[Q] telling M-x man to no open a split and behave like a normal buffer

[ninrod]

how can I tell M-x man to not split up my frame and only take over the current window?
I want also that the man buffer starts with evil-normal-state and not with Man-mode-map.

is that possible?

tks in advance.

[TheBB]

Configure it in popwin?

I don't even have an M-x man. What is that?

[TheBB]

I want also that the man buffer starts with evil-normal-state and not with Man-mode-map.

evil-set-initial-state

[ninrod]

@TheBB, are you sure? because I've just started emacs with emacs -Q and M-x man is shown. edit: my emacs version is: GNU Emacs 25.1.50.1

well, it simply show for you a man page after showing you a searchable list of all the man pages that exist in your machine. really useful.

[ninrod]

evil-set-initial-state

I tried this, but did not work:

(evil-set-initial-state 'Man-mode 'evil) (fails with: Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading ‘/Users/ninrod/.emacs.d/init.el’: Attempt to set a constant symbol: nil

I know that this works, but I don't want emacs. I want evil-normal-state.

(evil-set-initial-state 'Man-mode 'emacs)

[TheBB]

If you want evil-normal-state why are you setting the intial state to evil? Set it to normal.

[ninrod]

'normal did the trick. update: here is a list of valid evil states.

How I would prevent M-x man to stop opening a new split though. That remains a mistery.

[TheBB]

Man-notify-method is a variable defined in ‘man.el’.
Its value is ‘friendly’

Documentation:
Selects the behavior when manpage is ready.
This variable may have one of the following values, where (sf) means
that the frames are switched, so the manpage is displayed in the frame
where the man command was called from:

newframe -- put the manpage in its own frame (see ‘Man-frame-parameters’)
pushy -- make the manpage the current buffer in the current window
bully -- make the manpage the current buffer and only window (sf)
aggressive -- make the manpage the current buffer in the other window (sf)
friendly -- display manpage in the other window but don’t make current (sf)
polite -- don’t display manpage, but prints message and beep when ready
quiet -- like ‘polite’, but don’t beep
meek -- make no indication that the manpage is ready

Looks like you want pushy.

[TheBB]

How to find options for man: M-x customize-group man

[ninrod]

thank you @TheBB.