Offsetting successive frames

Question

In my init.el I have the below setting for the initial frame position:

(setq default-frame-alist
    '((top . 80) (left . 300) (width . 85) (height . 45)))

When I open a file in a new frame, it overlaps the previous frame.

How do I set the position of the new frame to be, for example, x width and y height from the previous frame?

This is so that the new frame will not overlap with the previous frame and all open frames (windows) will be clearly visible.

Answer 1

1. Define a function that you use to create the frame, which does what you want with respect to positioning.

2. Define whatever commands you want that make use of that function. For example, define a command that you use in place of find-file-other-frame (C-x 5 f), define a command that you use in place of make-frame-command (C-x 5 2).

The function for #1 just calls make-frame, passing the top and left values you want, in the optional second arg, PARAMETERS.

Presumably, you want those top and left values to be calculated from their values in the currently selected-frame.

For example:

(defun make-offset-frame (&optional x y)
  "..."
  (let* ((params  (frame-parameters))
         (ctop    (or (cdr (assoc 'top params))   0))
         (cleft   (or (cdr (assoc 'left params))  0)))
    (setq x  (or x  30)
          y  (or y  30))
    (make-frame (append `((top . ,(+ ctop y)) (left . ,(+ cleft x)))
                        default-frame-alist))))


(defun my-make-frame-command (&optional x y)
  "..."
  (interactive)
  (make-offset-frame x y))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-x 5 2") 'my-make-frame-command)

Answer 2

Use a tiling window manager such as i3 or StumpWM.