Basic Parameters

These frame parameters give the most basic information about the frame. title and name are meaningful on all terminals.

display

The display on which to open this frame. It should be a string of the form ‘host:dpy.screen’, just like the DISPLAY environment variable. See Multiple Terminals, for more details about display names.

display-type

This parameter describes the range of possible colors that can be used in this frame. Its value is color, grayscale or mono.

title

If a frame has a non-nil title, that title appears in the window system’s title bar at the top of the frame, and also in the mode line of windows in that frame if mode-line-frame-identification uses ‘%F’ (see %-Constructs in the Mode Line). This is normally the case when Emacs is not using a window system, and can only display one frame at a time. When Emacs is using a window system, this parameter, if non-nil, overrides the title determined by the name parameter and the implicit title calculated according to frame-title-format. It also overrides the title determined by icon-title-format for iconified frames. See Frame Titles.

name

The name of the frame. If you don’t specify a name via this parameter, Emacs sets the frame name automatically, as specified by frame-title-format and icon-title-format, and that is the frame’s title that will appear on display when Emacs uses a window system (unless the title parameter overrides it).

If you specify the frame name explicitly when you create the frame, the name is also used (instead of the name of the Emacs executable) when looking up X resources for the frame.

explicit-name

If the frame name was specified explicitly when the frame was created, this parameter will be that name. If the frame wasn’t explicitly named, this parameter will be nil.

environment

The list of strings, each one describing one environment variable. This list is similar to the one in process-environment (see Operating System Environment), but it lists variables and values specific to the frame.