GNUS Reuse Group Buffer When Opening Summary - emacs

I'm really enjoying using gnus as my mail reader, but I have one gripe. If I have a split (say I'm working on some code in the left buffer when gnus groups opened in the right) and open a summary buffer for my INBOX, it takes over the entire frame. Is there a setting somewhere to tell gnus to simply open the summary in the right-hand buffer so I can still see my code buffer on the left?

You can set gnus-use-full-window to nil, as mentioned in the "Window Layout" section of the Gnus manual. Note the warning, though:
Setting this variable to `nil' kinda works, but there are glitches.
Use at your own peril.

Related

How to prevent specific buffers from opening when starting Emacs

Everytime I start emacs, I have a series of orgmode buffers open (even though I close them before exiting). Do you know how to set emacs so that it opens only with my current setup (currently it shoudl only open shoring my agenda and a todo orgmode buffer on the left, but, while it does this, it also shows other opened buffers in the background (!). Thanks for any help provided!
Emacs out of the box does not open anything by itself at startup. You are probably using some package (internal or external) that offers this feature. Maybe desktop-save-mode?
For example, I use workgroups2. It opens at startup, everything that was open at exit. But that means - everything I close before the exit will not be opened on startup. I can highly recommend workgroups2.

Emacs does not create new windows for new buffers

I am very new to emacs. I just started using it. After a fresh install of spacemacs on my macbook when I opened a file from neo tree or command line it used to appear in a new window. Now it's opening in the same window and the file that was already open gets hidden. I don't know what I did wrong. I even reinstalled spacemacs from scratch but it is of no use.
Also, I can't find a way to open a file in a new frame and close it in the frame that it's already in.
it used to appear in a new window. Now it's opening in the same
window and the file that was already open gets hidden.
I don't know about spacemacs, but for Emacs generally it's completely
normal when visiting a file for the current window to be re-used.
The pop-up-windows user option would affect this some of the time,
but that's non-nil by default, so you probably have that enabled
already?
M-x customize-option RET pop-up-windows RET
Naturally there are other rules and settings around this behaviour
(which is very flexible), so I would also recommend reading about it
in the manual:
C-hig (emacs)Window Choice
You can use the command find-file-other-window to make Emacs display
the buffer in the 'other' window (creating a new window if necessary).
This is usually bound to C-x4f but
spacemacs may be different?
Refer to: C-hig (emacs)Pop Up Window
Also, I can't find a way to open a file in a new frame and close it
in the frame that it's already in.
Similarly to the above, by default:
C-x5f calls find-file-other-frame
C-x50 calls delete-frame
Refer to: C-hig (emacs)Creating Frames

Emacs killing buffers

(Emacs newbie here)
Sometimes a Help buffer gets opened in my emacs editor. It opens in a different pane, splitting the current window into two halves vertically.
When I use C-k buffer-name, to kill a buffer (say Help), some other buffer (say scratch) gets opened automatically in that pane.
Is it possible to revert to my previous configuration, after a random buffer (Help or Debug..) gets opened.
My previous configuration would be to go back to a single window with no panes
To revert to the previous window configuration after any arbitrary change(s), you should enable winner-mode in your .emacs file:
(winner-mode 1)
Then you can use C-c<left> (repeatedly, if necessary) to undo window configuration changes with winner-undo.
C-c<right> calls winner-redo which returns you to the most recent configuration (immediately; not in single steps the like the 'undo' command).
Winner mode is the key to never ever getting annoyed by Emacs creating an unwanted window, but it also lets you do things you wouldn't have done before (for instance C-x1 to maximise one of your windows temporarily for easier reading, because getting back all the windows you just deleted is now trivial).
Obviously this is also incredibly useful if you accidentally mess up your window config!
Hello to revert back to one buffer you must hit C-x1 while standing in the buffer you want to keep. And to switch between frames C-xo

How to make emacs only make new window instead of sometimes new frame?

When calling ediff, run-python and some other commands, emacs will open a new frame, but I want emacs to open new window instead, is that possible?
Dunno why someone voted you down. Perhaps s?he thought you should have looked first in the Ediff manual (which I too recommend).
a. Command ediff-toggle-multiframe toggles between using multiple frames and a single frame (multiple windows).
b. The Ediff manual says also: "See ediff-window-setup-function for details on how to make
either of these modes the default one."
You will need to check whether Python mode similarly provides options or commands to control the window/frame behavior.
If Emacs is always opening a new frame for everything, then make sure you do not have a non-nil value for option pop-up-frames.

How to turn off *input/output* buffer in gud

I recently switched to using GNU Emacs 24 from 23, and I notice that whenever I enter gud the *input/output* buffer is open. I have close it manually with C-x 0 everytime I debug. Can anyone point me to the correct variable which needs to be configured in order to stop displaying this buffer by default?
There is a 'gud-gdb' in new emacs releases that implement the old behavior of gdb/emacs interaction (no dedicated-windows and no I/O buffer). If you don't want to call M-x gud-gdb when you use it you can define an alias for M-x gdb
I have this problem as well. After a quick look at the source code, the problem appears to be that GUD dedicates most of its windows (that is, it calls set-window-dedicated-p on them). A dedicated window is one that cannot be switched away from. I guess more and more young guns are using GUD in many windows mode and want GUD to manage their window layout, and those of us that like to do that manually are in the minority. There doesn't seem to be anything obvious in gdb-mi.el that disables this behavior (for example, gdb-set-window-buffer seems to always do a set-window-dedicated-p to t for all windows it manages).
For now, this solution is more or less the one I'm using -- I manually deactivate the window dedication. This seems suboptimal, though. There ought to be some way to get GUD to let you manually manage the window layout. This question is related.
You can disable window dedication altogether like this: (in Emacs 24.4+)
(defun set-window-undedicated-p (window flag)
"Never set window dedicated."
flag)
(advice-add 'set-window-dedicated-p :override #'set-window-undedicated-p)
Note that this doesn't affect already dedicated windows.