Subject: RE: bug#16115: 24.3.50; doc string of `display-buffer-in-side-window' - there is no SIDE arg

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 08:20:15 -0800 (PST)

>  > Shouldn't `display-buffer-below-selected' display the buffer below,
>  > and not on the right?  I.e. like you recently added the let-binding
>  > `(split-width-threshold)' to `display-buffer-at-bottom',
>  > it would also make sense to do the same by moving the let-binding
>  > `(split-height-threshold 0)' to `display-buffer-below-selected'.
> 
> Just that now we apparently have a request for displaying the buffer at
> the right ...

No, we do not.  To be clear -

On StackOverflow someone asked how to do that; that's all.  The request
was to get pretty much the effect of `C-x 3 C-x o C-x b some-buffer',
essentially popping to a buffer in a window on the right.

I don't do that kind of thing often, so I looked in the doc for a
possible answer.  I thought I recalled seeing info about how to do
things like this in the various long threads about the new fine-tuning
possibilities of `display-buffer', so I figured there was likely a
simple way to do this, or at least some way.

I came across `display-buffer-in-side-window', and both its name and
its doc seemed to correspond to the request.  I quickly wrote a command
that used that function, and that command seemed (still seems) to DTRT.

I sent a minor bug report, mentioning only that there is no SIDE
parameter (which parameter is incorrectly mentioned in the doc string).

Nothing more.  There was no request for a function to pop to a buffer
at the right.

What you might consider, if you like, is to make clear in the doc, if
it is not already so (and I couldn't find it), what is available to do
what the OP requested, IOW, what is the right way, if there is a way,
to pop to a buffer at the right.

And you might want to make clear in the `display-buffer-in-side-window'
doc that it is not for this - and why not: what it is really for, since
its name and current doc misled at least me in this regard.

If you do not want to do that, fine.  THIS bug report is only about
asking that SIDE be removed from the doc string, which I think Martin
has already done.  As far as I am concerned, if that is done then this
bug is fixed.