Fixing vc-checkin

I use Subversion for a lot of my projects, and I've really enjoy the seamless integration in Emacs. Committing a file is as easy as C-x v v.

However, vc-checkin is slightly broken. It needs a window in which to open the buffer *VC-log* (for you to enter the commit message in) and after you've entered a message and pressed C-c C-c, it closes that window. If you have only one window open in the current frame, it splits your window. Everything is fine...you get your one-window layout back.

But if you have more than one window open, it steals an existing window and closes it. Quite annoying.

So, I decided to fix this using vc-before-checkin-hook. The following hook opens a new window visiting the buffer *VC-log*.

(add-hook
 'vc-before-checkin-hook
 #'(lambda ()
     (set-window-buffer 
         (split-window-vertically) 
         (get-buffer-create "*VC-log*"))))

This way, the newly created window will always be selected and closed by vc-checkin, and predictability is restored.