How do I prevent Emacs from horizontally splitting the screen when opening multiple files?

Question

I want to be able to open multiple files with Emacs like the following command:

emacs file1 file2

and have the Emacs screen -not- be split horizontally when Emacs starts up. Opening the files in different buffers is what I expected, with just one of the files displayed in the entire Emacs window.

So how do I do this?

Answer 1

(add-hook 'window-setup-hook 'delete-other-windows)

works the way I want... just found that out after I asked here.

Answer 2

Well, you can set up an (tcsh) alias like so

alias emacs emacs -eval '"(run-with-idle-timer 0 nil (quote delete-other-windows))"'

This makes emacs hide all the other windows (so you only have one). So your invocation

emacs file1 file2

is translated to

emacs -eval '"(run-with-idle-timer 0 nil (quote delete-other-windows))"' file1 file2

Answer 3

Nasty and hackish, but it works:

$ emacs -nw --eval "(mapcar 'find-file '(\"1.txt\" \"2.txt\"))"

Answer 4

Or just press C-x 1 after the emacs has loaded.

Personally, I think you are misusing emacs if you invoke it from the command-line. I tend to visit files from within eshell, which is running inside emacs.

• Cheeso: displaying multiple buffers at once is so valuable. With a big monitor I can have 4 buffers displayed and each one is usable. It's not typical that I need that, but when I do....
• si28719e: this would be a great answer if you actually explained how to visit files from within eshell, instead of just mentioning that you like to do so, or explained how one is supposed to cycle through the buffers having successfully opened them in non-split-screen mode.
• jrockway: You visit files from eshell with find-file.