Emacs is notoriously slow at startup, so most people use another
editor or emacsclient for quick editing jobs from the console.
Unfortunately, emacsclient was very awkward to use, because it did not
-support opening a new Emacs frame on the current virtual console.
+support opening a new Emacs frame on the current virtual tty.
Now, with multi-tty support, it can do that. (Emacsclient starts up
faster than vi!)
ARISAWA Akihiro <ari@mbf.ocn.ne.jp>
Vincent Bernat <bernat@luffy.cx>
Han Boetes <han@mijncomputer.nl>
+Francisco Borges <borges@let.rug.nl>
Damien Cassou <damien.cassou@laposte.net>
Robert J. Chassell <bob@rattlesnake.com>
Romain Francoise <romain@orebokech.com>
Bas Kok <nekkobassu@yahoo.com>
Jurej Kubelka <Juraj.Kubelka@email.cz>
David Lichteblau <david@lichteblau.com>
+Richard Lewis <rtf@jabble.com>
+mace <mace@kirjakaapeli.lib.hel.fi>
+Suresh Madhu <madhu@cs.unm.edu>
Xavier Mallard <zedek@gnu-rox.org>
Istvan Marko <mi-mtty@kismala.com>
Ted Morse <morse@ciholas.com>
Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu>
Kalle Olavi Niemitalo <kon@iki.fi>
Mark Plaksin <happy@mcplaksin.org>
-Francisco Borges <borges@let.rug.nl>
Frank Ruell <stoerte@dreamwarrior.net>
+Tom Schutzer-Weissmann <trmsw@yahoo.co.uk>
+Joakim Verona <joakim@verona.se>
Dan Waber <dwaber@logolalia.com>
and many others.
still needs to be ported to Windows/Mac/DOS, though.) Both multiple
tty device support and simultaneous X and tty frame support works
fine. Emacsclient has been extended to support opening new tty and X
-frames. It has been changed open new Emacs frames by default.
+frames. It has been changed to open new Emacs frames by default.
The multi-tty branch has been scheduled for inclusion in the next
major release of Emacs (version 23). I expect the merge into the
-development trunk to occur sometime during next year (2005), after the
+development trunk to occur sometime during next year (2006), after the
merge of the Unicode branch.
Tested on GNU/Linux, Solaris 8, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Please let me
system-dependent source files need to be adapted
accordingly. The changes are mostly trivial, so almost
anyone can help, if only by compiling the branch and
- reporting the compiler errors. (It is not worth to do this
- yet, though.)
+ reporting the compiler errors.
HOW TO GET THE BRANCH
---------------------
-The branch uses GNU Arch (http://www.gnuarch.org) for version control.
+The branch uses Bazaar 1 (http://bazaar.canonical.com) for version control.
Retrieving the latest version of the branch:
- tla register-archive -f http://lorentey.hu/arch/2004/
- tla get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
+ baz register-archive -f http://aszt.inf.elte.hu/~lorentey/mirror/arch/2004
+ baz get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
-This incantation uses my private archive mirror that is hosted on a
-relatively low-bandwidth site; if you are outside Hungary, you will
-probably want to you use my secondary mirror: (Note that the -f option
-will overwrite the archive location if you have previously registered
-the Hungarian one.)
+This incantation uses an archive mirror that is hosted on a
+high-bandwidth site. Please note that on average there is a two-hour
+delay for commits to arrive on this mirror. My primary mirror is on the
+low-bandwidth http://lorentey.hu/ site:
- tla register-archive -f http://aszt.inf.elte.hu/~lorentey/mirror/arch/2004
- tla get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
+ baz register-archive -f http://lorentey.hu/arch/2004/
+ baz get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
- http://aszt.inf.elte.hu/~lorentey/mirror/arch/2004
+This is "instantly" updated, but very slow from outside Hungary.
+(By "instantly" I mean as soon as I connect the notebook I work on to
+a network. It could take days.)
The Arch supermirror provides mirroring services for all public Arch
repositories. We have a mirror there, too, if you prefer.
- tla register-archive -f http://mirrors.sourcecontrol.net/lorentey%40elte.hu--2004
- tla get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
+ baz register-archive -f http://mirrors.sourcecontrol.net/lorentey%40elte.hu--2004
+ baz get lorentey@elte.hu--2004/emacs--multi-tty <directory>
My GPG key id is 0FB27A3F; it is available from
hkp://wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net/, or from my homepage at
once you have a source tree, updating it to the latest revision will
be _much_ faster. Use the following command for the update:
- tla replay
+ baz replay
-You can find more information about Arch on http://wiki.gnuarch.org/.
-It's a wonderful source control system, I highly recommend it.
+You can find more information about Bazaar on
+http://bazaar.canonical.com/. It's a distributed source control
+system that is somewhat less broken than competing projects.
-If you don't have tla, the branch has a homepage from which you can
+If you don't have Bazaar, the branch has a homepage from which you can
download conventional patches against Emacs CVS HEAD:
http://lorentey.hu/project/emacs.html
+I suggest you use Bazaar whenever feasible.
+
+
DEBIAN PACKAGES
---------------
also works. Of course, you can create frames on more than two tty
devices.
-Creating new frames on the same tty with C-x 5 2 works, and they
-behave the same way as in previous Emacs versions. If you exit emacs,
-all terminals should be restored to their previous states.
+Creating new frames on the same tty with C-x 5 2 (make-frame-command)
+works, and behaves the same way as in previous Emacs versions. If you
+exit emacs, all terminals should be restored to their previous states.
This is work in progress, and probably full of bugs. It is a good
idea to run emacs from gdb, so that you'll have a live instance to
For the NEWS file: (Needs much, much work)
-** Support for multiple terminal devices has been added.
+** Support for multiple terminal devices and simultaneous graphical
+ and tty frames has been added. You can test for the presence of
+ this feature in your Lisp code by testing for the `multi-tty'
+ feature.
+
+*** The `window-system' variable has been made frame-local. The new
+ `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system'
+ value for the first frame.
*** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
-*** You can test for the presence of multiple terminal support by
- testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
+*** The new function `make-frame-on-tty' allows you to create a new
+ frame on another tty device interactively.
+
+*** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
+ session, and `make-frame-on-tty' works during a graphical session.
*** Emacsclient has been extended to support opening a new terminal
frame. Its behaviour has been changed to open a new Emacs frame by
default. Use the -c option to get the old behavior of opening
files in the currently selected Emacs frame.
-*** A make-frame-on-tty function has been added to make it easier to
- create frames on new terminals.
+*** C-z now invokes `suspend-frame', C-x C-c now invokes
+ `save-buffers-kill-terminal'.
*** New functions: frame-tty-name, frame-tty-type, delete-tty,
- terminal-local-value, set-terminal-local-value
-
- terminal-id, terminal-parameters, terminal-parameter,
- set-terminal-parameter
-
-*** New variables: global-key-translation-map
+ suspend-tty, resume-tty, terminal-id, terminal-parameters,
+ terminal-parameter, set-terminal-parameter,
+ modify-terminal-parameters, environment, let-environment
-*** The keymaps key-translation-map and function-key-map are now
- terminal-local.
+*** New variables: local-key-translation-map, local-function-key-map
-** Support for simultaneous graphical and terminal frames has been
- added.
+*** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
+ keyboard coding systems have been made terminal-local.
-*** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a terminal
- session, and `make-frame-on-tty' works during a graphical session.
-
-*** The `window-system' variable has been made frame-local.
-
-*** The new `initial-window-system' variable contains the
- `window-system' value for the first frame.
+*** In addition to the global key-translation-map and
+ function-key-map, Emacs has terminal-local
+ local-key-translation-map and local-function-key-map variables,
+ and uses them instead of the global keymaps to set up translations
+ and function key sequences relevant to a specific terminal device.
*** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
-
* * *
(The rest of this file consists of my development notes and as such it
THINGS TO DO
------------
+** `tool-bar-mode', `scroll-bar-mode', `menu-bar-mode' and
+ 'fringe-mode' are modes global to the entire Emacs session, not
+ just a single frame or a single terminal. This means that their
+ status sometimes differs from what's actually displayed on the
+ screen. As a consequence, the Options | Show/Hide menu sometimes
+ shows incorrect status, and you have to select an option twice for
+ it to have any visible effect on the current frame.
+
+ Change Emacs so that the status of the items in the Options |
+ Show/Hide menu correspond to the current frame.
+
+** emacsclient -t on the console does not work after su:
+
+ # su lorentey
+ $ emacsclient -t
+ *ERROR*: Could not open file: /dev/tty1
+
+ The tty can be opened as /dev/tty by emacsclient, but not by Emacs.
+ This seems to be a serious problem. Currently my only idea is to
+ bring back the ugly pty proxy hack from the initial versions of
+ multi-tty. Suggestions would be appreciated.
+
+** Understand how `quit_throw_to_read_char' works, and fix any bugs
+ that come to light.
+
+** See if getcjmp can be eliminated somehow. Why does Emacs allow
+ asynchronous input processing while it's reading input anyway?
+
+** `delete-frame' events are handled by `special-event-map'
+ immediately when read by `read_char'. This is fine but it prevents
+ higher-level keymaps from binding that event to get notified of the
+ deleted frame.
+
+ Sometimes it would be useful for Lisp code to be notified of frame
+ deletions after they have happened, usually because they want to
+ clean up after the deleted frame. Not all frame-local states can
+ be stored as a frame parameter. For example,
+ `display-splash-screen' uses `recursive-edit' with a special keymap
+ override to create its buffer---and it leads to all kinds of
+ nastiness if Emacs stays in this recursive edit mode after the
+ frame containing the splash screen is deleted. Basically, the
+ splash-screen implementation wants to throw out of the recursive
+ edit when the frame is deleted; however, it is not legal to throw
+ from `delete-frame-functions' because `delete-frame' must not fail.
+ (Introducing `delete-frame-after-functions' would not help either
+ because `delete-frame' may not fail at that time either.)
+
+ Currently `fancy-splash-screens' installs a
+ `delete-frame-functions' hook that sets up a timer to exit the
+ recursive edit. This is an adequate solution, but it would perhaps
+ be better to have something like a `frame-deleted' event that could
+ be bound in the normal way.
+
+** Trouble: `setenv' doesn't actually set environment variables in the
+ Emacs process. This defeats the purpose of the elaborate
+ `server-with-environment' magic around the `tgetent' call in
+ `init_tty'. D'oh.
+
+** (Possibly) create hooks in struct device for creating frames on a
+ specific terminal, and eliminate the hackish terminal-related frame
+ parameters (display, tty, tty-type).
+
+ make_terminal_frame
+ create_tty_output
+
+** Decide whether to keep the C implementation of terminal parameters,
+ or revert to the previous, purely Lisp code. It turned out that
+ local environments do not need terminal parameters after all.
+
+** Move Fsend_string_to_terminal to term.c, and declare get_named_tty
+ as static, removing it from dispextern.h.
+ Move fatal to emacs.c and declare it somewhere.
+
+** Search for `suspend-emacs' references and replace them with
+ `suspend-frame', if necessary. Ditto for `save-buffers-kill-emacs'
+ vs. `save-buffers-kill-display'.
+
+** Emacs crashes when a tty frame is resized so that there is no space
+ for all its windows. (Tom Schutzer-Weissmann)
+
** Report GTK multi-display problems to GTK maintainers. For extra
credit, fix them.
Emacs with GTK support. If you want to play around with GTK
multidisplay (and don't mind core dumps), you can edit src/config.h
and define HAVE_GTK_MULTIDISPLAY there by hand.
+
+ http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85715
+
+ Update: Han reports that GTK+ version 2.8.9 almost gets display
+ disconnects right. GTK will probably be fully fixed by the time
+ multi-tty gets into the trunk.
+
+ Update: I am still having problems with GTK+ 2.8.10. I have the
+ impression that the various multidisplay fixes will only get
+ released in GTK+ 2.10.
** Audit `face-valid-attribute-values' usage in customize and
elsewhere. Its return value depends on the current window system.
** frames-on-display-list should also accept frames.
-** I smell something funny around pop_kboard's "deleted kboard" case.
- Determine what are the circumstances of this case, and fix any
- bug that comes to light.
-
** Consider the `tty-type' frame parameter and the `display-tty-type'
function. They serve the exact same purpose. I think it may be
a good idea to eliminate one of them, preferably `tty-type'.
changed in CVS, and frame.el in multi-tty has not yet been adapted
for the changes. (It needs to look at
default-frame-background-mode.) (Update: maybe it is fixed now;
- needs testing.)
+ needs testing.) (Note that the byte compiler has this to say about
+ term/rxvt.el:)
+
+ term/rxvt.el:309:17:Warning: assignment to free variable
+ `default-frame-background-mode'
** I think `(set-)terminal-local-value' and the terminal parameter
mechanism should be integrated into a single framework.
+ (Update: `(set-)terminal-local-value' is now eliminated, but the
+ terminal-local variables should still be accessible as terminal
+ parameters. This also applies to `display-name' and similar
+ functions.)
+
** Add the following hooks: after-delete-frame-hook (for server.el,
instead of delete-frame-functions),
after-delete-terminal-functions, after-create-terminal-functions.
-** Fix set-input-mode for multi-tty. It's a truly horrible interface;
- what if we'd blow it up into several separate functions (with a
- compatibility definition)?
-
** BULK RENAME: The `display-' prefix of new Lisp-level functions
conflicts with stuff like `display-time-mode'. Use `device-'
or `terminal-' instead. I think I prefer `terminal-'.
frames-on-display-list frames-on-terminal-list
The following functions were introduced in the multi-tty branch, and
- can be renamed without aliases:
+ were renamed without aliases:
- display-controlling-tty-p terminal-controlling-tty-p
+ delete-display delete-terminal
+ display-controlling-tty-p controlling-tty-p
display-list terminal-list
display-live-p terminal-live-p
display-name terminal-name
- display-tty-type terminal-tty-type
- frame-display terminal-of-frame
- delete-display delete-terminal
+ display-tty-type tty-type
+ frame-display frame-terminal
+ selected-display selected-terminal
** The single-keyboard mode of MULTI_KBOARD is extremely confusing
sometimes; Emacs does not respond to stimuli from other keyboards.
by changing the modelines or some other frame-local display element
on the locked out displays.
+ Update: In fact struct kboard does have an echo_string slot.
+
** The session management module is prone to crashes when the X
connection is closed and then later I try to connect to a new X
session:
terminals in xterm and konsole. The screen does flicker a bit,
but it's so quick it isn't noticable.
+ (Update: This is probably some problem with padding or whatnot on
+ the secondary terminals.)
+
** Move baud_rate to struct display.
** Implement support for starting an interactive Emacs session without
** Do a grep on XXX and ?? for more issues.
-** Understand Emacs's low-level input system (it's black magic) :-)
- What exactly does interrupt_input do? I tried to disable it for
- raw secondary tty support, but it does not seem to do anything
- useful. (Update: Look again. X unconditionally enables this, maybe
- that's why raw terminal support is broken again. I really do need
- to understand input.)
- (Update: I am starting to understand the read_key_sequence->read-char
- ->kbd_buffer_get_event->read_avail_input->read_socket_hook path. Yay!)
-
** flow-ctrl.el must be updated.
** Fix stuff_char for multi-tty. Doesn't seem to be of high priority.
(Disabled in patch-450.)
+-- Implement automatic forwarding of client environment variables to
+ forked processes, as discussed on the multi-tty list. Terminal
+ parameters are now accessible in C code, so the biggest obstacle is
+ gone. The `getenv_internal' and `child_setup' functions in
+ callproc.c must be changed to support the following variable:
+
+ terminal-local-environment-variables is a variable defined in ...
+
+ Enable or disable terminal-local environment variables.
+
+ If set to t, `getenv', `setenv' and subprocess creation
+ functions use the environment variables of the emacsclient
+ process that created the selected frame, ignoring
+ `process-environment'.
+
+ If set to nil, Emacs uses `process-environment' and ignores
+ the client environment.
+
+ Otherwise, `terminal-local-environment-variables' should be a
+ list of variable names (represented by Lisp strings) to look
+ up in the client environment. The rest will come from
+ `process-environment'.
+
+ (Implemented in patch-461; `terminal-getenv', `terminal-setenv' and
+ `with-terminal-environment' are now replaced by extensions to
+ `getenv' and `setenv', and the new `local-environment-variables'
+ facility. Yay!)
+
+ (Updated in patch-465 to fix the semantics of let-binding
+ `process-environment'. `process-environment' was changed to
+ override all local/global environment variables, and a new variable
+ `global-environment' was introduced to have `process-environment's
+ old meaning.)
+
+ (Updated in patch-466 to fix the case when two emacsclient sessions
+ share the same terminal, but have different environment. The local
+ environment lists are now stored as frame parameters, so the
+ C-level terminal parameters are not strictly necessary any more.)
+
+-- `Fdelete_frame' is called from various critical places where it is
+ not acceptable for the frame deletion to fail, e.g. from
+ x_connection_closed after an X error. `Fdelete_frame' now protects
+ against `delete-frame-functions' throwing an error and preventing a
+ frame delete. (patch-475)
+
+-- Fix set-input-mode for multi-tty. It's a truly horrible interface;
+ what if we'd blow it up into several separate functions (with a
+ compatibility definition)?
+
+ (Done. See `set-input-interrupt-mode', `set-output-flow-control',
+ `set-input-meta-mode' and `set-quit-char'.) (patch-457)
+
+-- Let-binding `overriding-terminal-local-map' on a brand new frame
+ does not seem to work correctly. (See `fancy-splash-screens'.)
+ The keymap seems to be set up right, but events go to another
+ terminal. Or is it `unread-command-events' that gets Emacs
+ confused? Investigate.
+
+ (Emacs was confused because a process filter entered
+ `recursive-edit' while Emacs was reading input. I added support
+ for this in the input system.) (patch-489)
+
+-- I smell something funny around pop_kboard's "deleted kboard" case.
+ Determine what are the circumstances of this case, and fix any
+ bug that comes to light.
+
+ (It happens simply because single_kboard's terminal is sometimes
+ deleted while executing a command on it, for example the one that
+ kills the terminal. There was no bug here, but I rewrote the whole
+ single_kboard mess anyway.) (patch-489)
+
+-- Understand Emacs's low-level input system (it's black magic) :-)
+ What exactly does interrupt_input do? I tried to disable it for
+ raw secondary tty support, but it does not seem to do anything
+ useful. (Update: Look again. X unconditionally enables this, maybe
+ that's why raw terminal support is broken again. I really do need
+ to understand input.)
+ (Update: I am starting to understand the read_key_sequence->read-char
+ ->kbd_buffer_get_event->read_avail_input->read_socket_hook path. Yay!)
+
+ (Update: OK, it all seems so easy now (NOT). Input could be done
+ synchronously (with wait_reading_process_input), or asynchronously
+ by SIGIO or polling (SIGALRM). C-g either sets the Vquit_flag,
+ signals a 'quit condition (when immediate_quit), or throws to
+ `getcjmp' when Emacs was waiting for input when the C-g event
+ arrived.)
+
+-- Replace wrong_kboard_jmpbuf with a special return value of
+ read_char. It is absurd that we use setjmp/longjmp just to return
+ to the immediate caller.
+
+ (Done in patch-500.)
+
;;; arch-tag: 8da1619e-2e79-41a8-9ac9-a0485daad17d
HCoop / bpt / emacs.git / blobdiff