Re: Emacs and long file names

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Adam Beneschan writes on comp.lang.ada:
> On May 24, 7:44 pm, Stephen Leake <stephen_le...@stephe-leake.org>
> wrote:
>> Simon Wright <si...@pushface.org> writes:
>> > I hadn't come across electric-buffer-list before; I use
>> > mouse-buffer-menu, bound (not by me) to C-down-mouse-1.
>>
>> Ah; invoke electric-buffer-list.
>>
>> A little poking with the elisp debugger, and I found this variable:
>>
>> Buffer-menu-buffer+size-width is a variable defined in `buff-menu.el'.
>> Its value is 26
>>
>> Documentation:
>> How wide to jointly make the buffer name and size columns.
>>
>> You can customize this variable.
>
> Thanks, that's very helpful.  I'll play around with it a bit more to
> see if I can really make this work the way I'd like (ideally, setting
> up a key binding that would let me switch this value back and forth if
> needed), but I think this is the main answer.
>
> I'll also think about your suggestion to allow myself a wider screen.
> I think my reluctance has been a throwback to the old days when a lot
> of printouts were only allowed 80 columns, which is itself a throwback
> to the number of characters on a Hollerith card.  Here it's 2010 and
> my life still revolves around Hollerith cards.  Sigh.......  (Then
> again, I'm using a language that refuses to use square or curly
> brackets or some other special characters in its syntax because they
> weren't available on old punch-card machines.)
>
> On the other hand, I probably won't be doing things Simon's way.  I
> kind of like being able to keep my hands in one place, rather than
> having to move them to use some sort of rodent-like attachment.  But I
> appreciate the input from both of you.

I'm also an emacs bigot and I'm proud not to use the mouse at all from
within emacs.  I run ratpoison as my "desktop environment".  I
customized emacs not to display any menu bar or toolbar.  I limit my
source files are limited to 80 columns; with a wide screen I can do C-x
3 and display two source files side by side on my screen.  The buffer
list and the compiler output go into wide windows.  That's how I get the
best of all worlds :)

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.