Re: Suggesting `frame-split-biggest-window' Re: customize location and shape of a new window in a frame

[Roland Winkler]

On Fri Sep 14 2018 Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > The purpose of 'display-buffer-alist' is to set up a window for one
> > single buffer.  It already fails miserably to make sure that two
> > buffers get displayed simultaneously as the thread of Bug#32607 shows.
> 
> Exactly.  So for the purpose of "orderly setting up and saving
> compositions of windows", it's of no use, but in the specific case
> of BBDB (which just needs to (temporarily) pop up a single
> buffer), it should be sufficient.

The current discussion of 'display-buffer-alist' in the elisp manual
appears rather technical, suited only for expert users.  On the
other hand, the variable is declared with defcustom, as if
individual users should customize it to their personal liking.
Phrased differently: a package like BBDB should not hijack this
variable for its needs (but at best it could contribute to its value
via a user option), correct?

If that's the case, then it would really help to extend the
documentation for this variable, stating not only that it works only
for a single buffer, but also adding one or two real-world examples
similar to what we have been discussing here.

I believe it is quite common that users may want to customize how
emacs pops up new windows.  Having a unified customization scheme
for that would be much nicer than having different approaches
implemented in different packages.