4. Buffers used by ILISP, and their commands

*dialect*

The Lisp listener buffer. Forms can be entered in this buffer in, and they will be sent to Lisp when you hit return if the form is complete. This buffer is in ilisp-mode, which is built on top of comint-mode, and all comint commands such as history mechanism and job control are available.

lisp-mode-buffers

A buffer is assumed to contain Lisp source code if its major mode is in the list lisp-source-modes. If it's loaded into a buffer that is in one of these major modes, it's considered a Lisp source file by find-file-lisp, load-file-lisp and compile-file-lisp. Used by these commands to determine defaults.

*Completions*

Used for listing completions of symbols or files by the completion commands. See section 5.13 Completion.

*Aborted Commands*

See section 5.10 Interrupts, aborts, and errors.

*Errors*

*Output*

*Error Output*

used to pop-up results and errors from the inferior Lisp.

*ilisp-send*

Buffer containing the last form sent to the inferior Lisp.

*Edit-Definitions*

*All-Callers*

See section 5.6 Source Code Commands.

*Last-Changes*

*Changed-Definitions*

See section 5.7 Batch commands.

4.1 Typeout windows

All ILISP output is funneled through the function which is bound to the hook ilisp-display-output-function. The function gets a single argument, a string, and should make that output visible to the user somehow.

One possible choice for output display is ilisp-display-output-in-typeout-window, which pops up a window at the top of the current screen which is just large enough to display the output. This window can be "remotely controlled" by the commands ilisp-scroll-output, ilisp-bury-output, and ilisp-grow-output.

Unlike the old popper facility, the ilisp typeout window facility does not trounce on any existing Emacs functions or on any common key bindings, like C-x o.

Other built-in functions which might be useful as values for ilisp-display-output-function include ilisp-display-output-default, ilisp-display-output-adaptively, ilisp-display-output-in-lisp-listener, ilisp-display-output-in-temp-buffer, and ilisp-display-output-in-typeout-window.

The default display function is ilisp-display-output-default, which obeys the lisp-no-popper variable.

Users are encouraged to write their own output display functions to get the exact desired behavior, displaying on a private Emacs screen, in a pop-up dialog box, or whetever.

C-z 1 (ilisp-bury-output)

deletes and buries the typeout output window.

C-z v (ilisp-scroll-output)

scrolls the output window if it is showing, otherwise does nothing. If it is called with a negative prefix, it will scroll backwards.

C-z G (ilisp-grow-output)

will grow the output window if showing by the prefix number of lines.

An alternative to typeout windows is to always have the inferior Lisp buffer visible and have all output go there. Setting lisp-no-popper to t will cause all output to go to the inferior Lisp buffer. Setting lisp-no-popper to 'message will make output of one line go to the message window. Setting comint-always-scroll to t will cause process output to always be visible. If a command gets an error, you will be left in the break loop.

4.2 Switching buffers

Commands to make switching between buffers easier.

C-z b (switch-to-lisp)

will pop to the current ILISP buffer or if already in an ILISP buffer, it will return to the buffer that last switched to an ILISP buffer. With a prefix, it will also go to the end of the buffer. If you do not want it to pop, set pop-up-windows to nil.

M-C-l (previous-buffer-lisp)

will switch to the last visited buffer in the current window or the Nth previous buffer with a prefix.

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