39.2.3 X Window Frame Properties

Just what properties a frame has depends on what display mechanism it uses. Here is a table of the properties of an X window frame; of these, name, height, width, and buffer-predicate provide meaningful information in non-X frames.

name

The name of the frame. Most window managers display the frame’s name in the frame’s border, at the top of the frame. If you don’t specify a name, and you have more than one frame, SXEmacs sets the frame name based on the buffer displayed in the frame’s selected window.

If you specify the frame name explicitly when you create the frame, the name is also used (instead of the name of the SXEmacs executable) when looking up X resources for the frame.

display

The display on which to open this frame. It should be a string of the form "host:dpy.screen", just like the DISPLAY environment variable.

left

The screen position of the left edge, in pixels, with respect to the left edge of the screen. The value may be a positive number pos, or a list of the form (+ pos) which permits specifying a negative pos value.

A negative number -pos, or a list of the form (- pos), actually specifies the position of the right edge of the window with respect to the right edge of the screen. A positive value of pos counts toward the left. If the property is a negative integer -pos then pos is positive!

top

The screen position of the top edge, in pixels, with respect to the top edge of the screen. The value may be a positive number pos, or a list of the form (+ pos) which permits specifying a negative pos value.

A negative number -pos, or a list of the form (- pos), actually specifies the position of the bottom edge of the window with respect to the bottom edge of the screen. A positive value of pos counts toward the top. If the property is a negative integer -pos then pos is positive!

icon-left

The screen position of the left edge of the frame’s icon, in pixels, counting from the left edge of the screen. This takes effect if and when the frame is iconified.

icon-top

The screen position of the top edge of the frame’s icon, in pixels, counting from the top edge of the screen. This takes effect if and when the frame is iconified.

user-position

Non-nil if the screen position of the frame was explicitly requested by the user (for example, with the ‘-geometry’ option). Nothing automatically makes this property non-nil; it is up to Lisp programs that call make-frame to specify this property as well as specifying the left and top properties.

height

The height of the frame contents, in characters. (To get the height in pixels, call frame-pixel-height; see Size and Position.)

width

The width of the frame contents, in characters. (To get the height in pixels, call frame-pixel-width; see Size and Position.)

window-id

The number of the X window for the frame.

minibuffer

Whether this frame has its own minibuffer. The value t means yes, nil means no, only means this frame is just a minibuffer. If the value is a minibuffer window (in some other frame), the new frame uses that minibuffer.

Note: Minibuffer-only and minibuffer-less frames are not yet implemented in SXEmacs.

buffer-predicate

The buffer-predicate function for this frame. The function other-buffer uses this predicate (from the selected frame) to decide which buffers it should consider, if the predicate is not nil. It calls the predicate with one arg, a buffer, once for each buffer; if the predicate returns a non-nil value, it considers that buffer.

scroll-bar-width

The width of the vertical scroll bar, in pixels.

cursor-color

The color for the cursor that shows point.

border-color

The color for the border of the frame.

border-width

The width in pixels of the window border.

internal-border-width

The distance in pixels between text and border.

unsplittable

If non-nil, this frame’s window is never split automatically.

inter-line-space

The space in pixels between adjacent lines of text. (Not currently implemented.)

modeline

Whether the frame has a modeline.