Subject: bug#5054: 23.1.50; buffer-menu truncated fields

From: martin rudalics <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:08:42 +0100

> I think that instead of manually adding a button, we should improve
 > the Help system to automatically deduce additional useful information.
 > For example, `list-buffers' is a command from the package `buff-menu'
 > that contains the group `Buffer-menu', so we could automatically
 > add information about this to the help output of `list-buffers'.

That's what I had in mind - some construct which has the Help system add
a link to the custom group automatically (just like customization links
for options).

 > Maybe this is not very reliable for the case when a package has more
 > than one group.

Many packages have a root group which should be sufficient for this
purpose.

 > Then a solution would be to not deduce information,
 > but to add more reliable links: from every command add a link to the
 > information about the package it belongs to, and on the page with the
 > package information list all groups with customizable variables.

I'm afraid this might be confusing.  But for a a minor mode like
`show-paren-mode' a clickable link from the command to its major
customization group (whose name is not easily deducible in this
particular case) should be mandatory.

 > I propose to add the same options to `Buffer-menu-buffer+size-width' as
 > `Man-width' currently has.  It fits the output width to the window width,
 > and `list-buffers' could do the same.

Does `Man-width' trigger a refit when the window gets resized?

 > Displaying the buffer list in a table would be an ideal solution.

That would require substantial work.

 > I think it's better to implement that by allowing dragging a handle
 > in the header line, and redrawing the buffer accordingly.

Agreed.  We should also give the header line items the standard button
appearance so it's easy to see (1) which sorting method is currently
selected, (2) where and what I have to click, and (3) the position of
the handle for dragging.

martin