GNU bug report logs - #2588
23.0.90; Man buffer improperly formatted - wrong width

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Message #70 received at 2588 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
To: "'Chong Yidong'" <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>,
        "'Stefan Monnier'" <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
Cc: "'Eli Zaretskii'" <eliz <at> gnu.org>, <2588 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: RE: bug#2588: 23.0.90; Man buffer improperly formatted - wrong width
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 08:57:10 -0700

> > We could try to fix this: I think it would actually be 
> > desirable to pop up the frame immediately and then
> > asynchronously fill it as man's output comes in.
> >
> > This said, we could also just remove the COLUMNS business.
> > Who introduced this COLUMNS thingy and what was the 
> > motivation for it?
> 
> This is explained in the code comments: it's required to 
> ensure that the output of the manpage formatter has the
> same number of columns as the Emacs window/frame.

(1) The code does not do that correctly in the case cited: The new frame is 80
columns wide, but the text is formatted to 30 columns wide. (2) The code cannot
always know the number of columns of the to-be-created frame. (3) That number of
columns, even when the code can know it accurately, is *not pertinent* to how
the buffer should be formatted.

The code should not assume fixed window or frame sizes, or that those sizes
should govern formatting of the buffer text. That is not what is done generally
in Emacs when text is formatted (e.g. *Help*, *Apropos*,...).

The code here is nonstandard - Emacs generally does not behave like this. Some
particular group of users might (*might* - not sure) find this code helpful, but
for other users it is downright harmful. 

Please revert this unhelpful cleverness.

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