kill the associated buffer when close the emacs-client frame by pressing Alt+F4 - emacs

I get used to emacsclient for the speedy response like vim, by putting emacs into sever mode with command "emacs --daemon". But I found it quite annoying that lots of buffers kept alive when I viewed some files and then closed them by pressing Alt+F4. I have to kill the buffer explicitly before closing the frame.
I want to know, if there is a way to make emacsclient behave more like a lightweight GUI editor(e.g. vim) in this point?

I think you're asking for trouble, but you you could try this:
(add-hook 'delete-frame-functions
(lambda (frame)
(let* ((window (frame-selected-window frame))
(buffer (and window (window-buffer window))))
(when (and buffer (buffer-file-name buffer))
(kill-buffer buffer)))))

I suggest that you use the command quit-window which does precisely what you want (with the prefix argument); it is already the binding for q in special-mode (i.e., not self-insert) buffers. You can bind it to, say, C-f4, and it will kill the buffer and the frame when you type C-u C-f4.

Do something like the following:
(defun my-kill-buffer-and-frame ()
"kill the current buffer and the current frame"
(interactive)
(when (y-or-n-p "Are you sure you wish to delete the current frame?")
(kill-buffer)
(delete-frame)))
If you're sure you always wnt to do it, you can get rid of the prompt:
(defun my-kill-buffer-and-frame ()
"kill the current buffer and the current frame"
(interactive)
(kill-buffer)
(delete-frame))
Then bind it to a key of your choice, like so:
(global-set-key [(f5)] 'my-kill-buffer-and-frame)
Enjoy!

Related

A smarter alternative to delete-window?

Sometimes I get multiple windows open for the same buffer (or a similar one) and I have to differentiate whether or not the buffer in the window is the same as another before deciding to either kill it or delete the window.
Is there a way in emacs to simply delete a window only if the buffer exists already in another? Ideally I would like the same function to also kill the buffer and the window if it is the only instance of the buffer in a window.
(defun delete-extra-windows ()
(interactive)
(let* ((selwin (selected-window))
(buf (window-buffer selwin)))
(walk-windows (lambda (ww)
(unless (eq ww selwin)
(when (eq (window-buffer ww) buf)
(delete-window ww))))
'NO-MINI 'THIS-FRAME)))
I added quit-window (normally bound to q in non-self-insert - AKA special - buffers) 15 years ago to solve a similar problem.
You can try it or its sibling quit-windows-on.
Your specification of what you wanted is not clear. You said "delete a window only if the buffer exists already in another". That means do not delete the window if the buffer does not exist in another window. Yet you also said "kill the buffer and the window if it is the only instance of the buffer in a window", which contradicts the first requirement.
I guess by "delete a window only if..." you really meant "delete only the window (not also the buffer) if...".
(defun delete-window-maybe-kill-buffer ()
"Delete selected window.
If no other window shows its buffer, kill the buffer too."
(interactive)
(let* ((selwin (selected-window))
(buf (window-buffer selwin)))
(delete-window selwin)
(unless (get-buffer-window buf 'visible) (kill-buffer buf))))
This is the behavior I was looking for. Thank you for helping with the basic function layour and logic. Elisp is still very confusing to work with and I appreciate help with getting through the rough spots.
See the code somment which explains the behavior. You should also be able to understand it directly from the source.
I've up-voted your previous answer which includes the bulk of the code I used.
;;; Delete the selected window without killing the buffer if the buffer is open
;;; in another; otherwise close the window and its buffer. If called on the
;;; last visible window then the buffer will simply be killed and replaced by
;;; the next available buffer.
(defun delete-window-maybe-kill-buffer ()
"Delete selected window.
If no other window shows its buffer, kill the buffer too."
(interactive)
(let* ((selwin (selected-window))
(buf (window-buffer selwin)))
(if (> (length (window-list)) 1)
(delete-window selwin)
(unless (get-buffer-window buf 'visible) (kill-buffer buf))
(kill-buffer buf))))

Select the previously-selected window in emacs

I need an emacs built-in function or elisp function that can take me to the previously-selected window. I thought that (select-window (get-lru-window)) would do it, but if I run it several times, seems to just cycle between windows instead of swapping back and forth between them, which is what I expect.
Any other ideas?
There doesn't seem to be a way to get the most recently selected window in emacs (as opposed to the least recently used returned by get-lru-window). Internally emacs tracks use_time on windows, and get-lru-window uses that to find the "oldest" window. But unfortunately that is not exposed in elisp.
The window list is ordered in cyclic window ordering which doesn't help in your case.
The buffer-list is however ordered most-to-least recently used buffer (or not really strictly, there is a (bury-buffer) function to move a buffer last).
This means that, if you can transform your problem into something like "how can I switch to the buffer in a different window that was most recently the selected buffer", it should be possible.
One way would be to do something like this:
(defun switch-to-previous-buffer-in-a-different-window ()
(interactive)
(let* ((otherbuf (other-buffer (current-buffer) t))
(otherwin (get-buffer-window otherbuf)))
(if otherwin
(select-window otherwin)
(message "Last buffer (%s) is not currently visible" (buffer-name otherbuf)))))
Or the shorter, and more featureful:
(defun switch-to-previous-buffer-possibly-creating-new-window ()
(interactive)
(pop-to-buffer (other-buffer (current-buffer) t)))
Here other-buffer is used to get the most recently used buffer (except current-buffer). This should work fine as long as you don't switch buffers in the windows, because then other-buffer will no longer return the buffer in the other window, but the buffer you switched from in current window.
So instead of using other-buffer lets walk the buffer-list ourself to find the best candidate:
(defun switch-to-the-window-that-displays-the-most-recently-selected-buffer ()
(interactive)
(let* ((buflist (buffer-list (selected-frame))) ; get buffer list in this frames ordered
(buflist (delq (current-buffer) buflist)) ; if there are multiple windows showing same buffer.
(winlist (mapcar 'get-buffer-window buflist)) ; buf->win
(winlist (delq nil winlist)) ; remove non displayed windows
(winlist (delq (selected-window) winlist))) ; remove current-window
(if winlist
(select-window (car winlist))
(message "Couldn't find a suitable window to switch to"))))
Hope this helps.
If the last window switch was done programmatically, then it is possible to select the previously selected window.
(defun your-function ()
(interactive)
(let ((sw (selected-window)))
(do-something-useful-and-switch-window)
(select-window sw)))
If the last window switch was done manually, then it should be possible to overload the window switching command to update a global list of window selection order, which is then used to switch back.
(defun gs/pop-to-previous-window ()
(interactive)
(let ((win (get-mru-window t t t)))
(select-window win)))

How to Kill buffer in emacs without answering confirmation?

How to kill the buffer in emacs without being questioned.
This will kill the current visible buffer without confirmation unless the buffer has been modified. In this last case, you have to answer y/n.
(global-set-key [(control x) (k)] 'kill-this-buffer)
I use this
(defun volatile-kill-buffer ()
"Kill current buffer unconditionally."
(interactive)
(let ((buffer-modified-p nil))
(kill-buffer (current-buffer))))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x k") 'volatile-kill-buffer) ;; Unconditionally kill unmodified buffers.
It will kill the buffer unless it's modified.
OK, I've done some poking around in the Emacs manual and found a working solution (as of Emacs 23.4.1). It's almost identical to Noufal's solution:
(defun kill-this-buffer-volatile ()
"Kill current buffer, even if it has been modified."
(interactive)
(set-buffer-modified-p nil)
(kill-this-buffer))
I've renamed the function a bit to make it a closer cousin to kill-this-buffer.
Apparently, the EmacsWiki has a page on this topic at http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/KillBufferUnconditionally (modified in 2007), but the code is just a copy of Noufal's.
Use (kill-current-buffer) instead of (kill-this-buffer) if you want to bind it to some key. See the docs for (kill-this-buffer)
...
This command can be reliably invoked only from the menu bar,
otherwise it could decide to silently do nothing.
and (kill-current-buffer)
...
This is like ‘kill-this-buffer’, but it doesn’t have to be invoked
via the menu bar, and pays no attention to the menu-bar’s frame.
So I would put the following in my init.el:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x k") 'kill-current-buffer)
This works at least in emacs 26.1.
I use the following piece of code -- unlike Noufal's solution of ignoring the buffer being modified or not, this will save the buffer and then kill it. It also deletes the window which makes a difference when you have several sub-windows showing -- by default it will remove the window instead of switching to some other buffer. (To use this conveniently, you need to bind some key to it, of course.)
;; Kill the current buffer immediatly, saving it if needed.
(defvar kill-save-buffer-delete-windows t
"*Delete windows when `kill-save-buffer' is used.
If this is non-nil, then `kill-save-buffer' will also delete the corresponding
windows. This is inverted by `kill-save-buffer' when called with a prefix.")
(defun kill-save-buffer (arg)
"Save the current buffer (if needed) and then kill it.
Also, delete its windows according to `kill-save-buffer-delete-windows'.
A prefix argument ARG reverses this behavior."
(interactive "P")
(let ((del kill-save-buffer-delete-windows))
(when arg (setq del (not del)))
(when (and (buffer-file-name) (not (file-directory-p (buffer-file-name))))
(save-buffer))
(let ((buf (current-buffer)))
(when del (delete-windows-on buf))
(kill-buffer buf))))

How to open multiple terminals?

In Emacs, I often find myself in a situation where I need to jump back and forth between various source files to various terminals. However, I feel like I do not have a good way to do this efficiently and it's clumsy that you can only open one shell in Emacs (shell, eshell, or term).
Moreover, I need an efficient way of juggle between multiple terminals and source files.
How can I achieve this?
You can have as many terminals and shells open at once as you want. Just use M-x rename-buffer to change the name of an existing *term* or *shell* buffer, and the next time you do M-x term or M-x shell, a brand new buffer will be created. In the case of M-x shell, a prefix argument will cause you to be prompted for the name of the new shell buffer, as offby1 noted.
A few years ago I had a job where I had to regularly log in to various production servers named "host01.foo.com", "host02.foo.com", etc. I wrote a little function like this one to make it easier to manage them all:
(defun ssh-to-host (num)
(interactive "P")
(let* ((buffer-name (format "*host%02d*" num))
(buffer (get-buffer buffer-name)))
(if buffer
(switch-to-buffer buffer)
(term "/bin/bash")
(term-send-string
(get-buffer-process (rename-buffer buffer-name))
(format "ssh host%02d.foo.com\r" num)))))
Then I bound this command to (say) s-h (super H), enabling me to just type M-5 s-h. If I didn't already have a buffer named *host05*, it would start a new terminal emulator buffer, rename it to *host05*, and ssh me into host05.foo.com. If buffer *host05* already existed, it would simply switch me to it. Quite handy!
You can certainly have multiple interactive shells open. Try typing C-u M-x shell RET RET.
Try using MultiTerm to open multiple shells.
You can use Emacs Lisp Screen, which emulates GNU Screen and provides easy key bindings to jump to and between a number of different shells.
I use many methods for incorporating my terminal life into Emacs:
elscreen.el is a life saver, if you have a complicated window layout like gdb or have simply become overwhelmed with clutter you just open a new screen. In your case you could dedicate one screen to terminals.
multi-term.el makes managing terminals a bit easier.
shell-pop.el, a great tool for quick terminal access. shell-pop lets you assign a key to opening and closing a specific shell buffer window, if you've used drop-down terminals like tilda you know how incredibly handy this can be:
Here's and example of my shell-pop configuration, I use the key C-t to pop up an eshell:
(require 'shell-pop)
(shell-pop-set-internal-mode "eshell") ; Or "ansi-term" if you prefer
(shell-pop-set-window-height 60) ; Give shell buffer 60% of window
;; If you use "ansi-term" and want to use C-t
;; (defvar ansi-term-after-hook nil)
;; (add-hook 'ansi-term-after-hook
;; '(lambda ()
;; (define-key term-raw-map (kbd "C-t") 'shell-pop)))
;; (defadvice ansi-term (after ansi-term-after-advice (org))
;; (run-hooks 'ansi-term-after-hook))
;; (ad-activate 'ansi-term)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-t") 'shell-pop)
I usually do an an M-x server-start and then use emacsclient --no-wait to open files. I've aliased that to e with some embellishments so that it's a little more convenient.
I do all my work in a single terminal and just "throw" the files I want to edit into Emacs using e. Inside Emacs, I juggle around using iswitchb and it works just fine. YMMV.
I regularly used 10 or so shells in my old workplace. The secret is you have to rename additional shell buffers. I did this automatically though in my .emacs, creating and naming the shells logically (I had projnameRun and projnameBuild for every project). Worked really well together with anything, making it very easy to refind the right shell (you use the end of the project name combined with either r or b for run/build).
Instead of having several terminal windows in emacs, I spawn a different xterm whenever I need a new terminal. This of course is bearable because I use a very lightweight terminal emulator (urxvt) which starts in under 0.2s.
Then I use my window manager to switch between them and emacs frames. A configurable window manager will have plenty of options to tune to switch between windows (extremely) efficiently. Inside emacs, I use windmove and ido-mode, and have bound to C-tab a function that switches to the last buffer (because I use C-x b in that fashion a lot).
So um, not sure how useful it is to you since it's quite different from your use pattern, but this is what works for me.
I had exactly the same problem some years ago, and found nothing that satisfied me; so I wrote my own "toggle shell" function. It toggles between the current frame or window configuration and a system shell buffer. It can also put the shell into a dedicated frame, and inject a pushd to the current buffer directory.
This is an excerpt from my .emacs:
(defvar --toggle-shell-last-window-conf nil "The last window configuration.")
(defvar --toggle-shell-last-buf nil "The last buffer object in case there's no last window configuration.")
(defvar --toggle-shell-last-frame nil "The frame that was selected when opening a shell buffer.")
(defun --toggle-shell-have-conf ()
(window-configuration-p --toggle-shell-last-window-conf))
(defun --toggle-shell-store-last-conf ()
(setq --toggle-shell-last-buf (current-buffer)
--toggle-shell-last-frame (selected-frame)
--toggle-shell-last-window-conf (current-window-configuration)))
(defun --toggle-shell-restore-last-conf ()
(if (--toggle-shell-have-conf)
(progn (raise-frame --toggle-shell-last-frame)
(set-window-configuration --toggle-shell-last-window-conf))
(let ((bufnam (if (bufferp --toggle-shell-last-buf)
(buffer-name --toggle-shell-last-buf) --toggle-shell-last-buf)))
(if bufnam
(if (get-buffer bufnam) (switch-to-buffer bufnam t)
(message "%s: buffer not available" bufnam))))))
(defun --toggle-shell (&optional display inject-cd)
"Toggles between current buffers and a system shell buffer. With prefix-arg
close the shell.
When DISPLAY is 'vertical splits the shell as vertical window; when 'frame uses
a dedicated frame (default: single window). When INJECT-CD executes a `pushd'
to the working directory of the buffer from which you toggled the shell."
(interactive)
(let* ((shell-buf (get-buffer "*shell*"))
(shell-window ; non-nil when currently displayed
(if shell-buf (get-buffer-window shell-buf t)))
(shell-frame
(if shell-window (window-frame shell-window)))
(in-shell (eq (current-buffer) shell-buf))
(vertical (string= display 'vertical))
(popup-frame (or (string= display 'frame)
(and inject-cd (not (bufferp shell-buf)))
(and (framep shell-frame)
(not (eq shell-frame (selected-frame)))))))
;; With prefix-arg close shell, restore windows. Otherwise (no prefix-arg)
;; toggle shell window; restore windows when called twice in a row, or the
;; current buffer is the shell buffer (`in-shell').
(if current-prefix-arg
(if (bufferp shell-buf)
(progn (message "Exiting shell '%s'" (buffer-name shell-buf))
(kill-buffer shell-buf)
(if in-shell (--toggle-shell-restore-last-conf)))
(error "No shell buffer to kill."))
;; If already in shell-buffer toggle back to stored frame-configuration.
(if (and in-shell (not inject-cd))
(progn
(--toggle-shell-restore-last-conf)
;; Recurse to reopen the shell-buffer in a dedicated frame, or
;; close the dedicated frame and reopen the buffer in a window.
(if (and popup-frame (eq shell-frame (selected-frame)))
(--toggle-shell 'frame inject-cd)
(when (and popup-frame shell-frame)
(delete-frame shell-frame)
(--toggle-shell nil inject-cd))))
;; Not in shell buffer. Warp to it or create new one.
(unless in-shell
(--toggle-shell-store-last-conf))
(if popup-frame
(progn (switch-to-buffer-other-frame (or shell-buf "*shell*"))
(raise-frame
(or shell-frame (window-frame (get-buffer-window "*shell*" t)))))
(if (> (count-windows) 1)
(delete-other-windows)))
;; Finally `cd' into the working directory the current buffer.
(let ((new-shell (not (bufferp shell-buf)))
(new-dir ; `default-directory' of `--toggle-shell-last-buf'
(if --toggle-shell-last-buf
(buffer-local-value 'default-directory --toggle-shell-last-buf))))
;; Open shell, move point to end-of-buffer. The new shell-buffer's
;; `default-directory' will be that of the buffer the shell was
;; launched from.
(when vertical
(if (> (count-windows) 1)
(delete-other-windows))
(split-window-vertically) (other-window 1))
(funcall 'shell)
(when new-shell
(message "New shell %s (%s)" (buffer-name (current-buffer)) new-dir)
(if inject-cd (sit-for 2))) ; wait for prompt
(goto-char (point-max))
;; If on a command-prompt insert and launch a "cd" command (assume no
;; job is running).
(when (and inject-cd new-dir)
(save-excursion
(backward-line-nomark) (end-of-line)
(unless (setq inject-cd (re-search-forward comint-prompt-regexp (point-max) t))
(error "Cannot `pushd', shell is busy")))
(when (and inject-cd)
(let* ((cmd (format
"pushd '%s' %s" (comint-quote-filename new-dir)
(if (buffer-file-name --toggle-shell-last-buf)
(format "# '%s'" (file-name-directory (buffer-file-name --toggle-shell-last-buf)))
""))))
;; `shell-process-cd' set new `default-directory' and set
;; `shell-last-dir' to old. (If the pushd command is
;; successful, a dirs is performed as well; >nul discards this
;; output.)
(shell-process-cd new-dir)
(insert cmd)
(comint-send-input)
(message "%s: cd '%s'" (buffer-name --toggle-shell-last-buf) new-dir))
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
--toggle-shell is the function that does the trick. I bind it to F12:
;; F12 toggle between shell buffer and current window configuration
;; SHIFT-F12 like before, but let shell buffer appear in a dedicated frame
;; ALT-F12 inject a pushd to change to directory of current buffer
;; CTRL-F12 `shell-command'
(global-set-key [(f12)] '--toggle-shell)
(global-set-key [(shift f12)] '(lambda()(interactive)(--toggle-shell 'frame)))
(global-set-key [(meta f12)] '(lambda()(interactive)(--toggle-shell nil t)))
(global-set-key [(meta f10)] '(lambda()(interactive)(--toggle-shell nil t)))
(global-set-key [(control f12)] 'shell-command) ; alias M-!
This is a significant bunch of code to be posted here. But it shall work well.
Semi related - you can quickly run a shell command on selected file with
M+shift+!
It saves a lot of time for smaller commands chmod etc
And maybe my quick pop-up shell also might help you. A quick pop-up shell for emacs
Ecb + eshell will be what you want exactly!
I use vi, but hope this helps. I can open as many terminals as I want by (eg. in Ubuntu 16.04):
ctrl + alt + t
I usually open 2 terminals, and move (position) one terminal to the right by:
ctrl + super + right-arrow
and move the other terminal to the left by:
ctrl + super + left-arrow
so that I have a divided screen by 2 terminals.

Automatically closing the scratch buffer

What I must write in my .emacs file so that the *scratch* buffer is closed when I open Emacs?
(kill-buffer "*scratch*")
Not exactly the answer to your question, but you might like to know that you can choose to have a different buffer open on startup, or change the contents of the *scratch* buffer. For example:
;; Make *scratch* buffer blank.
(setq initial-scratch-message nil)
;; Make the buffer that opens on startup your init file ("~/.emacs" or
;; "~/.emacs.d/init.el").
(setq initial-buffer-choice user-init-file)
In the first example, the *scratch* buffer will be empty. In the second example, the *scratch* buffer will still exist, but user-init-file will be focused.
You can customize:
initial-buffer-choice
I set it to my homedir: "~/" to start in Dired mode.
I suspect from your question that you probably start emacs fairly often, perhaps even once for each file you want to edit. (If I'm wrong in this assumption, then the following comments don't apply to you.)
Emacs is designed to be started and then left running for weeks or months while you visit various files as you need to edit them. Emacs handles multiple files very well, so it's hardly even necessary to kill the associated buffers until you get 50 or 100 of them hanging around. I start emacs just after my window system starts, and it runs until my system shuts down or crashes. The initial scratch buffer is a non-problem in this mode, because I see it so infrequently.
I use this to kill the scratch buffer and open a new buffer in text mode called Untitled.
Found it on a newsgroup and modified it slightly.
(defun my-close-scratch ()
(kill-buffer "*scratch*")
(if (not (delq nil (mapcar 'buffer-file-name (buffer-list))))
(new-untitled-buffer)
))
(defun my-emacs-startup-hook ()
(my-close-scratch))
(add-hook 'emacs-startup-hook 'my-emacs-startup-hook)
(defun new-untitled-buffer ()
"Opens a new empty buffer."
(interactive)
(let ((buf (generate-new-buffer "Untitled")))
(switch-to-buffer buf)
(normal-mode)
(setq buffer-offer-save t))
(add-hook 'kill-buffer-query-functions
'ask-to-save-modified nil t)
)
To close Untitled when opening files from filemanager when emacs is not open I use this:
(defun my-close-untitled ()
(if (get-buffer "Untitled")
(kill-buffers-by-name "Untitled")))
(add-hook 'find-file-hook 'my-close-untitled)
The proper way is to add inhibit-startup-screen to the custom-set-variables section of your .emacs file.
(custom-set-variables
;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
'(inhibit-startup-screen t)
)