ui/popup

Table of Contents

• Description
  • Module Flags
• Prerequisites
• Configuration
  • ~set-popup-rule!~ and ~set-popup-rules!~
  • Disabling hidden mode-line in popups
• Appendix
  • Commands
  • Library
  • Hacks

Description

This module provides a customizable popup window management system.

Not all windows are created equally. Some are less important. Some I want gone once they have served their purpose, like code output or a help buffer. Others I want to stick around, like a scratch buffer or org-capture popup.

More than that, popups ought to be the second class citizens of my editor; spawned off to the side, discarded with the push of a button (e.g. ESC or C-g), and easily restored if I want to see them again. Of course, this system should clean up after itself and kill off buffers I mark as transient.

Module Flags

• +all Enables fallback rules to ensure all temporary/special buffers (whose name begins with a space or asterix) are treated as popups.
• +defaults Enables reasonable default popup rules for a variety of buffers.

Prerequisites

This module has no external prerequisites.

Configuration

set-popup-rule! and set-popup-rules!

This module has two functions for defining your own rules for popups:

(set-popup-rule! PREDICATE &key IGNORE ACTIONS SIDE SIZE WIDTH HEIGHT SLOT VSLOT TTL QUIT SELECT MODELINE AUTOSAVE PARAMETERS)
(set-popup-rules! &rest RULESETS)

PREDICATE is a predicate function or regexp string to match against the buffer’s name. You’ll find comprehensive documentation on the other keywords in set-popup-rule!’s docstring (SPC h f set-popup-rule!).

Popup rules end up in display-buffer-alist, which instructs display-buffer calls on how to set up windows for buffers that meet certain conditions. However, some plugins can avoid it entirely if they use set-buffer or switch-to-buffer, which don’t obey display-buffer-alist.

Multiple popup rules can be defined with set-popup-rules!:

(set-popup-rules!
 '(("^ \\*" :slot -1) ; fallback rule for special buffers
   ("^\\*" :select t)
   ("^\\*Completions" :slot -1 :ttl 0)
   ("^\\*\\(?:scratch\\|Messages\\)" :ttl t)
   ("^\\*Help" :slot -1 :size 0.2 :select t)
   ("^\\*doom:"
    :size 0.35 :select t :modeline t :quit t :ttl t)))

Omitted parameters in a set-popup-rules! will use the defaults set in +popup-defaults.

Disabling hidden mode-line in popups

By default, the mode-line is hidden in popups. To disable this, you can either:

1. Change the default :modeline property in +popup-defaults:

   ;; add to $DOOMDIR/config.el
   (plist-put +popup-defaults :modeline t)
       

   A value of t will instruct popups to use the default mode-line. Any popup rule with a :modeline property can still override this.

2. Completely disable management of the mode-line in popups:

   ;; add to ~/.doom.d/config.el
   (remove-hook '+popup-buffer-mode-hook #'+popup-set-modeline-on-enable-h)
       

Appendix

Commands

• +popup/other (aliased to other-popup, bound to C-x p)
• +popup/toggle
• +popup/close
• +popup/close-all
• +popup/toggle
• +popup/restore
• +popup/raise

Library

• Functions
  • +popup-window-p WINDOW
  • +popup-buffer-p BUFFER
  • +popup-buffer BUFFER &optional ALIST
  • +popup-parameter PARAMETER &optional WINDOW
  • +popup-parameter-fn PARAMETER &optional WINDOW
  • +popup-windows
• Macros
  • without-popups!
  • save-popups!
• Hooks
  • +popup-adjust-fringes-h
  • +popup|set-modeline
  • +popup-close-on-escape-h
  • +popup-cleanup-rules-h
• Minor modes
  • +popup-mode
  • +popup-buffer-mode

Hacks

• help-mode has been advised to follow file links in the buffer you were in before entering the popup, rather than in a new window.
• wgrep buffers are advised to close themselves when aborting or committing changes.
• persp-mode is advised to restore popup windows when loading a session from file.
• Interactive calls to windmove-* commands (used by evil-window-* commands) will ignore the no-other-window window parameter, allowing you to switch to popup windows as if they’re ordinary windows.
• balance-windows has been advised to close popups while it does its business, then restore them afterwards.
• neotree advises balance-windows, which causes major slow-downs when paired with our balance-window advice, so we removes neotree’s advice.
• org-mode is an ongoing (and huge) effort. It has a scorched-earth window management system I’m not fond of. ie. it kills all windows and monopolizes the frame. On top of that, it really likes to use switch-to-buffer for most of its buffer management, which completely bypasses display-buffer-alist. Some work has gone into reversing this.