Using Windows

Windows have two main functions: to display the contents of buffers (but only one buffer at a time) and to collect input from you, the user.

The editor must have at least one window open at all times, when you close the last window Jade will exit, there is no limit to the number of windows which you may have open at once.

Each window is split into two parts, they are

The Main Display Area

This is the largest part of the window, it is where the buffer that this window is displaying is drawn.

The Status Line

A single line of text associated with the window, under X11 this is the area of the beneath the horizontal line at the bottom of the window, on the Amiga it is the title of the window. The status line is normally used to display information about this window and what it is displaying, it has this format,

buffer-name (mode-names) (col,row) n line(s) [flags]

Where the individual parts mean,

buffer-name

The name of the buffer being edited, it can have either a `+' or a `-' appended to it, a plus means the buffer has been modified since it was saved, a minus means that the buffer is read-only.

mode-names

This tells you which editing modes are being used by this buffer, the first word is the name of the major mode, any subsequent words correspond to the names of the minor modes for this buffer. If this section is surrounded by square brackets `[...]' instead of parentheses it means that you are currently in a recursive edit, for example, inside the Lisp debugger.

col

The column that the cursor is at.

row

The row number of the cursor.

n

The number of lines in this buffer

flags

General one-character flags related to the status of the window and its buffer.

Each window maintains a list of all buffers which are available for displaying, this is kept in order, from the most recently used to the least. This list (called buffer-list) is used by some of the buffer manipulation commands when they are working out which buffer should be displayed.

• Creating Windows: Opening a new window
• Killing Windows: How to close windows
• Other Window Commands: General window manipulation

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