In search of shell functionality, Emacs integration, application launching:
1] zsh - recursive globbing, autocorrecting, decent completion.
But must be set up with:
#!/bin/zsh # completion autoload -U compinit compinit # correction setopt correctall # prompt autoload -U promptinit promptinit prompt adam2 setopt hist_ignore_all_dups HISTFILE=~/.zshhistory HISTSIZE=1024 SAVEHIST=1024 setopt GLOB setopt EXTENDED_HISTORY setopt INC_APPEND_HISTORY setopt SHARE_HISTORY setopt HIST_IGNORE_DUPS setopt HIST_FIND_NO_DUPS setopt HIST_IGNORE_SPACE setopt HIST_VERIFY setopt NO_HIST_BEEP setopt NO_BEEP setopt NO_HUPsee also:
http://grml.org/zsh/zsh-lovers.html
http://rayninfo.co.uk/tips/zshtips.html
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/zsh.xml
2] xwem (WM in Emacs Lisp) - relies on XEmacs!
Ratpoison as a possibility: http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/
or plain X with X-enabled GNU Emacs and w3m making use of both windows and frames [in short windows a splittable]:
frames:
C-x 5 2 - buffer as new frame
C-x 5 o shift frames
C-x 5 0 kill frame
and various b, f, d options which follow window use:
C-x 4 b - buffer in new window
d as dired in new window, m as mail, r filename as read only
see also:
http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/chemnet/use/info/emacs/emacs_21.html
3] eshell and dired/image-dired/ange-ftp - /newlife@ftp.1010.co.uk:/ /tramp.
dired - d mark, x delete all
ange-ftp-copy-file
Eshell: http://johnwiegley.com/eshell.html
Needs a good degree of customisation:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/
5] launch xterm with app - to wrap in Emacs Lisp/eshell:
(start-process "my-process" nil "/usr/bin/xterm" "-e" command)