How to maximize Emacs on Windows at startup? - emacs

Question

This is driving me crazy: I simply want Emacs to maximize to whatever screen resolution I have at startup. Ideally I like a cross-platform (Windows & Linux) solution that works on any screen resolution, but I can't even get it to work on just Window XP with even hard-coded sizes.
Here are what I tried:
Setting the initial-frame-alist with appropriate height/width
Setting the default-frame-alist
(Windows specific stuff) Sending message to the emacs windows telling it to maximize via (w32-send-sys-command 61488)
Tried this function which I found somewhere:
(defun toggle-fullscreen ()
"toggles whether the currently selected frame consumes the entire display
or is decorated with a window border"
(interactive)
(let ((f (selected-frame)))
(modify-frame-parameters
f
`((fullscreen . ,(if (eq nil (frame-parameter f 'fullscreen))
'fullboth
nil))))))
Tried the above methods in both beginning and end of my init file to try to eliminate interference from other init things.
Unfortunately, none of the above works!! For some of the above, I can see my emacs windows resizes correctly for a split second before reverting back to the smallish default size. And if I run the methods above after the initialization, the emacs windows DOES resize correctly. What in the world is going on here?
[p.s. there are other SO questions on this but none of the answers work]
Update:
The answers make me think that something else in my init file is causing the problem. And indeed it is! After some try-and-error, I found the culprit. If I commented out the following line, everything works perfectly:
(tool-bar-mode -1)
What in the world does the toolbar have to do with maximizing windows?
So the question now is: how can I disable toolbar (after all, emacs's toolbar is ugly and takes up precious screen real-estate) AND maximize the windows both in my init file? It is possibly a bug that toolbar interferes with the windows size?
Clarification: (tool-bar-mode -1) turns the toolbar off, but this line interferes with maximizing the Emacs windows. So if I try put functions to maximize windows and turn off the toolbar, the maximize part will fail; if the toolbar part is commented out, then the maximize part will work ok. It does not even matter what solutions I use (among the 4 that I listed).
Solution: (or at least what work for me now)
This is probably a bug in Emacs. The workaround is to disable the toolbar through the Registry, not in .emacs. Save the following as a .reg file, and execute that file in Windows Explorer:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\GNU\Emacs]
"Emacs.Toolbar"="-1"
(This solution is a working version of what OtherMichael suggested).

Answer 1

I found an answer a year-or-so back that explains you have to manipulate the registry to do things right:
To start Emacs maximized put this line
at the end of your ~/.emacs file:
(w32-send-sys-command 61488)
If you don't want the Emacs tool bar
you can add the line (tool-bar-mode -1) [NOTE: value is 0 on original page]
to your ~/.emacs file but Emacs won't
fully maximize in this case - the real
estate occupied by the tool bar is
lost. You have to disable the tool bar
in the registry to get it back:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\GNU\Emacs\Emacs.Toolbar]
#="0"
If you look in the EmacsWiki under W32SendSys command-codes you'll find that 61488 is maximize current frame

Answer 2

This is the simplest fix that worked for me:
(w32-send-sys-command #xf030)
(add-hook 'window-setup-hook (lambda () (tool-bar-mode -1)))

Answer 3

Dudes, what's wrong with
emacs -mm ?
This starts Emacs fully maximized. Put it in your shortcut, it really depends on the window manager you use ; I myself just alias it in my .*shrc.
On a different but not unrelated note, I in fact start Emacs in a way that if it's already started, the selected file is just opened as a new buffer in my existing Emacs session :
if [ "$(pidof emacs)" ] ; then
emacsclient "$#"
else
emacs -mm "$#"
fi
This I put in a ~/bin/e and I just launch Emacs with "e".
I right-clicked a text file in the file manager, selected "open with another program" and entered "e", and now I just double click files and they all open neatly in the same session.
And everything is peachy and lispy :)

Answer 4

On X.org the system call is (since you asked originally for a cross-platform solution):
(defun x11-maximize-frame ()
"Maximize the current frame (to full screen)"
(interactive)
(x-send-client-message nil 0 nil "_NET_WM_STATE" 32 '(2 "_NET_WM_STATE_MAXIMIZED_HORZ" 0))
(x-send-client-message nil 0 nil "_NET_WM_STATE" 32 '(2 "_NET_WM_STATE_MAXIMIZED_VERT" 0)))

Answer 5

This works reliably on Emacs 24.5.1 (i686-pc-mingw32):
(add-to-list 'initial-frame-alist '(fullscreen . maximized))

Answer 6

First, thanks for the tip on the bug with (tool-bar-mode -1); saved me a lot of trouble! I'd rather keep everything within the .emacs file (no registry mods for me), so if you turn on the toolbar before maximizing, and then turn it off again, you'll can maximize nicely:
(defun maximize-current-frame () "Resizes the current frame to fill the screen"
(interactive)
;; There is a bug in tool-bar-mode that prevents it from being
;; maximized, so turn it on before maximizing.
;; See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/815239/how-to-maximize-emacs-on-windows-at-startup)
(tool-bar-mode 1)
(w32-send-sys-command 61488)
(tool-bar-mode -1)
)

Answer 7

Another way to resolve such problem is put delay between
(menu-bar-mode -1)
(tool-bar-mode -1)
(tooltip-mode -1)
(scroll-bar-mode 1)
and set-frame-* functions. For example:
(tool-bar-mode -1)
(when window-system
(run-at-time (format "%d sec" 1) nil '(lambda () (set-frame-position (selected-frame) 1 1)))
(run-at-time (format "%d sec" 2) nil '(lambda () (set-frame-width (selected-frame) 150 t)))
(run-at-time (format "%d sec" 3) nil '(lambda () (set-frame-height (selected-frame) 60 t)))
)
It is essential to put delay between set-frame-* functions also!

Answer 8

I encountered one command that seems to work (toggle-frame-maximized), which works on both Linux & Windows.
I just put that near the end of my init file after setting up everything, making the assumption that by the end of the setup everything won't be maximized, and voila, it works.

Answer 9

Hey - nice function! Thanks for posting
I think it may not be working for you because you have code that looks like the
following somewhere else in your init file. The default-frame-alist is being applied
after the frame is created. I removed the size and position elements and you function
works great on bootup of emacs.
(setq default-frame-alist
(list
(cons 'left 350)
(cons 'top 0)
(cons 'width 80)
(cons 'height 45)
......

Answer 10

If you really want to run Emacs full screen without window chrome (title bar and max/min/close button), then try the mode below. This worked for me with Emacs 23.3.1 on XP SP3.
http://www.martyn.se/code/emacs/darkroom-mode/

Answer 11

every one.
emacs 23.3.1,blow code is invalid. because (menu-bar-mode -1) can cause windows not
full-screen too.
(w32-send-sys-command #xf030)
(add-hook 'window-setup-hook (lambda () (tool-bar-mode -1)))
I search Eamcs wiki,find a useable method.
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FullScreen#toc3
MS Windows
If you’re using MS Windows, and want to use “real fullscreen”, i.e, getting rid of the top titlebar and all, see w32-fullscreen at the site for darkroom-mode
Alternatively, a patch is available here that makes the fullscreen frame parameter really fullscreen on Windows.
To get a maximized window you can use: (w32-send-sys-command #xf030)
Attention! If you want that emacs starts maximized, you have to put this code into your .emacs file:
(defun jbr-init ()
"Called from term-setup-hook after the default
terminal setup is
done or directly from startup if term-setup-hook not
used. The value
0xF030 is the command for maximizing a window."
(interactive)
(w32-send-sys-command #xf030)
(ecb-redraw-layout)
(calendar)
)
(setq term-setup-hook 'jbr-init)
(setq window-setup-hook 'jbr-init)

Answer 12

(defun resize-frame ()
"Set size"
(interactive)
(set-frame-width (selected-frame) 110)
(set-frame-height (selected-frame) 33)
(set-frame-position (selected-frame) 0 1))
following is the last function called in my .emacs files it sets the height and width of the screen it does work on both emacs 22 and emacs 23 on debian and mac os x. set the height and width numbers according to your screen.

Answer 13

To disable the toolbar, add the line
(tool-bar-mode nil)
to your customization file (usually .emacs in your root directory).

Answer 14

emacs-full-screen-win32 project will help you :)

Answer 15

The following snippet from emacswiki worked fine from me:
(add to your startup config file)
(defun jbr-init ()
"Called from term-setup-hook after the default
terminal setup is
done or directly from startup if term-setup-hook not
used. The value
0xF030 is the command for maximizing a window."
(interactive)
(w32-send-sys-command #xf030)
(ecb-redraw-layout)
(calendar)
)
(setq term-setup-hook 'jbr-init)
(setq window-setup-hook 'jbr-init)