Subject: bug#17831: 24.4.50; bad default value for `Man-width'

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 18:55:18 +0300

> From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
> Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 08:53:14 -0400
> Cc: [email-masked], Leo Liu <[email-masked]>
> 
> > To fix this we could either use some sort of maximimum width (for me
> > more than 80 columns are not very readable anyway) and propose an
> 
> I'm with you here, but some users disagree (e.g. they want to use their
> 160-column *Cmpletions* window fully).
> 
> > Alternatively, we could display the buffer first, look at what size we
> > get, fill the buffer, and possibly resize the window afterwards.
> 
> That's what we should aim for, I think.

You are talking about 2 different situations as if they are identical.
But IMO they are very different.  "M-x man" runs the text formatter in
the background, while the user is free to change the window
configuration at will.  I see no way that we will be able to solve
this reliably.

By contrast, in the *Completions* use case the code that formats the
text runs synchronously, so having in place some protocol that would
allow to query about the dimensions of the window display-buffer
etc. _will_ get, and then immediately use these dimensions to format
the candidate list, is probably all we need.  The alternative you
favor is IMO worse: it will momentarily flash incorrect display, which
I think will look un-professional.

Returning to the "M-x man" use case, I think the possibilities
supported via the Man-width option is the best we can do.  So any
users that are unhappy should be pointed to that option.