EmacsWiki: Category Windows (original) (raw)

Click on the heading to find all pages related to window management in Emacs.

Emacs Windows – the Basics

Window – what a window is in Emacs
WindowConfiguration – what a window configuration is
ModeLine, ModeLinePosition – the mode-line of a window

Move among windows – alternatives to C-x o (‘other-window’).

Use arrow keys to choose
Use a window name or number to choose
- Ace Window – move to another window by typing the first character of the window’s name
- Icicles: C-u C-x o in Icicle mode – Cycle/filter/complete window names to choose a window
- NumberedWindows
- Switch Window – shows big numbers in each window, you input the number to get where you want to.
- WindowNumberingMode
Use a transient keymap to move among windows
- WinSwitch – a dynamic, transient mode that enables easy, efficient navigation among windows (and frames)
M-x next-multiframe-window – similar to ‘other-window’ but cycles both through windows and frames.

Resizing, Splitting, … Windows

DoReMi – Resize windows incrementally, using arrow keys or mouse wheel. Hold Meta key to boost resizing increment.
GridLayout – how to quickly split the frame into a grid
HorizontalSplitting – Force Emacs to always use split-window-horizontally instead of split-window for temporary buffers, like C-x C-b and M-x describe-function.
move-border.el – Resize windows by moving their own border in a given direction
Multicolumn – improved handling of multiple side-by-side windows in a frame
OneWindow – Make Emacs always use only one window for whatever it does
PlaceWindows (place-windows.el) – place active windows according to number of rows, incrementally or with universal argument. Each row height is equal, each column height equal in current row.
QuickTiling – If you like xmonad, tmux etc., chances are you’ll this too.
ThreeWindows – Enjoy your work in three windows per Frame. One big and two small.
ToggleWindowSplit – Toggle between vertical and horizontal split
TransposeFrame – Transpose windows arrangement in a Frame
TransposeWindows – Rearrange windows within a Frame
WidenWindow – Widen the active window
WindowResize – Resize windows using simple keybindings

Switching Window Configurations

BFocus (bfocus.el) – Temporarly fill a frame with a window and then change back to previous configuration
CategorizingInformationManager – Ee-windows for switching between window configurations
EmacsLispScreen (elscreen.el) – Switch between numbered screens with the C-\ prefix command
EmacsScreen (escreen.el) – same thing
LayoutRestore – Save multi-window layout and restore it
PolicySwitch – Manage lists of window configurations as policies. Persistence across sessions.
PopWin – Manage temporary windows that pop up, eg *Help* and *Completions* buffer windows, and get them out of the way fast
RecursiveEditPreservingWindowConfig – Temporarily change the window configuration using RecursiveEdit
WindowsAndRegisters – Store window configurations in registers
WindowsMode – Open new configurations, keep track of them, and store them to disk (SessionManagement)
WinnerMode – Undo and redo changes to the window configuration
WinRing – Switch between named window configurations (“mail”, “irc”, “gnus” etc.) using prefix key C-x 7.
WorkgroupsForWindows – A simple window-configuration persistence package

See also:

CategoryBufferSwitching – Rather than switching window configurations, maybe you just want to switch buffers?

Frame Configurations

To save the current configuration of frames and later restore it, use C-x r f (‘frame-configuration-to-register’) and C-x r j (‘jump-to-register’), respectively. See FramesAndRegisters.