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multicolumn - Creating and managing multiple side-by-side windows

Author: Anders Lindgren
Version: 0.1.1
URL: https://github.com/Lindydancer/multicolumn

Commands helpful when using multiple side-by-side windows.

Overview

Using multiple side-by-side windows is a great way to utilize the large high-resolution displays that exists today. This package provides the "missing features" of Emacs to create a side-by-side layout, to navigate efficiently, and to manage the windows.

This package is especially useful in conjunction with Follow mode, a package provided with Emacs that create the illusion that several windows showing the same buffer form a very tall virtual window. For example, I use six side-by-side windows spread out across two monitors, which lets me see 888 consecutive lines of code. Concretely, this allows me to see all of the code in this package at once.

Example

In the screenshots below, a text is being edited which is narrower but taller than the Emacs frame.

Image of Emacs with one window

With multicolumn-delete-other-windows-and-split-with-follow-mode four equally spaced side-by-side windows are created and Follow mode is enabled, which makes it possible to see the entire text at once.

Image of Emacs with four side-by-side windows

Usage

This package provides a number of functions for creating and managing multiple side-by-side windows. It also provides Multicolumn global mode that binds a number of keys to the functions.

Installation

Place this package in a directory in the load-path. To activate it, use customize or place the following lines in a suitable init file:

   (require 'multicolumn)
   (multicolumn-global-mode 1)

Creating side-by-side windows

  • C-x 3 (multicolumn-delete-other-windows-and-split) creates a number of side-by-side windows. The number of windows it creates depends on the width of the frame and on multicolumn-min-width. With a numerical argument, create this many windows.
  • multicolumn-delete-other-windows-and-split-with-follow-mode does the same and enables Follow mode, so that one buffer takes over where the previous buffer ends. This gives you an unprecedented overview of the buffer.
  • C-x 4 u (multicolumn-pop-window-configuration) restored the previous windows layout.

Resizing the frame

  • multicolumn-resize-frame resizes and repositions the frame to accommodate side-by-side windows of a specific width. You can use this as an alternative to using a full-screen mode.
  • multicolumn-resize-and-split-frame resizes and positions the frame and creates a number of side-by-side windows. This function can be called from to suitable init file to ensure that a number of side-by-side windows are created when Emacs is started.

Navigation

  • C-M-< (multicolumn-select-first-window) and C-M-> (multicolumn-select-last-window) select the leftmost and rightmost window, respectively.
  • C-x 4 p (multicolumn-select-previous-window) selects the previous windows. This package does not provide a function to select the next. However, it binds C-x 4 n to other-window.
  • C-x 4 DIGIT (multicolumn-select-window-number) go to window number DIGIT, where 1 is the leftmost.
  • C-x 4 : (multicolumn-select-minibuffer) go to the minibuffer.

Window content management

  • C-x 4 t (multicolumn-transpose-windows) swaps the content of the current and the next window.
  • C-x 4 < (multicolumn-extend-left) and C-x 4 > (multicolumn-extend-right) displays the current buffer in the previous and next windows, respectively.
  • multicolumn-collect-windows ensures that all windows displaying the same buffer becomes adjacent.

Trackpad support

  • C-wheel-left and C-wheel-right selects the next and previous window using multicolumn-trackpad-select-previous-window and multicolumn-trackpad-select-next-window, respectively.
  • M-wheel-left and M-wheel-right selects the first and last window using multicolumn-trackpad-select-first-window and multicolumn-trackpad-select-last-window, respectively.

Configuration

Unfortunately, it's hard from within Emacs to find out information about the environment outside Emacs, for example a window manager may reserve parts of the screen. This package tries to contains information for as many systems as possible, however, you may need configure this package to match your system.

See variable is the source code for how to configure this package.

MS-Windows Notes

Width of multiple monitor display

The functions display-pixel-width and display-pixel-height functions only return the dimensions of the primary monitor, in some Emacs versions. To make this package use the full display, you can do something like:

    (defun my-display-pixel-width ()
      ;; The full width of the display
      3200)

    (setq multicolumn-display-pixel-width-function
          'my-display-pixel-width)

OS X Notes

Some features are only available in newer Emacs versions. Horizontal mouse events, for example, require Emacs 24.4.

In newer Emacs version, you can set ns-auto-hide-menu-bar to t to utilize more of the display.

In OS X 10.9, each monitor is a separate space. If you want to stretch an Emacs frame across multiple monitors, you can change this in "System Preferences -> Mission Control -> Displays have separate Spaces".

Converted from multicolumn.el by el2markdown.