Overhaul and simplify single_kboard API. Allow calls to `recursive-edit' in process...
[bpt/emacs.git] / README.multi-tty
1 -*- coding: utf-8; mode: text; -*-
2 GOAL
3 ----
4
5 This branch implements support for opening multiple, different tty
6 devices and simultaneous X and tty frames from a single Emacs session.
7
8 Some use cases:
9 Emacs is notoriously slow at startup, so most people use another
10 editor or emacsclient for quick editing jobs from the console.
11 Unfortunately, emacsclient was very awkward to use, because it did not
12 support opening a new Emacs frame on the current virtual tty.
13 Now, with multi-tty support, it can do that. (Emacsclient starts up
14 faster than vi!)
15
16 Some Gnus users (including me) run Gnus in an X frame in its own Emacs
17 instance, which they typically leave running for weeks. It would be
18 nice if they could connect to this instance from a remote ssh session
19 and check their messages without opening a remote X frame or resorting
20 to gnus-slave.
21
22 WHO IS DOING IT
23 ---------------
24
25 I'm Károly Lőrentey. My address: lorentey@elte.hu.
26
27 Comments, bug reports, suggestions and patches are welcome; send them
28 to multi-tty@lists.fnord.hu.
29
30 The following is a (sadly incomplete) list of people who have
31 contributed to the project by testing, submitting patches, bug
32 reports, and suggestions. Thanks!
33
34 Bernard Adrian <bernadrian@free.fr>
35 ARISAWA Akihiro <ari@mbf.ocn.ne.jp>
36 Vincent Bernat <bernat@luffy.cx>
37 Han Boetes <han@mijncomputer.nl>
38 Francisco Borges <borges@let.rug.nl>
39 Damien Cassou <damien.cassou@laposte.net>
40 Robert J. Chassell <bob@rattlesnake.com>
41 Romain Francoise <romain@orebokech.com>
42 Ami Fischman <ami@fischman.org>
43 Friedrich Delgado Friedrichs <friedel@nomaden.org>
44 IRIE Tetsuya <irie@t.email.ne.jp>
45 Yoshiaki Kasahara <kasahara@nc.kyushu-u.ac.jp>
46 Bas Kok <nekkobassu@yahoo.com>
47 Jurej Kubelka <Juraj.Kubelka@email.cz>
48 David Lichteblau <david@lichteblau.com>
49 Xavier Mallard <zedek@gnu-rox.org>
50 Istvan Marko <mi-mtty@kismala.com>
51 Ted Morse <morse@ciholas.com>
52 Gergely Nagy <algernon@debian.org>
53 Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu>
54 Kalle Olavi Niemitalo <kon@iki.fi>
55 Mark Plaksin <happy@mcplaksin.org>
56 Frank Ruell <stoerte@dreamwarrior.net>
57 Tom Schutzer-Weissmann <trmsw@yahoo.co.uk>
58 Joakim Verona <joakim@verona.se>
59 Dan Waber <dwaber@logolalia.com>
60 and many others.
61
62 Richard Stallman was kind enough to review an earlier version of my
63 patches.
64
65
66 MAILING LISTS
67 -------------
68
69 The multi-tty mailing list (discussion & bug reports):
70
71 Address: multi-tty@lists.fnord.hu
72 Signup: http://lists.fnord.hu/mailman/listinfo/multi-tty
73 Archive: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.multi-tty/
74
75 Commit notifications (read-only):
76
77 Address: multi-tty-commits@lists.fnord.hu
78 Signup: http://lists.fnord.hu/mailman/listinfo/multi-tty-commits
79
80
81 STATUS
82 ------
83
84 The branch is now very stable and almost full-featured. All of the
85 major problems have been fixed, only a few minor issues remain. (It
86 still needs to be ported to Windows/Mac/DOS, though.) Both multiple
87 tty device support and simultaneous X and tty frame support works
88 fine. Emacsclient has been extended to support opening new tty and X
89 frames. It has been changed to open new Emacs frames by default.
90
91 The multi-tty branch has been scheduled for inclusion in the next
92 major release of Emacs (version 23). I expect the merge into the
93 development trunk to occur sometime during next year (2006), after the
94 merge of the Unicode branch.
95
96 Tested on GNU/Linux, Solaris 8, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Please let me
97 know if you succeed or fail to use it on other platforms---I'll have a
98 few tricky test cases for you.
99
100 Known problems:
101
102 * GTK support. If you compile your Emacs with the GTK
103 toolkit, some functionality of multi-tty will be lost. In
104 particular, you will not be able to work on multiple X
105 displays at once. Current releases of GTK have limitations
106 and bugs that prevent full-blown multi-display support in
107 Emacs. (GTK crashes when Emacs tries to disconnect from an
108 X server.) Use the Lucid toolkit if you want to see a
109 complete feature set.
110
111 * The single-kboard mode.
112
113 If your multi-tty Emacs session seems to be frozen, you
114 probably have a recursive editing session or a pending
115 minibuffer prompt (which is a kind of recursive editing) on
116 another display. To unfreeze your session, switch to that
117 display and complete the recursive edit, for example by
118 pressing C-] (`abort-recursive-edit').
119
120 I am sorry to say that currently there is no way to break
121 out of this "single-kboard mode" from a frozen display. If
122 you are unable to switch to the display that locks the
123 others (for example because it is on a remote computer),
124 then you can use emacsclient to break out of all recursive
125 editing sessions:
126
127 emacsclient -e '(top-level)'
128
129 Note that this (perhaps) unintuitive behaviour is by design.
130 Single-kboard mode is required because of an intrinsic Emacs
131 limitation that is very hard to eliminate. (This limitation
132 is related to the single-threaded nature of Emacs.)
133
134 I plan to implement better user notification and support for
135 breaking out of single-kboard mode from locked displays.
136
137 * Mac, Windows and DOS support is broken, doesn't even
138 compile. Multiple display support will probably not provide
139 new Emacs features on these systems, but the multi-tty
140 branch changed a few low-level interfaces, and the
141 system-dependent source files need to be adapted
142 accordingly. The changes are mostly trivial, so almost
143 anyone can help, if only by compiling the branch and
144 reporting the compiler errors.
145
146
147 HOW TO GET THE BRANCH
148 ---------------------
149
150 The branch uses Bazaar 1 (http://bazaar.canonical.com) for version control.
151
152 Retrieving the latest version of the branch:
153
154 baz register-archive -f http://aszt.inf.elte.hu/~lorentey/mirror/arch/2004
155 baz get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
156
157 This incantation uses an archive mirror that is hosted on a
158 high-bandwidth site. Please note that on average there is a two-hour
159 delay for commits to arrive on this mirror. My primary mirror is on the
160 low-bandwidth http://lorentey.hu/ site:
161
162 baz register-archive -f http://lorentey.hu/arch/2004/
163 baz get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
164
165 This is "instantly" updated, but very slow from outside Hungary.
166 (By "instantly" I mean as soon as I connect the notebook I work on to
167 a network. It could take days.)
168
169 The Arch supermirror provides mirroring services for all public Arch
170 repositories. We have a mirror there, too, if you prefer.
171
172 baz register-archive -f http://mirrors.sourcecontrol.net/lorentey%40elte.hu--2004
173 baz get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
174
175 My GPG key id is 0FB27A3F; it is available from
176 hkp://wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net/, or from my homepage at
177 http://lorentey.hu/rolam/gpg.html)
178
179 Don't worry if the above checkout takes a few minutes to complete;
180 once you have a source tree, updating it to the latest revision will
181 be _much_ faster. Use the following command for the update:
182
183 baz replay
184
185 You can find more information about Bazaar on
186 http://bazaar.canonical.com/. It's a distributed source control
187 system that is somewhat less broken than competing projects.
188
189 If you don't have Bazaar, the branch has a homepage from which you can
190 download conventional patches against Emacs CVS HEAD:
191
192 http://lorentey.hu/project/emacs.html
193
194 I suggest you use Bazaar whenever feasible.
195
196
197 DEBIAN PACKAGES
198 ---------------
199
200 If you run Debian, or a distribution based on Debian, you are welcome
201 to use our binary packages; put these lines in your /etc/apt/sources.list:
202
203 # Multi-tty Emacs
204 deb http://aszt.inf.elte.hu/~lorentey/mirror/apt unstable multi-tty
205 deb-src http://aszt.inf.elte.hu/~lorentey/mirror/apt unstable multi-tty
206
207 Note that these packages are intended solely to provide an easy way to
208 test the new multi-tty features. They are not to be taken as Emacs
209 releases, and it's a mistake to expect robust operation or any kind of
210 timely support for them. Do not install them, unless you'd like to
211 have your editor crash on you.
212
213
214 COMPILATION
215 -----------
216
217 The multi-tty branch is compiled the same way as Emacs itself:
218
219 make maintainer-clean # (If you have compiled Emacs before)
220
221 ./configure --without-gtk <your favourite options>
222 make bootstrap
223 make install
224
225 If you have strange compilation errors, they may be caused by old
226 *.elc files that are left over from an earlier bootstrap. The `make
227 maintainer-clean' target deletes them, so it is a good idea to run
228 that before reporting a bug. (Emacs requires a clean recompilation
229 after certain kinds of source code changes.)
230
231 TESTING
232 -------
233
234 To test the multi-tty branch, start up the Emacs server with the
235 following commands:
236
237 emacs
238 M-x server-start
239
240 and then (from a shell prompt on another terminal) start emacsclient
241 with
242 emacsclient -t /optional/file/names... (for a tty frame)
243 emacsclient /optional/file/names... (for an X frame)
244
245 (Make sure both emacs and emacsclient are multi-tty versions.)
246 You'll hopefully have two fully working, independent frames on
247 separate terminals. The new frame is closed automatically when you
248 finish editing the specified files (C-x #), but delete-frame (C-x 5 0)
249 also works. Of course, you can create frames on more than two tty
250 devices.
251
252 Creating new frames on the same tty with C-x 5 2 (make-frame-command)
253 works, and behaves the same way as in previous Emacs versions. If you
254 exit emacs, all terminals should be restored to their previous states.
255
256 This is work in progress, and probably full of bugs. It is a good
257 idea to run emacs from gdb, so that you'll have a live instance to
258 debug if something goes wrong. Please send me your bug reports on our
259 mailing list: multi-tty@lists.fnord.hu
260
261 TIPS & TRICKS
262 -------------
263
264 I think the best way to use the new Emacs is to have it running inside
265 a disconnected GNU screen session, and always use emacsclient for
266 normal work. One advantage of this is that not a single keystroke of
267 your work will be lost if the display device that you are using
268 crashes, or the network connection times out, or whatever. (I had an
269 extremely unstable X server for some time while I was developing these
270 patches, and running Emacs this way has saved me a number of M-x
271 recover-session invocations.)
272
273 I use the following two bash scripts to handle my Emacs sessions:
274
275 -------------------------------------------------------connect-emacs--
276 #!/bin/bash
277 # Usage: connect-emacs <name> <args>...
278 #
279 # Connects to the Emacs instance called NAME. Starts up the instance
280 # if it is not already running. The rest of the arguments are passed
281 # to emacsclient.
282
283 name="$1"
284 shift
285
286 if [ -z "$name" ]; then
287 echo "Usage: connect_emacs <name> <args>..." >&2
288 exit 1
289 fi
290 preload-emacs "$name" wait
291 /usr/bin/emacsclient.emacs-multi-tty -s "$name" "$@"
292 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
293
294 -------------------------------------------------------preload-emacs--
295 #!/bin/bash
296 # Usage: preload-emacs <name> [<waitp>]
297 #
298 # Preloads the Emacs instance called NAME in a detached screen
299 # session. Does nothing if the instance is already running. If WAITP
300 # is non-empty, the function waits until the server starts up and
301 # creates its socket; otherwise it returns immediately.
302
303 name="$1"
304 waitp="$2"
305 screendir="/var/run/screen/S-$USER"
306 serverdir="/tmp/emacs$UID"
307 emacs=/usr/bin/emacs-multi-tty # Or wherever you installed your multi-tty Emacs
308
309 if [ -z "$name" ]; then
310 echo "Usage: preload_emacs <name> [<waitp>]" >&2
311 exit 1
312 fi
313
314 if [ ! -e "$screendir"/*."$name" ]; then
315 if [ -e "$serverdir/$name" ]; then
316 # Delete leftover socket (for the wait option)
317 rm "$serverdir/$name"
318 fi
319 screen -dmS "$name" "$emacs" -nw --eval "(setq server-name \"$name\")" -f server-start
320 fi
321 if [ ! -z "$waitp" ]; then
322 while [ ! -e "$serverdir/$name" ]; do sleep 0.1; done
323 fi
324 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
325
326 I have the following in my profile to have two instances automatically
327 preloaded for editing and email:
328
329 preload-emacs editor
330 preload-emacs gnus
331
332 It is useful to set up short aliases for connect-emacs. I use the
333 following:
334
335 alias edit="connect-emacs editor"
336 alias e=edit
337 alias et="connect-emacs editor -t"
338 alias gnus="connect-emacs gnus"
339
340
341 CHANGELOG
342 ---------
343
344 See arch logs.
345
346
347 NEWS
348 ----
349
350 For the NEWS file: (Needs much, much work)
351
352 ** Support for multiple terminal devices and simultaneous graphical
353 and tty frames has been added. You can test for the presence of
354 this feature in your Lisp code by testing for the `multi-tty'
355 feature.
356
357 *** The `window-system' variable has been made frame-local. The new
358 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system'
359 value for the first frame.
360
361 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
362 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
363
364 *** The new function `make-frame-on-tty' allows you to create a new
365 frame on another tty device interactively.
366
367 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
368 session, and `make-frame-on-tty' works during a graphical session.
369
370 *** Emacsclient has been extended to support opening a new terminal
371 frame. Its behaviour has been changed to open a new Emacs frame by
372 default. Use the -c option to get the old behavior of opening
373 files in the currently selected Emacs frame.
374
375 *** C-z now invokes `suspend-frame', C-x C-c now invokes
376 `save-buffers-kill-terminal'.
377
378 *** New functions: frame-tty-name, frame-tty-type, delete-tty,
379 suspend-tty, resume-tty, terminal-id, terminal-parameters,
380 terminal-parameter, set-terminal-parameter,
381 modify-terminal-parameters, environment, let-environment
382
383 *** New variables: local-key-translation-map, local-function-key-map
384
385 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
386 keyboard coding systems have been made terminal-local.
387
388 *** In addition to the global key-translation-map and
389 function-key-map, Emacs has terminal-local
390 local-key-translation-map and local-function-key-map variables,
391 and uses them instead of the global keymaps to set up translations
392 and function key sequences relevant to a specific terminal device.
393
394 *** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
395
396 * * *
397
398 (The rest of this file consists of my development notes and as such it
399 is probably not very interesting for anyone else.)
400
401 THINGS TO DO
402 ------------
403
404 ** `delete-frame' events are handled by `special-event-map'
405 immediately when read by `read_char'. This is fine but it prevents
406 higher-level keymaps from binding that event to get notified of the
407 deleted frame.
408
409 Sometimes it would be useful for Lisp code to be notified of frame
410 deletions after they have happened, usually because they want to
411 clean up after the deleted frame. Not all frame-local states can
412 be stored as a frame parameter. For example,
413 `display-splash-screen' uses `recursive-edit' with a special keymap
414 override to create its buffer---and it leads to all kinds of
415 nastiness if Emacs stays in this recursive edit mode after the
416 frame containing the splash screen is deleted. Basically, the
417 splash-screen implementation wants to throw out of the recursive
418 edit when the frame is deleted; however, it is not legal to throw
419 from `delete-frame-functions' because `delete-frame' must not fail.
420 (Introducing `delete-frame-after-functions' would not help either
421 because `delete-frame' may not fail at that time either.)
422
423 Currently `fancy-splash-screens' installs a
424 `delete-frame-functions' hook that sets up a timer to exit the
425 recursive edit. This is an adequate solution, but it would perhaps
426 be better to have something like a `frame-deleted' event that could
427 be bound in the normal way.
428
429 ** Trouble: `setenv' doesn't actually set environment variables in the
430 Emacs process. This defeats the purpose of the elaborate
431 `server-with-environment' magic around the `tgetent' call in
432 `init_tty'. D'oh.
433
434 ** (Possibly) create hooks in struct device for creating frames on a
435 specific terminal, and eliminate the hackish terminal-related frame
436 parameters (display, tty, tty-type).
437
438 make_terminal_frame
439 create_tty_output
440
441 ** Decide whether to keep the C implementation of terminal parameters,
442 or revert to the previous, purely Lisp code. It turned out that
443 local environments do not need terminal parameters after all.
444
445 ** Move Fsend_string_to_terminal to term.c, and declare get_named_tty
446 as static, removing it from dispextern.h.
447 Move fatal to emacs.c and declare it somewhere.
448
449 ** Search for `suspend-emacs' references and replace them with
450 `suspend-frame', if necessary. Ditto for `save-buffers-kill-emacs'
451 vs. `save-buffers-kill-display'.
452
453 ** Emacs crashes when a tty frame is resized so that there is no space
454 for all its windows. (Tom Schutzer-Weissmann)
455
456 ** Report GTK multi-display problems to GTK maintainers. For extra
457 credit, fix them.
458
459 Currently you can not connect to new X displays when you compile
460 Emacs with GTK support. If you want to play around with GTK
461 multidisplay (and don't mind core dumps), you can edit src/config.h
462 and define HAVE_GTK_MULTIDISPLAY there by hand.
463
464 Update: Han reports that GTK+ version 2.8.9 almost gets display
465 disconnects right. GTK will probably be fully fixed by the time
466 multi-tty gets into the trunk.
467
468 ** Audit `face-valid-attribute-values' usage in customize and
469 elsewhere. Its return value depends on the current window system.
470 Replace static initializers using it with runtime functions. For
471 example, custom's buttons are broken on non-initial device types.
472
473 ** Possibly turn off the double C-g feature when there is an X frame.
474 C.f. (emacs)Emergency Escape.
475
476 ** frames-on-display-list should also accept frames.
477
478 ** Consider the `tty-type' frame parameter and the `display-tty-type'
479 function. They serve the exact same purpose. I think it may be
480 a good idea to eliminate one of them, preferably `tty-type'.
481
482 ** The handling of lisp/term/*.el, and frame creation in general, is a
483 big, big mess. How come the terminal-specific file is loaded by
484 tty-create-frame-with-faces? I don't think it is necessary to load
485 these files for each frame; once per terminal should be enough.
486 Update: lisp/term/*.el is not loaded repeatedly anymore, but
487 faces.el still needs to be cleaned up.
488
489 ** Fix frame-set-background-mode in this branch. It was recently
490 changed in CVS, and frame.el in multi-tty has not yet been adapted
491 for the changes. (It needs to look at
492 default-frame-background-mode.) (Update: maybe it is fixed now;
493 needs testing.) (Note that the byte compiler has this to say about
494 term/rxvt.el:)
495
496 term/rxvt.el:309:17:Warning: assignment to free variable
497 `default-frame-background-mode'
498
499 ** I think `(set-)terminal-local-value' and the terminal parameter
500 mechanism should be integrated into a single framework.
501
502 (Update: `(set-)terminal-local-value' is now eliminated, but the
503 terminal-local variables should still be accessible as terminal
504 parameters. This also applies to `display-name' and similar
505 functions.)
506
507 ** Add the following hooks: after-delete-frame-hook (for server.el,
508 instead of delete-frame-functions),
509 after-delete-terminal-functions, after-create-terminal-functions.
510
511 ** BULK RENAME: The `display-' prefix of new Lisp-level functions
512 conflicts with stuff like `display-time-mode'. Use `device-'
513 or `terminal-' instead. I think I prefer `terminal-'.
514
515 It turns out that most of the offending Lisp functions were defined
516 in the trunk. Therefore, compatibility aliases should be defined
517 for the following names:
518
519 display-color-cells terminal-color-cells
520 display-color-p terminal-color-p
521 display-graphic-p terminal-graphic-p
522 display-grayscale-p terminal-grayscale-p
523 display-images-p terminal-images-p
524 display-mm-height terminal-mm-height
525 display-mm-width terminal-mm-width
526 display-mouse-p terminal-mouse-p
527 display-multi-font-p terminal-multi-font-p
528 display-multi-frame-p terminal-multi-frame-p
529 display-pixel-height terminal-pixel-height
530 display-pixel-width terminal-pixel-width
531 display-pixels-per-inch terminal-pixels-per-inch
532 display-planes terminal-planes
533 display-popup-menus-p terminal-popup-menus-p
534 display-save-under terminal-save-under
535 display-screens terminal-screens
536 display-supports-face-attributes-p terminal-supports-face-attributes-p
537 display-visual-class terminal-visual-class
538 framep-on-display framep-on-terminal
539 frames-on-display-list frames-on-terminal-list
540
541 The following functions were introduced in the multi-tty branch, and
542 were renamed without aliases:
543
544 delete-display delete-terminal
545 display-controlling-tty-p controlling-tty-p
546 display-list terminal-list
547 display-live-p terminal-live-p
548 display-name terminal-name
549 display-tty-type tty-type
550 frame-display frame-terminal
551 selected-display selected-terminal
552
553 ** The single-keyboard mode of MULTI_KBOARD is extremely confusing
554 sometimes; Emacs does not respond to stimuli from other keyboards.
555 At least a beep or a message would be important, if the single-mode
556 is still required to prevent interference. (Reported by Dan
557 Nicolaescu.)
558
559 Update: selecting a region with the mouse enables single_kboard
560 under X. This is very confusing.
561
562 Update: After discussions with Richard Stallman, this will be
563 resolved by having locked displays warn the user to wait, and
564 introducing a complex protocol to remotely bail out of
565 single-kboard mode by pressing C-g.
566
567 Update: Warning the user is not trivial to implement, as Emacs has
568 only one echo area, shared by all frames. Ideally the warning
569 should not be displayed on the display that is locking the others.
570 Perhaps the high probability of user confusion caused by
571 single_kboard mode deserves a special case in the display code.
572 Alternatively, it might be good enough to signal single_kboard mode
573 by changing the modelines or some other frame-local display element
574 on the locked out displays.
575
576 Update: In fact struct kboard does have an echo_string slot.
577
578 ** The session management module is prone to crashes when the X
579 connection is closed and then later I try to connect to a new X
580 session:
581
582 #0 0xb7ebc806 in SmcGetIceConnection () from /usr/X11R6/lib/libSM.so.6
583 #1 0x080e6641 in x_session_check_input (bufp=0xbf86c9c0) at xsmfns.c:144
584 #2 0x080d3bbc in XTread_socket (device=0xa722ff8, expected=1, hold_quit=0xbf86ca90) at xterm.c:7037
585 #3 0x080fa404 in read_avail_input (expected=1) at keyboard.c:6696
586 #4 0x080fa4ca in handle_async_input () at keyboard.c:6900
587 #5 0x080d51fa in x_term_init (display_name=162628899, xrm_option=0x0, resource_name=0x857068c "emacs") at xterm.c:10622
588 #6 0x080d920e in x_display_info_for_name (name=162628899) at xfns.c:3975
589 #7 0x080d92f9 in check_x_display_info (object=1) at xfns.c:274
590 #8 0x080d97b8 in Fx_create_frame (parms=151221485) at xfns.c:3016
591 #9 0x0815bf72 in Ffuncall (nargs=2, args=0xbf86ceec) at eval.c:2851
592
593 I installed a workaround to prevent this. The X session manager is
594 only contacted when the very first display in the Emacs session is
595 an X display. Also, x_delete_display() on this display aborts
596 session management, and XTread_socket only calls
597 x_session_check_input when it is called for the display that the
598 session was opened on. While this does not really fix the bug, it
599 makes it much less frequent, because session manager support will
600 not normally be enabled when Emacs can survive the shutdown of the
601 X server.
602
603 See if xsmfns.c should be updated.
604
605 ** Hunt down display-related functions in frame.el and extend them all
606 to accept display ids.
607
608 ** rif->flush_display_optional (NULL) calls should be replaced by a
609 new global function.
610
611 ** The set-locale-environment hack (adding the DISPLAY option) should
612 be replaced with a clean design.
613
614 ** standard-display-table should be display-local.
615 standard-display-european should be display-local.
616
617 ** With iswitchb-default-method set to 'always-frame, only frames on
618 the current display should be considered. This might involve
619 extending `get-buffer-window'.
620
621 ** Have a look at Vlocale_coding_system. Seems like it would be a
622 tedious job to localize it, although most references use it for
623 interfacing with libc and are therefore OK with the global
624 definition.
625
626 Exceptions found so far: x-select-text and
627 x-cut-buffer-or-selection-value.
628
629 ** Have a look at fatal_error_hook.
630
631 ** Have a look at set_frame_matrix_frame.
632
633 ** Check if we got term-setup-hook right.
634
635 ** I think tip_frame should be display-local.
636
637 ** Check display reference count handling in x_create_tip_frame.
638
639 ** make-frame does not correctly handle extra parameters in its
640 argument:
641
642 (frame-parameter (make-frame (list (cons 'foobar 42))) 'foobar)
643 => nil
644
645 (This is likely an error in the CVS trunk.)
646
647 ** Dan Nicolaescu suggests that -nw should be added as an alias for -t
648 in emacsclient. Good idea. (Alas, implementing this is not
649 trivial, getopt_long does not seem to support two-letter ``short''
650 options. Patches are welcome.)
651
652 ** Mark Plaksin suggests that emacsclient should accept the same
653 X-related command-line arguments as Emacs. Most of the X-related
654 argument-handling is done in Lisp, so this should be quite easy to
655 implement.
656
657 ** Gergely Nagy suggests that C-x # should only kill the current
658 frame, not any other emacsclient frame that may have the same file
659 opened for editing. I think I agree with him.
660
661 ** Very strange bug: visible-bell does not work on secondary
662 terminals in xterm and konsole. The screen does flicker a bit,
663 but it's so quick it isn't noticable.
664
665 (Update: This is probably some problem with padding or whatnot on
666 the secondary terminals.)
667
668 ** Move baud_rate to struct display.
669
670 ** Implement support for starting an interactive Emacs session without
671 an initial frame. (The user would connect to it and open frames
672 later, with emacsclient.)
673
674 ** Fix Mac support (I can't do this entirely myself). Note that the
675 current state of Mac-specific source files in the multi-tty tree
676 are not useful; before starting work on Mac support, revert to
677 pristine, pre-multi-tty versions.
678
679 ** Fix W32 support (I can't do this entirely myself). Note that the
680 current state of W32-specific source files in the multi-tty tree
681 are not useful; before starting work on W32 support, revert to
682 pristine, pre-multi-tty versions.
683
684 ** Fix DOS support (I can't do this entirely myself). Note that the
685 current state of DOS-specific source files in the multi-tty tree
686 are not useful; before starting work on DOS support, revert to
687 pristine, pre-multi-tty versions.
688
689 ** Do a grep on XXX and ?? for more issues.
690
691 ** Understand Emacs's low-level input system (it's black magic) :-)
692 What exactly does interrupt_input do? I tried to disable it for
693 raw secondary tty support, but it does not seem to do anything
694 useful. (Update: Look again. X unconditionally enables this, maybe
695 that's why raw terminal support is broken again. I really do need
696 to understand input.)
697 (Update: I am starting to understand the read_key_sequence->read-char
698 ->kbd_buffer_get_event->read_avail_input->read_socket_hook path. Yay!)
699
700 ** flow-ctrl.el must be updated.
701
702 ** Fix stuff_char for multi-tty. Doesn't seem to be of high priority.
703
704 DIARY OF CHANGES
705 ----------------
706
707 (ex-TODO items with explanations.)
708
709 -- Introduce a new struct for terminal devices.
710
711 (Done, see struct tty_output. The list of members is not yet
712 complete.)
713
714 -- Change the bootstrap procedure to initialize tty_list.
715
716 (Done, but needs review.)
717
718 -- Change make-terminal-frame to support specifying another tty.
719
720 (Done, new frame parameters: `tty' and `tty-type'.)
721
722 -- Implement support for reading from multiple terminals.
723
724 (Done, read_avail_input tries to read from each terminal, until one
725 succeeds. MULTI_KBOARD is not used. Secondary terminals don't send
726 SIGIO!)
727
728 (Update: They do, now.)
729
730 (Update2: After enabling X, they don't.)
731
732 -- other-frame should cycle through the frames on the `current'
733 terminal only.
734
735 (Done, by trivially modifiying next_frame and prev_frame.)
736
737 -- Support different terminal sizes.
738
739 (Done, no problem.)
740
741 -- Make sure terminal resizes are handled gracefully. (Could be
742 problematic.)
743
744 (Done. We don't get automatic SIGWINCH for additional ttys,
745 though.)
746
747 -- Extend emacsclient to automatically open a new tty when it connects
748 to Emacs.
749
750 (Done. It's an ugly hack, needs more work.)
751
752 -- Redisplay must refresh the topmost frame on *all* terminals, not
753 just the initial terminal.
754
755 (Done, but introduced an ugly redisplay problems. Ugh.)
756
757 -- Fix redisplay problems.
758
759 (Done; it turned out that the entire Wcm structure must be moved
760 inside tty_output. Why didn't I catch this earlier?)
761
762 -- Provide a way for emacsclient to tell Emacs that the tty has been
763 resized.
764
765 (Done, simply forward the SIGWINCH signal.)
766
767 -- Each keypress should automatically select the frame corresponding
768 to the terminal that it was coming from. This means that Emacs
769 must know from which terminal the last keyboard event came from.
770
771 (Done, it was quite simple, the input event system already
772 supported multiple frames.)
773
774 -- Fix SIGIO issue with secondary terminals.
775
776 (Done, emacsclient signals Emacs after writing to the proxy pseudo
777 terminal. Note that this means that multi-tty does not work with
778 raw ttys!)
779
780 (Update: This is bullshit. There is a read_input_waiting function,
781 extend that somehow.)
782
783 (Update of update: The first update was not right either, extending
784 read_input_waiting was not necessary. Secondary ttys do seem to
785 send signals on input.)
786
787 (Update^3: Not any more.)
788
789 -- Make make-terminal-frame look up the `tty' and `tty-type' frame
790 parameters from the currently selected terminal before the global
791 default.
792
793 (Done.)
794
795 -- Put all cached terminal escape sequences into struct tty_output.
796 Currently, they are still stored in global variables, so we don't
797 really support multiple terminal types.
798
799 (Done. It was not fun.)
800
801 -- Implement sane error handling after initialization. (Currently
802 emacs exits if you specify a bad terminal type.) The helpful error
803 messages must still be provided when Emacs starts.
804
805 (Done.)
806
807 -- Implement terminal deletion, i.e., deleting local frames, closing
808 the tty device and restoring its previous state without exiting
809 Emacs.
810
811 (Done, but at the moment only called when an error happens during
812 initialization. There is a memory corruption error around this
813 somewhere.) (Update: now it is fully enabled.)
814
815 -- Implement automatic deletion of terminals when the last frame on
816 that terminal is closed.
817
818 (Done.)
819
820 -- Restore tty screen after closing the terminal.
821
822 (Done, we do the same as Emacs 21.2 for all terminals.)
823
824 -- 'TERM=dumb src/emacs' does not restore the terminal state.
825
826 (Done.)
827
828 -- C-g should work on secondary terminals.
829
830 (Done, but the binding is not configurable.)
831
832 -- Deal with SIGHUP in Emacs and in emacsclient. (After this, the
833 server-frames may be removed from server.el.)
834
835 (Done, nothing to do. It seems that Emacs does not receive SIGHUP
836 from secondary ttys, which is actually a good thing.) (Update: I
837 think it would be a bad idea to remove server-frames.)
838
839 -- Change emacsclient/server.el to support the -t argument better,
840 i.e. automatically close the socket when the frame is closed.
841
842 (Seems to be working OK.)
843
844 -- Fix mysterious memory corruption error with tty deletion. To
845 trigger it, try the following shell command:
846
847 while true; do TERM=no-such-terminal-definition emacsclient -h; done
848
849 Emacs usually dumps core after a few dozen iterations. (The bug
850 seems to be related to the xfreeing or bzeroing of
851 tty_output.Wcm. Maybe there are outside references to struct Wcm?
852 Why were these vars collected into a struct before multi-tty
853 support?)
854
855 (Done. Whew. It turned out that the problem had nothing to do
856 with hypothetical external references to Wcm, or any other
857 tty_output component; it was simply that delete_tty closed the
858 filehandles of secondary ttys twice, resulting in fclose doubly
859 freeing memory. Utterly trivial matter. I love the C's memory
860 management, it puts hair on your chest.)
861
862 -- Support raw secondary terminals. (Note that SIGIO works only on
863 the controlling terminal.) Hint: extend read_input_waiting for
864 multiple ttys and hopefully this will be fixed.
865
866 (Done, it seems to have been working already for some time. It
867 seems F_SETOWN does work, after all. Not sure what made it fail
868 earlier, but it seems to be fixed (there were several changes
869 around request_sigio, maybe one of them did it).
870 read_input_waiting is only used in sys_select, don't change
871 it.) (Update: After adding X support, it's broken again.)
872 (Update^2: No it isn't.) :-)
873
874 -- Find out why does Emacs abort when it wants to close its
875 controlling tty. Hint: chan_process[] array. Hey, maybe
876 noninterrupt-IO would work, too? Update: no, there is no process
877 for stdin/out.
878
879 (Done. Added add/delete_keyboard_wait_descriptor to
880 term_init/delete_tty. The hint was right, in a way.)
881
882 -- Issue with SIGIO: it needs to be disabled during redisplay. See if
883 fcntl kernel behaviour could be emulated by emacsclient.
884
885 (Done. Simply disabled the SIGIO emulation hack in emacsclient.)
886 (Update: it was added back.) (Update^2: and removed again.)
887
888 -- server.el: There are issues with saving files in buffers of closed
889 clients. Try editing a file with emacsclient -f, and (without
890 saving it) do a delete-frame. The frame is closed without
891 question, and a surprising confirmation prompt appears in another
892 frame.
893
894 (Done. delete-frame now asks for confirmation if it still has
895 pending buffers, and modified buffers don't seem to be deleted.)
896
897 -- emacsclient.el, server.el: Handle eval or file open errors when
898 doing -t.
899
900 (Done.)
901
902 -- Make parts of struct tty_output accessible from Lisp. The device
903 name and the type is sufficient.
904
905 (Done, see frame-tty-name and frame-tty-type.)
906
907 -- Export delete_tty to the Lisp environment, for emacsclient.
908
909 (Done, see delete-tty.)
910
911 -- Get rid of the accessor macros in termchar.h, or define macros for
912 all members.
913
914 (Done.)
915
916 -- Move device-specific parameters (like costs) commonly used by
917 device backends to a common, device-dependent structure.
918
919 (Done. See struct display_method in termhooks.h.)
920
921 -- Fix X support.
922
923 (Done. Well, it seems to be working.)
924
925 -- Allow simultaneous X and tty frames. (Handling input could be
926 tricky. Or maybe not.)
927
928 (Done. Allowed, that is. It is currently extremely unstable, to
929 the point of being unusable. The rif variable causes constant
930 core dumps. Handling input is indeed tricky.)
931
932 -- Rewrite multi-tty input in terms of MULTI_KBOARD.
933
934 (Done. In fact, there was no need to rewrite anything, I just
935 added a kboard member to tty_display_info, and initialized the
936 frame's kboard from there.)
937
938 -- Fix rif issue with X-tty combo sessions. IMHO the best thing to do
939 is to get rid of that global variable (and use the value value in
940 display_method, which is guaranteed to be correct).
941
942 (Done, did exactly that. Core dumps during combo sessions became
943 much rarer. In fact, I have not yet met a single one.)
944
945 -- Add multi-tty support to talk.el.
946
947 (Done.)
948
949 -- Clean up the source of emacsclient. It is a mess.
950
951 (Done, eliminated stupid proxy-pty kludge.)
952
953 -- Fix faces on tty frames during X-tty combo sessions. There is an
954 init_frame_faces call in init_sys_modes, see if there is a problem
955 with it.
956
957 (Done, there was a stupid mistake in
958 Ftty_supports_face_attributes_p. Colors are broken, though.)
959
960 -- C-x 5 2, C-x 5 o, C-x 5 0 on an emacsclient frame unexpectedly
961 exits emacsclient. This is a result of trying to be clever with
962 delete-frame-functions.
963
964 (Fixed, added delete-tty-after-functions, and changed server.el to
965 use it.)
966
967 -- Something with (maybe) multi-keyboard support broke function keys
968 and arrows on ttys during X+tty combo sessions. Debug this.
969
970 (I can't reproduce it, maybe the terminal type was wrong.)
971
972 -- Fix input from raw ttys (again).
973
974 (Now it seems to work all right.)
975
976 -- During an X-tty combo session, a (message "Hello") from a tty frame
977 goes to the X frame. Fix this.
978
979 (Done. There was a safeguard against writing to the initial
980 terminal frame during bootstrap which prevented echo_area_display
981 from working correctly on a tty frame during a combo session.)
982
983 -- If there are no frames on its controlling terminal, Emacs should
984 exit if the user presses C-c there.
985
986 (Done, as far as possible. See the SIGTERM comment in
987 interrupt_signal on why this seems to be impossible to solve this
988 in general.)
989
990 -- During an X session, Emacs seems to read from stdin. Also, Emacs
991 fails to start without a controlling tty.
992
993 (Fixed by replacing the troublesome termcap display with a dummy
994 bootstrap display during bootstrap.
995
996 -- Do tty output through struct display, like graphical display
997 backends.
998
999 (Done.)
1000
1001 -- Define an output_initial value for output_method for the initial
1002 frame that is dumped with Emacs. Checking for this frame (e.g. in
1003 cmd_error_internal) is ugly.
1004
1005 (Done, breaking interactive temacs.)
1006
1007 -- The command `emacsclient -t -e '(delete-frame)'' fails to exit.
1008
1009 (Fixed.)
1010
1011 -- frame-creation-function should always create a frame that is on the
1012 same display as the selected frame. Maybe frame-creation-function
1013 should simply be removed and make-frame changed to do the right
1014 thing.
1015
1016 (Done, with a nice hack. frame-creation-function is now frame-local.)
1017
1018 -- Fix C-g on raw ttys.
1019
1020 (Done. I disabled the interrupt/quit keys on all secondary
1021 terminals, so Emacs sees C-g as normal input. This looks like an
1022 overkill, because emacsclient has extra code to pass SIGINT to
1023 Emacs, so C-g should remain the interrupt/quit key on emacsclient
1024 frames. See the next entry why implementing this distinction would
1025 be a bad idea.)
1026
1027 -- Make sure C-g goes to the right frame with ttys. This is hard, as
1028 SIGINT doesn't have a tty parameter. :-(
1029
1030 (Done, the previous change fixes this as a pleasant side effect.)
1031
1032 -- I have seen a case when Emacs with multiple ttys fell into a loop
1033 eating 100% of CPU time. Strace showed this loop:
1034
1035 getpid() = 30284
1036 kill(30284, SIGIO) = 0
1037 --- SIGIO (I/O possible) @ 0 (0) ---
1038 ioctl(6, FIONREAD, [0]) = -1 EIO (Input/output error)
1039 ioctl(5, FIONREAD, [0]) = -1 EIO (Input/output error)
1040 ioctl(0, FIONREAD, [0]) = 0
1041 sigreturn() = ? (mask now [])
1042 gettimeofday({1072842297, 747760}, NULL) = 0
1043 gettimeofday({1072842297, 747806}, NULL) = 0
1044 select(9, [0 3 5 6], NULL, NULL, {0, 0}) = 2 (in [5 6], left {0, 0})
1045 select(9, [0 3 5 6], NULL, NULL, {0, 0}) = 2 (in [5 6], left {0, 0})
1046 gettimeofday({1072842297, 748245}, NULL) = 0
1047
1048 I have seen something similar with a single X frame, but have not
1049 been able to reproduce it for debugging.
1050
1051 Update: This may have been caused by checking for nread != 0
1052 instead of nread > 0 after calling read_socket_hook in
1053 read_avail_input.
1054
1055 (Fixed. This was caused by unconditionally including stdin in
1056 input_wait_mask in init_process. The select call in
1057 wait_reading_process_input always returned immediately, indicating
1058 that there is pending input from stdin, which nobody read.
1059
1060 Note that the above strace output seems to be an unrelated but
1061 similar bug. I think that is now fixed.)
1062
1063 -- Exiting Emacs while there are emacsclient frames doesn't restore the
1064 ttys to their default states.
1065
1066 (This seems to be fixed by some previous change.)
1067
1068 -- Allow opening an X session after -nw.
1069
1070 (Done.)
1071
1072 -- Fix color handling during tty+X combo sessions. (It seems that tty
1073 sessions automatically convert the face colors to terminal colors
1074 when the face is loaded. This conversion must happen instead on
1075 the fly in write_glyphs, which might be problematic, as color
1076 approximation is currently done in lisp (term/tty-colors.el).)
1077 (Update: hm, colors seem to work fine if I start emacs with -nw and
1078 then create an X frame. Maybe it's just a small buglet somewhere.)
1079
1080 (Seems to be fixed. The problem was in startup.el, it did not
1081 initialize tty colors when the initial window system was
1082 graphical.)
1083
1084 -- emacs -nw --eval '(y-or-n-p "Foobar")' segfaults. (Reported by
1085 Romain Francoise)
1086
1087 (Fixed, there was a keyboard initialization problem.)
1088
1089 -- Fix interactive use of temacs. There are face-related SEGVs, most
1090 likely because of changes in realize_default_face, realize_face.
1091
1092 (Fixed.)
1093
1094 -- Don't exit Emacs when the last X connection fails during a
1095 multi-display session.
1096
1097 (Fixed.)
1098
1099 -- Dan Nicolaescu noticed that starting emacsclient on the same
1100 terminal device that is the controlling tty of the Emacs process
1101 gives unexpected results.
1102
1103 (Fixed.)
1104
1105 -- Istvan Marko reported that Emacs hang on ttys if it was started
1106 from a shell script.
1107
1108 (Fixed. There was a bug in the multi-tty version of
1109 narrow_foreground_group. tcsetpgrp blocks if it is called from a
1110 process that is not in the same process group as the tty.)
1111
1112 -- emacsclient -t from an Emacs term buffer does not work, complains
1113 about face problems. This can even lock up Emacs (if the recursive
1114 frame sets single_kboard). Update: the face problems are caused by
1115 bugs in term.el, not in multi-tty. The lockup is caused by
1116 single_kboard mode, and is not easily resolvable. The best thing to
1117 do is to simply refuse to create a tty frame of type `eterm'.
1118
1119 (Fixed, changed emacsclient to check for TERM=eterm. The face
1120 complaints seem to be caused by bugs in term.el; they are not
1121 related to multi-tty.)
1122
1123 -- Find out the best way to support suspending Emacs with multiple
1124 ttys. My guess: disable it on the controlling tty, but from other
1125 ttys pass it on to emacsclient somehow. (It is (I hope) trivial to
1126 extend emacsclient to handle suspend/resume. A `kill -STOP' almost
1127 works right now.)
1128
1129 (Done. I needed to play with signal handling and the server
1130 protocol a bit to make emacsclient behave as a normal UNIX program
1131 wrt foreground/background process groups.)
1132
1133 -- There is a flicker during the startup of `emacs -nw'; it's as if
1134 the terminal is initialized, reset and then initialialized again.
1135 Debug this. (Hint: narrow_foreground_group is called twice during
1136 startup.)
1137
1138 (This is gone.)
1139
1140 -- Robert Chassell has found serious copy-paste bugs with the
1141 multi-tty branch. There seem to be redisplay bugs while copying
1142 from X to a terminal frame. Copying accented characters do not
1143 work for me.
1144
1145 (Patch-124 should fix this, by changing the interprogram-*-function
1146 variables to be frame-local, as suggested by Mark Plaksin
1147 (thanks!). I think that the redisplay bugs are in fact not bugs,
1148 but delays caused by single_kboard --> perhaps MULTI_KBOARD should
1149 be removed.)
1150
1151 -- frame-creation-function was removed, which might be a bad idea.
1152 Think up a compatible solution.
1153
1154 (It was an internal interface that may be changed when necessary.)
1155
1156 -- Change Lisp code not to (getenv "TERM"); use the `tty-type' frame
1157 parameter or the frame-tty-type function instead. (M-x tags-search
1158 "TERM" helps with this.) Update: Actually, all getenv invocations
1159 should be checked for multi-tty compatibility, and an interface
1160 must be implemented to get the remote client's environment.
1161
1162 (Done. Only getenv calls in lisp/term/*.el were changed; other
1163 calls should be mostly left as they are.)
1164
1165 -- Add an elaborate mechanism for display-local variables. (There are
1166 already a few of these; search for `terminal-local' in the Elisp
1167 manual.)
1168
1169 (Not needed. Display-local variables could be emulated by
1170 frame-local variables.)
1171
1172 -- Emacs assumes that all terminal frames have the same locale
1173 settings as Emacs itself. This may lead to bogus results in a
1174 multi-locale setup. (E.g., while logging in from a remote client
1175 with a different locale.)
1176 (Update after new bugreport by Friedrich Delgado Friedrichs:
1177 (at least) the structs terminal_coding and keyboard_coding in
1178 coding.c must be moved to struct display, and the Lisp interface
1179 [set-]keyboard-coding-system must be adapted for the change.)
1180
1181 (Fixed. Emacs now uses the locale settings as seen by the
1182 emacsclient process for server tty frames.)
1183 (Update: Not really; Vlocale_coding_system is still global.)
1184
1185 -- Make `struct display' accessible to Lisp programs. Accessor functions:
1186
1187 (displayp OBJECT): Returns t if OBJECT is a display.
1188 => Implemented as display-live-p.
1189
1190 (display-list): Returns list of currently active displays.
1191 => Implemented.
1192
1193 (selected-display): Returns the display object of the selected frame.
1194 => Not strictly necessary, but implemented anyway.
1195
1196 (frame-display FRAME): Returns the display object of FRAME.
1197 => Implemented.
1198
1199 (display-frames DISPLAY): Returns a list of frames on DISPLAY.
1200 => Already implemented, see frames-on-display-list.
1201
1202 (display-type DISPLAY): Returns the type of DISPLAY, as a
1203 symbol. (See `framep'.)
1204 => Implemented as display-live-p.
1205
1206 (display-device DISPLAY): Returns the name of the device that
1207 DISPLAY uses, as a string. (E.g: "/dev/pts/16", or
1208 ":0.0")
1209 => Implemented as display-name.
1210
1211 etc.
1212
1213 See next issue why this is necessary.
1214
1215 (Update: The consensus on emacs-devel seems to be to do this via
1216 integer identifiers. That's fine by me.)
1217
1218 (Done.)
1219
1220 -- The following needs to be supported:
1221
1222 $ emacsclient -t
1223 C-z
1224 $ emacsclient -t
1225 (This fails now.)
1226
1227 The cleanest way to solve this is to allow multiple displays on the
1228 same terminal device; each new emacsclient process should create
1229 its own display. As displays are currently identified by their
1230 device names, this is not possible until struct display becomes
1231 accessible as a Lisp-level object.
1232
1233 (Done.)
1234
1235 -- Miles Bader suggests that C-x C-c on an emacsclient frame should
1236 only close the frame, not exit the entire Emacs session. Update:
1237 see above for a function that does this. Maybe this should be the
1238 new default?
1239
1240 (Done. This is the new default. No complaints so far.)
1241
1242 -- Clean up the frame-local variable system. I think it's ugly and
1243 error-prone. But maybe I just haven't yet fully understood it.
1244
1245 (Nothing to do. It doesn't seem ugly any more. It's rather clever.)
1246
1247 -- Support multiple character locales. A version of
1248 `set-locale-environment' needs to be written for setting up
1249 display-local settings on ttys. I think calling
1250 set-display-table-and-terminal-coding-system and
1251 set-keyboard-coding-system would be enough. The language
1252 environment itself should remain a global setting.
1253
1254 (Done, by an ugly hack.)
1255
1256 -- The terminal customization files in term/*.el tend to change global
1257 parameters, which may confuse Emacs with multiple displays. Change
1258 them to tweak only frame-local settings, if possible. (They tend
1259 to call define-key to set function key sequences a lot.)
1260
1261 (Done, by making `function-key-map' terminal-local (i.e., part of
1262 struct kboard). This has probably covered all the remaining problems.)
1263
1264 -- Make `function-key-map' and `key-translation-map' terminal-local.
1265
1266 (Done.)
1267
1268 -- Implement `terminal-local-value' and `set-terminal-local-value' to
1269 allow deterministic access to terminal local bindings. The
1270 encode-kb package can not set up `key-translation-map' without
1271 these. The terminal-local bindings seem to be independent of what
1272 frame is selected.
1273
1274 (Done.)
1275
1276 -- xt-mouse.el needs to be adapted for multi-tty. It currently
1277 signals an error on kill-emacs under X, which prevents the user
1278 from exiting Emacs. (Reported by Mnemonikk on freenode.)
1279
1280 (Done, I hope.)
1281
1282
1283 -- Having {reset,init}_all_sys_modes in set-input-mode breaks arrow
1284 keys on non-selected terminals under screen, and sometimes on other
1285 terminal types as well. The other function keys continue to work
1286 fine. Sometimes faces on these screens become garbled.
1287
1288 This only seems to affect displays that are of the same terminfo
1289 type as the selected one. Interestingly, in screen Emacs normally
1290 reports the up arrow key as `M-o A', but after the above SNAFU, it
1291 complains about `M-[ a'. UNIX ttys are a complete mystery to me,
1292 but it seems the reset-reinitialize cycle somehow leaves the
1293 non-selected terminals in a different state than usual. I have no
1294 idea how this could happen.
1295
1296 Currently set-input-mode resets only the currently selected
1297 terminal, which seems to somehow work around the problem.
1298
1299 Update:
1300
1301 Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> writes:
1302 > Some terminals have 2 modes for cursor keys: Application Mode where
1303 > the cursor keys transmit the codes defined in the terminfo entry, and
1304 > Cursor mode. Applications have to send the smkx and rmkx terminfo
1305 > strings to switch between the 2 modes. So Emacs (and emacsclient) have
1306 > to send smkx when initializing and rmkx when quitting (or on
1307 > suspend).
1308
1309 (I think patch-370 fixed this.)
1310
1311 -- This long-standing bug (first reported by Han Boetes) seems to come
1312 and go all the time. It is time to track it down and fix it.
1313
1314 emacs
1315 M-x server-start
1316
1317 # From another xterm:
1318 emacsclient -e '(y-or-n-p "Do you want me to crash? ")'
1319 # Notice how the answer ends up in the *scratch* buffer
1320 M-x garbage-collect
1321 SIGSEGV
1322
1323 (Fixed in patch-414 after detailed analysis by Kalle Olavi Niemitalo.)
1324
1325 -- normal-erase-is-backspace-mode in simple.el needs to be updated for
1326 multi-tty (rep. by Dan Waber). (The Delete key is broken on X
1327 because of this.)
1328
1329 (Fixed in patch-427.)
1330
1331 -- I think keyboard-translate-table should be made terminal-local.
1332
1333 (Done in patch-431.)
1334
1335 -- The semantics of terminal-local variables are confusing; it is not
1336 clear what binding is in effect in any given time. See if
1337 current_kboard (or at least the terminal-local bindings exported to
1338 Lisp) might be changed to be tied to the selected frame instead.
1339 Currently, `function-key-map' and `key-translation-map' may be
1340 accessed reliably only using the hackish
1341 `(set-)terminal-local-value' functions.
1342
1343 Perhaps there should be a difference between `last-command' &co.
1344 and these more conventional configuration variables.
1345 (E.g. `symbol-value' would use current_kboard to access
1346 `last-command', but SELECTED_FRAME()->display->kboard to get the
1347 value of `function-key-map'.
1348
1349 (Fixed in patch-434.)
1350
1351 -- If the first key pressed on a new tty terminal is a function key,
1352 it is not recognized correctly. May be related to the bug below.
1353
1354 (Seems to have been fixed as a side effect of patch-434. "The bug
1355 below" was the set-input-mode madness.)
1356
1357 (Update: this bug was fixed for good in patch-449. It was tracked
1358 down to a bug in `read_key_sequence': it failed to reinitialize its
1359 local function-key-map/key-translation-map references when it
1360 switched keyboards. I don't understand why did this bug only
1361 appear on brand new frames, though!)
1362
1363 -- Disable connecting to a new X display when we use the GTK toolkit.
1364
1365 (Disabled in patch-450.)
1366
1367 -- Implement automatic forwarding of client environment variables to
1368 forked processes, as discussed on the multi-tty list. Terminal
1369 parameters are now accessible in C code, so the biggest obstacle is
1370 gone. The `getenv_internal' and `child_setup' functions in
1371 callproc.c must be changed to support the following variable:
1372
1373 terminal-local-environment-variables is a variable defined in ...
1374
1375 Enable or disable terminal-local environment variables.
1376
1377 If set to t, `getenv', `setenv' and subprocess creation
1378 functions use the environment variables of the emacsclient
1379 process that created the selected frame, ignoring
1380 `process-environment'.
1381
1382 If set to nil, Emacs uses `process-environment' and ignores
1383 the client environment.
1384
1385 Otherwise, `terminal-local-environment-variables' should be a
1386 list of variable names (represented by Lisp strings) to look
1387 up in the client environment. The rest will come from
1388 `process-environment'.
1389
1390 (Implemented in patch-461; `terminal-getenv', `terminal-setenv' and
1391 `with-terminal-environment' are now replaced by extensions to
1392 `getenv' and `setenv', and the new `local-environment-variables'
1393 facility. Yay!)
1394
1395 (Updated in patch-465 to fix the semantics of let-binding
1396 `process-environment'. `process-environment' was changed to
1397 override all local/global environment variables, and a new variable
1398 `global-environment' was introduced to have `process-environment's
1399 old meaning.)
1400
1401 (Updated in patch-466 to fix the case when two emacsclient sessions
1402 share the same terminal, but have different environment. The local
1403 environment lists are now stored as frame parameters, so the
1404 C-level terminal parameters are not strictly necessary any more.)
1405
1406 -- `Fdelete_frame' is called from various critical places where it is
1407 not acceptable for the frame deletion to fail, e.g. from
1408 x_connection_closed after an X error. `Fdelete_frame' now protects
1409 against `delete-frame-functions' throwing an error and preventing a
1410 frame delete. (patch-475)
1411
1412 -- Fix set-input-mode for multi-tty. It's a truly horrible interface;
1413 what if we'd blow it up into several separate functions (with a
1414 compatibility definition)?
1415
1416 (Done. See `set-input-interrupt-mode', `set-output-flow-control',
1417 `set-input-meta-mode' and `set-quit-char'.) (patch-457)
1418
1419 -- Let-binding `overriding-terminal-local-map' on a brand new frame
1420 does not seem to work correctly. (See `fancy-splash-screens'.)
1421 The keymap seems to be set up right, but events go to another
1422 terminal. Or is it `unread-command-events' that gets Emacs
1423 confused? Investigate.
1424
1425 (Emacs was confused because a process filter entered
1426 `recursive-edit' while Emacs was reading input. I added support
1427 for this in the input system.) (patch-489)
1428
1429 -- I smell something funny around pop_kboard's "deleted kboard" case.
1430 Determine what are the circumstances of this case, and fix any
1431 bug that comes to light.
1432
1433 (It happens simply because single_kboard's terminal is sometimes
1434 deleted while executing a command on it, for example the one that
1435 kills the terminal. There was no bug here, but I rewrote the whole
1436 single_kboard mess anyway.) (patch-489)
1437
1438
1439 ;;; arch-tag: 8da1619e-2e79-41a8-9ac9-a0485daad17d
1440