How do I set the size of Emacs' window?

Question

I\'m trying to detect the size of the screen I\'m starting emacs on, and adjust the size and position the window it is starting in (I guess that\'s the frame in emacs-speak)

Answer 1

The easiest way I've found to do that in an X-Window environment is through X resources. The relevant part of my .Xdefaults looks like this:

Emacs.geometry: 80x70

You should be able to suffix it with +0+0 location coordinates to force it to the upper-left corner of your display. (the reason I don't do it is that I occasionnally spawn new frames, and it makes things confusing if they appear in the exact same location as the previous one)

According to the manual, this technique works on MS Windows too, storing the resources as key/value pairs in the registry. I never tested that. It might be great, it might be much more of an inconvenience compared to simply editing a file.

Answer 2

I've got the following in my .emacs:

(if (window-system)
  (set-frame-height (selected-frame) 60))

You might also look at the functions set-frame-size, set-frame-position, and set-frame-width. Use C-h f (aka M-x describe-function) to bring up detailed documentation.

I'm not sure if there's a way to compute the max height/width of a frame in the current windowing environment.

Answer 3

Try adding the following code to .emacs

(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(height . 24))

(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(width . 80)) 

Answer 4

You can also the -geometry parameter when firing up emacs: emacs -geometry 80x60+20+30 will give you a window 80 characters wide, 60 rows high, with the top left corner 20 pixels to the right and 30 pixels down from the top left corner of the background.

Answer 5

(setq initial-frame-alist
        (append '((width . 263) (height . 112) (top . -5) (left . 5) (font . "4.System VIO"))
                initial-frame-alist))

(setq default-frame-alist
        (append '((width . 263) (height . 112) (top . -5) (left . 5) (font . "4.System VIO"))
                default-frame-alist))

Answer 6

Taken from: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/old/faq4.html

(setq default-frame-alist
      '((top . 200) (left . 400)
        (width . 80) (height . 40)
        (cursor-color . "white")
        (cursor-type . box)
        (foreground-color . "yellow")
        (background-color . "black")
        (font . "-*-Courier-normal-r-*-*-13-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1")))

(setq initial-frame-alist '((top . 10) (left . 30)))

The first setting applies to all emacs frames including the first one that pops up when you start. The second setting adds additional attributes to the first frame. This is because it is sometimes nice to know the original frame that you start emacs in.