Understand Pane-Local State

This chapter compares two views of shared text, restores pane-local buffer history, and uses selecting and display-only commands to control where a buffer appears.

Before You Begin

If you enter this chapter directly, first complete Prepare the User Guide Exercises.

Complete Arrange Panes. Open the same kit-supplied editing-practice file in a wide terminal and create one pane to the right:

odra ~/odra-guide/work/dirs/notes/editing-practice.txt

Press C-x 3. Both panes initially show the same buffer.

The diagram summarizes the relationship exercised below. It represents two views of the same tutorial Buffer; labels and structure carry the meaning without depending on a particular theme.

One shared Buffer provides canonical text and edit history to two panes. Each pane owns a separate view with its own point, viewport, desired column, and buffer history.

Compare Two Views of One Buffer

In the left pane, move to Page 2 checkpoint and page down until the Status Bar no longer reports Top. Press C-x o and keep the right pane near the start of the document.

Move between the panes with C-x o. Each pane retains its own cursor, preferred vertical column, viewport, and horizontal position. Focusing a pane makes its retained cursor the active point for editing commands.

Insert one character in either pane, then undo it with C-/. Canonical text is shared, so the edit and its reversal are visible in both panes. View position is pane-local; text and its reversible history belong to the buffer.

Select a Buffer in Another Pane

Keep the left pane active. Press C-x 4 b, enter pane-notes, and press Enter on the create candidate.

Odra chooses the other pane, displays the new pathless buffer there, and focuses it. Type:

Other-pane selection keeps this view active.

C-x 4 b expresses selecting other-pane intent. It does not require a particular split orientation, and policy may reuse an eligible existing pane or create one when geometry permits.

Display Without Moving Focus

With pane-notes active, press C-x 4 C-o. Select the editing-practice buffer. Odra displays it in another pane but leaves focus and input in pane-notes.

Type ! and observe that it is appended to the notes buffer, not to the newly displayed practice file. Press C-/ to undo the marker.

C-x 4 C-o is display-only. It is useful when source, output, help, or another reference should become visible without interrupting the current editing location.

Open a File and Focus Its Pane

Press C-x 4 f, enter the path below, and press Enter:

~/odra-guide/work/dirs/notes/review.md

The kit also supplies this review file.

Odra opens or reuses the file in another pane and focuses the destination. This has the file-path semantics of C-x C-f and the selecting destination semantics of C-x 4 b.

Press C-g during any of these candidate or path interactions to preserve the current layout, displayed buffers, and focus.

Revisit Pane-Local Buffer History

In the active pane, use C-x b to switch from review.md to pane-notes. Move its cursor to the middle of the line, then switch back to review.md and move to another line.

Use C-x b to select pane-notes again. That pane restores the notes cursor and viewport it retained. A different pane may show the same buffer with a different cursor and viewport because its buffer history is independent.

When a displayed buffer closes, each affected pane first uses its own live history for a fallback. Layout-wide buffer recency is used only when that pane has no suitable local entry.

Recognize Pane Dedication

Pane dedication is persistent policy state that can reserve a pane from automatic reuse. Soft excludes automatic reuse while allowing an explicit buffer switch; Hard also rejects ordinary explicit replacement. When a pane is dedicated, its Status Bar exposes the corresponding state.

The direct interaction profile currently has no factory command for changing dedication. The exercises in this chapter therefore use ordinary panes while preserving the observable behavior and terminology needed by later configuration and extension workflows.

Verify the Result

You have completed this chapter when two panes retain different positions in the same text, edits remain shared, C-x 4 b and C-x 4 f focus their destination, C-x 4 C-o preserves focus, and revisiting a buffer restores the state retained by that pane.

Continue with Restore Layouts to preserve and recover a portable multi-pane arrangement.

Previous: Arrange Panes · User Guide · Next: Restore Layouts