childframe macOS limitation; (black fullscreen, missing border)

[abbaswasim]

When I run emacs in Mac OS style fullscreen app, occupying the whole screen I see a second black screen. My steps to reproduce.

Run emacs with a temp home dir;
HOME=/tmp/tmp-home emacs tmp.el

M-x package-install RET posframe RET

contents of tmp.el

(require 'posframe)
(defvar my-posframe-buffer " *my-posframe-buffer*")

(with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create my-posframe-buffer)
  (erase-buffer)
  (insert "Hello world"))

(when (posframe-workable-p)
  (posframe-show my-posframe-buffer
                 :position (point)))

M-x eval-buffer

Whenever this is evaluated the first time a new 'posframe' black fullscreen window appears with a flicker and becomes window in focus. I have to do Alt-Tab to go back to emacs and sometimes that doesn't work either and I am stuck at the black window.

next eval-buffer doesn't behave the same but the black window is always there, I am assuming thats the posframe child-window?

In this image you can see I have two fullscreen apps, the actual Emacs app and the *Minibuf-1*.

This doesn't happen if emacs is not fullscreen though. Not sure if this is a bug in posframe or Emacs child-window?

[conao3]

Same here.

However, I have given up on dealing with this issue. It's probably a chilled frame problem.
Use maximize instead of full screen. (use (toggle-frame-maximized) instead of (toggle-frame-fullscreen) )

[abbaswasim]

Ah right. I figured it must be child frame issue but couldn't find any bugs reported there. I do see the flicker issue mentioned https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=30699 but that was different. Is it worth submitting an emacs bug?

[conao3]

I don't have an opinion on it is worth submitting an emacs bug. Not a few Mac users are in trouble, but I'm not sure if this is Emacs Limitation or MacOS Limitation.

[conao3]

Because this package is registered in the ELPA repository, we consider this package to be a common framework for dealing with Child-frame.
For that reason, I think the maintainer of Emacs itself will support it, but I would like to ask @tumashu for his opinion first.

[tumashu]

I have no opinion, for i do not know the status of emacs in macos, i have no mac for test

[gcv]

I had this problem with macOS Emacs built using the ns (official GNU NextStep) port. It does not happen to me with the mac port (https://bitbucket.org/mituharu/emacs-mac/).

@abbaswasim: Which macOS Emacs do you use?

[conao3]

I have emacs-26.2 ns ver, and emacs-26.1 mac-port ver. The issue doesn't occur on mac-port ver.
BTW, posframe border in emacs-26.2 ns ver is not shown...

[wasimabbas-arm]

@gcv I use the one from https://emacsformacosx.com I will give the one from mac-port a try.

[wasimabbas-arm]

@conao3 yes I could never see border either in my version.

[abbaswasim]

I have now moved to mac-port. I see improvements already pos-tip finally has a themed face. No posframe flickers. I still don't know if this issue is in posframe or emacs child frames. If anyone knows better let me know I am happy to submit a bug report otherwise I will close the issue.

[tumashu]

flick? suggest a screenshot

[abbaswasim]

No more flickers with posframe in mac-port. Sorry there were typos in my previous comment. I have now corrected it.

[conao3]

@tumashu, please rename this issue to childframe macOS limitation; (black fullscreen, missing border) or something like this.

[mpereira]

I also see this. Emacs 26.3 from EmacsForOSX, macOS 10.14.6, posframe 20200205.928.

[trepca]

Thanks @mpereira, I have the same problem.

[Yanhao]

experiencing same problem

[muffinmad]

I believe child frames must work fine in fullscreen with this commit

[Eason0210]

I have the same issue at Mac os

[kaiwk]

This issue #30 (comment) exists not only in child frame, but also in normal frame. I have the same problem when customize helm to display in a separate frame. it seems internal-border face attribute :background doesn't work with emacs(ns), where emacs(mac) is fine.

I tested the code below on emacs(ns), emacs(mac) and emacs on linux(gtk), turns out both emacs(mac) and emacs on linux works fine, but emacs(ns) does not.

So, i think it's a bug of emacs(ns).

;; from https://lists.gnu.org/r/emacs-devel/2019-03/msg00282.html
(defface test
  '((t (:inherit default :background "green")))
  "Face used by the ivy-posframe."
  :group 'ivy-posframe)

(set-face-background
 'internal-border
 (face-attribute 'test :background)
 (make-frame `((internal-border-width . 100)
               (parent-frame . ,(window-frame)))))

(set-face-background
 'internal-border
 (face-attribute 'test :background)
 (make-frame `((internal-border-width . 100))))

[mpereira]

For the record, I fixed the "black fullscreen" issues by using daviderestivo/homebrew-emacs-head. The "black fullscreen" issue is still reproducible for me in the alternative, d12frosted/homebrew-emacs-plus.

I'm still unable to get posframe borders working though.

macOS 10.15.5
Emacs 28.0.50 (from https://github.com/daviderestivo/homebrew-emacs-head)
ivy-posframe:

Package-Version: 20200528.553
Package-Commit: 44749562a9e68bd43ccaa225b31311476fab1251

[muffinmad]

@mpereira See this commit. Try to reinstall Emacs and see if internal borders is working.

[agzam]

@muffinmad yay! finally!

[mpereira]

I recompiled Emacs and I get posframe borders now! Thanks for the ping, @muffinmad!

[mpereira]

Folks using Linux, are you able to create frames with both an external/outer border and an internal border? I tried to set both in posframe (with some code changes in posframe.el) but was unable to do so on macOS.

My intention was to use the internal border as padding between the frame content and the actual border.

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Frame-Layout.html

[muffinmad]

@mpereira I suggest you to ask this question on the emacs-devel mailing list or fill the bugreport via M-x report-emacs-bug.

[wd]

I have installed emacs-head@28 from daviderestivo/homebrew-emacs-head, it fixed the black screen and the border issue. If it's still not work for you, please remove hooks ns-system-appearance-change-functions, just use the raw (load-theme 'xx t) to load theme and try again.

[pragmat1c1]

I migrated to emacs-mac from emacs-plus to get this fixed, but I still have problems. In emacs-mac I see the border around the child frame, but after some time of usage it disappers and reappers only in new frames.

This problem has been reported also here: emacs-lsp/lsp-ui#21

[pragmat1c1]

I have installed emacs-head@28 from daviderestivo/homebrew-emacs-head, it fixed the black screen and the border issue.

I just brew installed emacs-head@28 as well, but problem of disappearing child frame border still occurs. I can always fix it by changing a theme, until frame disappers some minutes later again.

[wd]

I just brew installed emacs-head@28 as well, but problem of disappearing child frame border still occurs. I can always fix it by changing a theme, until frame disappers some minutes later again.

It's probably related with your config, maybe you can try to remove most of the configs and test again? Like I have issues with the ns-system-appearance-change-functions, maybe there are some similar things happened to you.

[pragmat1c1]

Might be the case indeed, but I have a init.el file with 2k lines, and a custom.el file with a few hundred lines of code. Debugging and pinpointing the error will take some time. - But thanks for the hint.

Btw: emacs-head@28 from daviderestivo/homebrew-emacs-head is super fast on my Mac (opening new frames: in an instant). Thank you for the suggestion.