When the menubar is not visible, the gutter is drawn over the top-most buffer in the window. The layout is correct, space is left in the frame for the gutter, it is just not drawn in the correct location. To reproduce, start xemacs (-q) and eval (add-spec-list-to-specifier menubar-visible-p '((global (nil . nil)))) The menubar disappears, and the the frame looks like [toolbar] [gray space the height of the gutter] [top half of first line of *scratch* buffer] [the gutter] ;; then enter the text in that file's own buffer [third line of *scratch* buffer] - Cotton