Re: master 6a2ee981c3: Add new functions for splitting the root window

[Sean Whitton]

Hello,

On Mon 12 Sep 2022 at 01:50PM -04, Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> C-x w 2 split-root-window-below
>> C-x w 3 split-root-window-right
>
> While I understand the desire to follow the `C-x 2` and `C-x 3`
> tradition, these numbers don't actually carry much useful intuition.
> How 'bout `C-x w -` and `C-x w |` instead?
>
> Of course, it'd also be nice to bring together/closer the root and
> non-root variants of those operations, but I have no good suggestion
> here, other than to suggest to use a new command which doesn't accept
> a numeric argument at all and only uses `C-u` to choose between a root
> split and non-root split.  That's because I personally never use that
> numeric argument, and prefer to resize the windows afterwards rather
> than try to guess sizes beforehand.

This is nice, but here are a couple of arguments in favour of 'C-x w 2'
and 'C-x w 3':

(1) it's good to be able to use up 'C-x w 2' and 'C-x w 3' for these
    commands and thereby save 'C-x w -' and 'C-x w |' for other
    commands, because we're unlikely to be able to put anything else on
    'C-x w 2' and 'C-x w 3'.

    This seems especially important given that the -root-window-
    commands are not going to see heavy use, compared with, e.g.,
    fit-window-to-buffer (where C-x w - follows C-x -).

(2) again given that the -root-window- commands will be rarely used, I
    think the similarity with the existing commands will make 'C-x w 2'
    and 'C-x w 3' easier to memorise / recall-with-effort.

-- 
Sean Whitton