How do I prevent emacs from horizontally splitting the screen when opening multiple files?

Question

Hi,

I want to be able to open multiple files with emacs like so: emacs file1 file2

and have the emacs screen -not- be split horizontally when emacs starts up. Opening the files in different buffers is what i expect, with just one of the files displayed in the entire emacs window.

So how do I do this?

Answer 1

Well, you can set up an (tcsh) alias like so

alias emacs emacs -eval '"(run-with-idle-timer 0 0 (quote delete-other-windows))"'

This makes emacs hide all the other windows (so you only have one). So your invocation

emacs file1 file2

is translated to

emacs -eval '"(run-with-idle-timer 0 0 (quote delete-other-windows))"' file1 file2

Answer 2

Nasty and hackish, but it works:

$ emacs -nw --eval "(mapcar 'find-file '(\"1.txt\" \"2.txt\"))"

Answer 3

Or just press C-x 1 after the emacs has loaded.

Personally, I think you are misusing emacs if you invoke it from the command-line. I tend to visit files from within eshell, which is running inside emacs.

Answer 4

(add-hook 'window-setup-hook 'delete-other-windows)

works the way I want... just found that out after I asked here.