It makes no sense for code to be in a single column on the left of the monitor while 2/3 of the right side is almost completely empty space. Instead of just allowing vertical scrolling, why not allow multiple columns and horizontal scrolling? This will result in the ability to see twice, in some cases three times as much code on screen!
Definitely something that could be improved (as well as splitting to two panes gives you 2 panes of the same file..)
What I want is similar to how MS Word takes a single blob of text and reflows it in multiple columns.
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html%5Fnode/emacs/F...
You can continue splitting any area vertically or horizontally to create a configuration that fits your working style or the code you're currently writing.
It doesn't make sense to use width just because you can. In fact it's a bad idea because it's much, much harder to read really wide text and code should be written to be read. You don't see (good) web pages, books or magazines with really wide text because it's really hard to read.
Also people sometimes work on small screen laptops and there you are constrained by width.
e.g:
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/em/ http://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability
I know there are actual studies that show reading comprehension based on line length, I've read them before, but I can't find them now.
Unfortunately at my company people insist on writing code in 130+ columns, I'm a little over sensitive about it I guess.
On a 1920-wide screen, using the standard X11 "6x10" font, I can split an XEmacs frame into three 100-column windows horizontally. I also split vertically, for a total of six. Add a second monitor, and I can see a lot of code! For complex tasks involving changes across multiple files, it's a big help.
In addition to the existing panels you can split the editor window using Window->Editor Tabs->Split Horizontally.
It's definitely possible.