Opt out from Helm Help's special display behaviour?

[swsnr]

helm-help by means of helm-help-internal explicitly calls delete-other-windows to try and make its window the only one. I'm not sure why this is done but in any case in conflicts with custom display-buffer-alist rules.

Is there a way to opt out from this behaviour and tell Helm to display its Help buffer just like a regular buffer and let display-buffer-alist take care of the exact display rules?

[thierryvolpiatto]

Sebastian Wiesner notifications@github.com writes:

helm-help by means of helm-help-internal explicitly calls
delete-other-windows to try and make its window the only one. I'm not
sure why this is done but in any case in conflicts with custom
display-buffer-alist rules.

I don't see the problem, as this affect only your helm session.
Please describe exactly the problem you have with this.

Thierry

[swsnr]

I'm sorry, I should have made myself more clear. Essentially I'd just like the Helm Help buffer not cover the whole frame, but just a part of it, by my own rules. I just don't want to loose the context I'm using Helm in, i.e. the original buffer, when I need to look up a Helm key.

I tried adding display rules for it, only to discover that helm overrides any of these because it forcibly deletes all other windows, and other than advising helm-help-internal—which I'd rather not like to do—I've no choice to make the Help buffer subject to my own special display rules.

Sure it's just the Help buffer, but I actually use it a lot because I haven't memorized many of the less used Helm keys and find myself frequently looking up things.

[thierryvolpiatto]

Sebastian Wiesner notifications@github.com writes:

I'm sorry, I should have made myself more clear. Essentially I'd just
like the Helm Help buffer not cover the whole frame, but just a part
of it, by my own rules. I just don't want to loose the context I'm
using Helm in, i.e. the original buffer, when I need to look up a Helm
key.

I tried adding display rules for it, only to discover that helm
overrides any of these because it forcibly deletes all other windows,
and other than advising helm-help-internal—which I'd rather not like
to do—I've no choice to make the Help buffer subject to my own special
display rules.

I made a new user var helm-help-full-frame, it should fit your needs.

Thierry

[michael-heerdegen]

I didn't read this thread very carefully, but to enable the user to control this via display-buffer-alist, we must not use switch-to-buffer I think. The typical alternative is pop-to-buffer-same-window which is based on display-buffer but quite similar to switch-to-buffer in behavior.