Re: Modernize frame-title-format: "%b - GNU Emacs"

[Yuri Khan]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2020 at 03:36, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:

> Sure.  But see below (you quoted, but didn't address).
> Even if someone agrees that the app name should be
> present, should it really be leftmost?

Not leftmost but righmost, by convention and by your own argument that
the most specific information should stay when the title is truncated.

> And how often
> is the app name really helpful?

This is a trick question. You’re challenging the convention here,
asking me to find an excuse to not follow it.

> > > How common is the use of multiple applications
> > > (in separate window-mgr windows) for the same
> > > file or directory (or other argument)?
>
> ? How often, for the same file?  If you see only the
> file or dir name, is it hard to know that the app is
> Emacs?  Most of the time?

I might have a Dired for the root directory of an application project
open in Emacs, and the actual application running in a second window.
Both will have the same title in your proposed scheme.

I might be editing an HTML file in Emacs and previewing it in Firefox,
and it might not have a <title> yet. You want me to look at titles and
mentally say “This one is ‘index.html - Mozilla Firefox’, so that one
‘index.html’ must be Emacs”?

Lastly, I invoke the “What If Two Applications Did This” Raymond Chen’s razor.

> I argued to put the more specific info first, i.e.,
> leftmost.  The app name is less specific than the file
> name etc.

The convention already does this.

> Imagine if every one of your browser windows had "Google
> Chrome" or "Firefox" or "Internet Explorer" or "Brave"
> as its leftmost text.  Imagine how useful/useless that
> would be for picking a window out of a task-bar list,
> a set of tabs, or any other list.  Imagine if every
> mail-client window had the client name at the far left:
> "Outlook" or whatever.

I don’t need to imagine it, I *remember* it. This is how Windows
worked before 95. (Except none of Chrome, Firefox, IE, Brave, Outlook,
taskbar, or tabs existed back then, so let’s substitute Word and File
Manager and, for the sake of argument, cascaded window titles.)

> What I see in the title bar for a Chrome or Brave or
> Firefox or IE browser is this, from the left:
>
> 1. A site icon.  E.g. fancy "T" for New York Times site.
> 2. A page title, possibly with a subtitle.  E.g.
>    "Opinion | Kenosha Tells Us More About Where the Right
>     Is Headed Than the R.N.C. Did".
>
> That means I can easily pick out that web page by its
> app icon and page title.  Would you really prefer that
> the frame title be something like this?
>
> "Google Chrome <NYT icon> Opinion | Kenosha Tells Us More
> About Where the Right Is Headed Than the R.N.C. Did"
>
> Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you.  I hope so.

Yes you are. Ideally:

<Chrome icon> Kenosha Tells Us More
About Where the Right Is Headed Than the R.N.C. Did | Opinion – Google Chrome

possibly abbreviated to:

<Chrome icon> Kenosha Tells…

(The web site icon totally does not belong in a browser title bar,
because then a web site could impersonate a locally installed
application, at least until the user activates the window and sees the
address bar.)

>> It’s a convention,

> Maybe some places, i.e., for some apps.  I don't see
> it for most apps, including web browsers and mail
> client, on MS Windows.  (And you did mention "Windows.)

I do not know which browsers and mail clients you use but Firefox and
Thunderbird do append “- Mozilla Firefox” and “- Thunderbird” to every
title, at least for me on GNU/Linux, and I remember it being that way
back when I was using Windows.