[Haskell-cafe] howto best use emacs + tiling WM (Xmonad,DWM)

[Jason Dagit]

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 8:55 AM, kaffeepause73 <kaffeepause73 at yahoo.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm using dwm which I really love (ev. consider switching to xmonad).
>
> However when I'm working with emacs (programming haskell) und dwm I feel,
> I'm not as effecient as I eventually could be. -- I can have the shell in
> one window (to execute the compiled program), but most work happens in emacs
> (in one screen only). And I have up to buffers in emacs which I find hard to
> switch between. Even on Xinerama this doesn't really change.
>
> When I create new frames for emacs with strg-x 5-2 then I'm sort getting
> closer to where I would like to be, but then I find myself having to windows
> on which I switch buffers and I get "confused" again.
>
> What I would like is to tab through the buffers, as I walk through the
> screens in dwm/xmonad and see the list of buffers as id do so. -- And can
> directly jump to a specific buffer via e.g. mod-4.
>
> I'm thinking that each buffer in emacs gets one frame and occupies one
> screen and xmonad than gets dynamically 20 or more screens (like tabs).
>
> If there is an good solution within emacs and the emacs mode than I'm of
> course also more than open for it.
>
> (my experience with emacs so far: -- only 10 buffers are listed in menue
>                                             -- speedbar is very nice but
> works for files not for buffers
>                                             -- using "list all buffers" is
> sort of cluncy as it uses half the screen (my screen splits horizontally

I think you'll get xmonad specific advice on this list:
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/xmonad

I'm currently using vim + screen to do my hacking and I love it, but I
do wish vim had more IDE smarts at times.  Emacs + screen would work
equally well.  tmux instead of screen is another valid option (tmux is
better maintained but screen is more ubiquitous).

The default buffer manipulation in emacs is not great.  Take a look at
things like ido mode:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/InteractivelyDoThings

It's approximately 3 orders of magnitude better than the default way :)

Good luck!
Jason