emacs, unsplit a particular window split

102
votes

This may be stupid question, but I could not find direct solution to this. I often want to unsplit window as follows

+--------------+-------------+             +--------------+-------------+
|              |             |             |              |             |
|              |             |             |              |             |
|              |             |             |              |             |
+--------------+             |     -->     |              |             |
|              |             |             |              |             |
|              |             |             |              |             |
|              |             |             |              |             |
+--------------+-------------+             +--------------+-------------+



+--------------+--------------+            +-----------------------------+
|              |              |            |                             |
|              |              |            |                             |
|              |              |            |                             |
+--------------+--------------+    -->     +-----------------------------+
|                             |            |                             |
|                             |            |                             |
|                             |            |                             |
+-----------------------------+            +-----------------------------+

Currently, I start with ctrl-x 1 and then split vertically/horizontally. but my real qustion is how can one remove a particular window split with out disturbing the other window structure? is there any elisp function in built?

2
emacselisp
my bad, copy pasted from my emacs, how can i edit the question? – kindahero
Just click the edit link underneath the tags. I've done this for you this time around. Also, avoid tab characters in the middle of a line. It plays havoc with formatting. – Marcelo Cantos
Wow, Marcelo Thanks for that. corrected within no time – kindahero

2 Answers

153
votes

You can use the C-x0 key combination to delete the current window.

22
votes

Rémi's answer is what you're looking for, but winner mode is also extremely useful for getting you back to previous window configurations after making any arbitrary changes (such as restoring those multiple-splits after typing C-x1).

You can enable it in your init file with:

(winner-mode 1) ;"C-c <left>" and "C-c <right>" undo and re-do window changes.

Also see: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryWindows