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#79065
31.0.50; [PATCH] Allow inverting the meaning of 'quit-window-kill-buffer'
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On 7/28/2025 12:18 AM, martin rudalics via Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
the Swiss army knife of text editors wrote:
> The problem with 'quit-window-kill-buffer' is that it also can be a list
> of major modes. What should 'invert' or 'xor' with or without a prefix
> argument produce in such a case? Kill the buffer if it is a member of
> that list, kill it if it not a member of that list ...
My reasoning was that the prefix argument means, "Do the opposite of
what quit-window' would otherwise do." (Hence the name 'invert'.)
However, another way to do this would be a tri-state:
* no prefix: obey 'quit-window-kill-buffer'
* C-u: always kill
* C--: always bury
This avoids the 'invert' symbol entirely, and also avoids the additional
mental complexity of trying to predict what will happen when using the
prefix argument while 'quit-window-kill-buffer' is a list. (That
complexity is still there to a degree even without the prefix arg, but
it might be clearer for users to have a way of saying, "I want this
behavior," rather than just, "I want the opposite of the default.")
The above tri-state is something I do fairly often in my own Emacs
config, though I'm not sure how common it is in Emacs itself. In this
scheme, C-u means (very roughly) to do something "more" (e.g. more
strongly), and C-- means the opposite: to do something "less", or in a
diminished way. Since "C-u quit-window" in Emacs 30 is a stronger form
of the default (quit the window *and* kill the buffer), "C--
quit-window" could mean the weaker form (quit the window and *never*
kill the buffer).
From my PoV, I'd be happy with this scheme or the one I originally
proposed. It would just involve relearning a bit of muscle memory.
This bug report was last modified 51 days ago.
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