1 Overview

beframe enables a frame-oriented Emacs workflow where each frame has access to the list of buffers visited therein. In the interest of brevity, we call buffers that belong to frames “beframed”. Beframing is achieved in three main ways:

1. By calling the command beframe-switch-buffer. It is like the standard switch-to-buffer except the list of candidates is limited to those that the current frame knows about.

1. By enabling the global minor mode beframe-mode. It sets the read-buffer-function to one that filters buffers per frame. As such, commands like switch-to-buffer, next-buffer, and previous-buffer automatically work in a beframed way.

1. The command beframe-buffer-menu produces a dedicated buffer with a list of buffers for the current frame. This is the counterpart of beframe-switch-buffer. When called with a prefix argument (‘C-u’ with default key bindings), it prompts for a frame whose buffers it will display.

Features of beframe-mode.

Producing multiple frames does not generate multiple buffer lists. There still is only one global list of buffers. Beframing them simply filters the list.

The user option beframe-global-buffers contains a list of regular expressions or major mode symbols that are matched against buffers. The matching buffers are never beframed and are available in all frames. The default value contains the buffers ‘*scratch*’, ‘*Messages*’, and ‘*Backtrace*’ (more preciselly, it matches the regular expressions ‘\\*scratch\\*’, ‘\\*Messages\\*’ ‘\\*Backtrace\\*’). If the value is nil, no buffer enjoys such special treatment: they all follow the beframing scheme of remaining associated with the frame that opened them.

The user option beframe-create-frame-scratch-buffer allows beframe-mode to create a frame-specific scratch buffer that runs the initial-major-mode. This is done upon the creation of a new frame and the scratch buffer is named after the frame it belongs to. For example, if the frame is called ‘modus-themes’, the corresponding scratch buffer is ‘*scratch for modus-themes*’. Set this user option to nil to disable the creation of such scratch buffers.

The user option beframe-kill-frame-scratch-buffer is the counterpart of beframe-create-frame-scratch-buffer. It kills the frame-specific scratch buffer after the frame is deleted. Set this user option to nil to disable the killing of such buffers.

2 Assuming and unassuming buffers

Beframe makes it possible to add or remove buffers from the list of buffers associated with the current frame. This provides for a flexible workflow where buffers can be initially beframed yet consolidated into new lists on demand.

The Beframe keymap

• Assuming buffers
• Unassuming buffers

3 Features of beframe-mode

The beframe-mode does the following:

• Sets the value of read-buffer-function to a function that beframes all commands that read that variable. This includes the likes of switch-to-buffer, next-buffer, and previous-buffer.
• Add a filter to newly created frames so that their buffer-predicate parameter beframes buffers.
• Renames newly created frames so that they have a potentially more meaningful title. The user option beframe-rename-function specifies the function that handles this process. When its value is nil, no renaming is performed.
• When the user option beframe-functions-in-frames contains a list of functions, it makes them run with other-frame-prefix, meaning that they are called in a new frame. For example, the user can add a list that includes project-prompt-project-dir from the built-in project library. With that the new project buffer appears in its own frame and, thus, becomes part of a beframed list of buffers, isolated from all other frames.
• Handles the creation and deletion of frame-specific scratch buffers, per the user options beframe-create-frame-scratch-buffer, beframe-kill-frame-scratch-buffer (Overview).

Those granted, it is not necessary to enable the beframe-mode to use Beframe’s commands. Those are available on demand (The Beframe keymap).

4 The Beframe keymap

The beframe-prefix-map defines key bindings for the Beframe commands documented herein. We call it a prefix keymap because it is not available from anywhere unless the user attaches it to a key sequence. For example:

(define-key global-map (kbd "C-c b") #'beframe-prefix-map)

With the above code, ‘C-c b’ becomes the prefix key that invokes Beframe commands. Type ‘C-c b C-h’ to show the available key bindings (by default ‘C-h’ as a suffix to an incomplete key sequence produces a Help buffer that links to all the available bindings).

The beframe-prefix-map and beframe-mode are used independent of each other (Features of beframe-mode).

5 Installation

• GNU ELPA package
• Manual installation

M-x package-refresh-contents
M-x package-install

cd ~/.emacs.d

# Create a directory for manually-installed packages
mkdir manual-packages

# Go to the new directory
cd manual-packages

# Clone this repo, naming it "beframe"
git clone https://github.com/protesilaos/beframe beframe

;; Make Elisp files in that directory available to the user.
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/manual-packages/beframe")

6 Sample configuration

(require 'beframe)

;; This is the default value.  Write here the names of buffers that
;; should not be beframed.
(setq beframe-global-buffers '("*scratch*" "*Messages*" "*Backtrace*"))

(beframe-mode 1)

;; Bind Beframe commands to a prefix key, such as C-c b:
(define-key global-map (kbd "C-c b") #'beframe-prefix-map)

• Integration with Consult
• Integration with Ibuffer

(defvar consult-buffer-sources)
(declare-function consult--buffer-state "consult")

(with-eval-after-load 'consult
  (defface beframe-buffer
    '((t :inherit font-lock-string-face))
    "Face for `consult' framed buffers.")

  (defun my-beframe-buffer-names-sorted (&optional frame)
    "Return the list of buffers from `beframe-buffer-names' sorted by visibility.
With optional argument FRAME, return the list of buffers of FRAME."
    (beframe-buffer-names frame :sort #'beframe-buffer-sort-visibility))

  (defvar beframe-consult-source
    `( :name     "Frame-specific buffers (current frame)"
       :narrow   ?F
       :category buffer
       :face     beframe-buffer
       :history  beframe-history
       :items    ,#'my-beframe-buffer-names-sorted
       :action   ,#'switch-to-buffer
       :state    ,#'consult--buffer-state))

  (add-to-list 'consult-buffer-sources 'beframe-consult-source))

(with-eval-after-load 'ibuffer
  (defun beframe-buffer-in-frame (buf frame)
    "Return non-nil if BUF is in FRAME."
    (memq buf (beframe-buffer-list (beframe-frame-object frame))))

  (defun beframe-frame-name-list ()
    "Return list with frame names."
    (mapcar #'car (make-frame-names-alist)))

  (defun beframe-generate-ibuffer-filter-groups ()
    "Create a set of ibuffer filter groups based on the Frame of buffers."
    (mapcar
     (lambda (frame)
       (list (format "%s" frame)
             (list 'predicate 'beframe-buffer-in-frame '(current-buffer) frame)))
     (beframe-frame-name-list)))

  (setq ibuffer-saved-filter-groups
        `(("Frames" ,@(beframe-generate-ibuffer-filter-groups))))

  (define-ibuffer-filter frame
      "Limit current view to buffers in frames."
    (:description "frame")
    (memq buf (beframe-buffer-list))))

7 Acknowledgements

Beframe is meant to be a collective effort. Every bit of help matters.

Author/maintainer

Protesilaos Stavrou.

Contributions to code or the manual

Bruno Boal, Edgar Vincent, Fritz Grabo, Tony Zorman.

Ideas and/or user feedback

Derek Passen, Karan Ahlawat, Karthik Chikmagalur, Valentino, duli.

8 GNU Free Documentation License

Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
https://fsf.org/

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

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ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:

  Copyright (C)  year  your name.
  Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
  under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
  or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
  with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
  Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU
  Free Documentation License''.

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “with…Texts.” line with this:

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    the Front-Cover Texts being list, and with the Back-Cover Texts
    being list.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.

9 Indices

• Function index
• Variable index
• Concept index