!  You can define a pdf-sync-backward-display-action to
> make it work.
>
> (setq pdf-sync-backward-display-action
>       '(display-buffer-reuse-window (reusable-frames . t)))

Thank you for your wonderful tricks/tips/codes once more. This time,
it can work perfectly according to the intention discussed here using
the following configuration:

(use-package pdf-tools
  :ensure t
  :init
  (pdf-tools-install)

  (setq pdf-sync-backward-display-action
    '(display-buffer-reuse-window (reusable-frames . t)))
  (defun th/display-buffer-in-my-pdf-frame (buffer alist)
    (if-let ((frame (car (seq-filter
                          (lambda (f) (frame-parameter f 'th/pdf-frame))
                          (frame-list)))))
    (display-buffer-use-some-frame
     buffer `((frame-predicate . ,(lambda (f)
                    (frame-parameter f 'th/pdf-frame)))))
      (display-buffer-pop-up-frame
       buffer (cons
               '(pop-up-frame-parameters (th/pdf-frame . t))
               alist))))

  ;; PDFs in a dedicated pdf frame.
  (add-to-list 'display-buffer-alist
               `((derived-mode . pdf-view-mode)
         th/display-buffer-in-my-pdf-frame))
  )

> You can read up how that all works in (info "(elisp) Displaying
> Buffers").

Thank you for hints. But the Elisp code you mentioned requires a
significant level of proficiency in Elisp programming. Even if I
understand the underlying mechanics of the problem being discussed, it
may still be challenging to write the corresponding code
implementation without a strong foundation in Elisp.

> Bye,
> Tassilo

Best,
Zhao

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