Content Fails To Vertically Center Without Manual Refresh

[gwoob]

I was using the recommended setup for Elpaca and vertical centering worked just fine. But I switched to package.el (using use-package) and no matter how I try to configure it, it will just never vertically center unless I run dashboard-refresh-buffer manually.

[jcs090218]

Can you paste your relevant configuration here? Thanks!

[gwoob]

(use-package dashboard
  :ensure t
  :config
  (dashboard-setup-startup-hook))

(setq initial-buffer-choice (lambda () (get-buffer-create dashboard-buffer-name)))

(setq dashboard-center-content t)

(setq dashboard-vertically-center-content t)

(setq dashboard-startupify-list '(dashboard-insert-banner
                                  dashboard-insert-newline
				  dashboard-insert-init-info
                                  dashboard-insert-newline
                                  dashboard-insert-items))

[ricardoricho]

Hi @gwoob could you try this one?

(use-package dashboard
  :ensure t
  :init
  (setq initial-buffer-choice (lambda () (get-buffer-create dashboard-buffer-name)))
  :config
  (dashboard-setup-startup-hook)
  :custom
  (dashboard-center-content t)
  (dashboard-vertically-center-content t)
  (dashboard-startupify-list '(dashboard-insert-banner
                               dashboard-insert-newline
			       dashboard-insert-init-info
                               dashboard-insert-newline
                               dashboard-insert-items)))

I'm not sure about the :init part.
Is your Elpaca configuration the same?

[gwoob]

@ricardoricho Same behavior. Package.el doesn't work, Elpaca does.

[winkelnp]

This appears to still be happening, is there a way we could workaround this?

My config:

(use-package dashboard
  :ensure t
  :config (dashboard-setup-startup-hook)
  :custom
  ;; set image as banner, but fall back to text for tty
  (dashboard-startup-banner (cons (concat user-emacs-directory "splash.svg")
				  (concat user-emacs-directory "splash.txt")))
  (dashboard-vertically-center-content t)
  (dashboard-center-content t)
  (dashboard-set-file-icons t)
  (initial-buffer-choice (lambda () (get-buffer-create dashboard-buffer-name))))

[ricardoricho]

Hi, recently a fix commit has been merged so be sure you're using the lastest version.
Your configurations looks fine, with the latest version replace the initial-buffer-choice to 'dashboard-open
Also, I'm not sure about the :config but I beleive you could remove it

(use-package dashboard
  :ensure t
  :custom
  ;; set image as banner, but fall back to text for tty
  (dashboard-startup-banner (cons (concat user-emacs-directory "splash.svg")
				  (concat user-emacs-directory "splash.txt")))
  (dashboard-vertically-center-content t)
  (dashboard-center-content t)
  (dashboard-set-file-icons t)
  (initial-buffer-choice 'dashboard-open))

[winkelnp]

While this patch seems to fix the vertical centring it seems to introduce an error with (initial-buffer-choice 'dashboard-open) where the daemon fails to start (hangs forever) and calling emacsclient -t after calling server-start fails.

I've tested through each bit of my config and it seems to just be this line introducing this.
Using

:config (dashboard-setup-startup-hook)
:custom (initial-buffer-choice (lambda () (get-buffer-create dashboard-buffer-name)

seems to still work (with a little quirk that the banner shifts to the left on unfocused clients)

[ricardoricho]

Sorry, I don't use emacsclient. I tried emacs --deamon and then emacsclient -t and everything seems to work.
How are you starting Emacs? Do you have an idea why the server fails? Hangs waiting for something?

[winkelnp]

I can't seem to find a way to get more detailed logs?
I've tried both server-start and emacs --daemon. The latter gives the usual output but doesn't end after Starting Emacs daemon.
For the daemon emacsclient -t says it "can't find socket" - the exact same output as if no daemon was started.
For server-start it flashes the window for a split second, no output.

just starting emacs -nw works fine

[ricardoricho]

I think you could start Emacs server with the config that works and go to the *Messages* buffer, then (setq initial-buffer-choice 'dashboard-open). In another terminal, try emacsclient -t and hopefully you'll see some errors in *Messages*.

[winkelnp]

I do not understand what is happening here, I now get entirely different behaviour (not having changed anything else).

While I no longer get the crashes and the daemon loads well, no matter the settings client windows never automatically vertically centre the content.
The patched setting seems to have no adverse effect any more and successfully centres in non-client windows.

Also that weird thing with the banner image shifting to the left on the other window when switching from a GUI window to a terminal window and vice versa.
Strangely this is less dynamic when server-start is issued from a terminal window, not shifting on every window switch, only when switching to the initial terminal window, between term and gui client windows or switching to a client window from a non-emacs one.