unofficial mirror of bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org 
 help / color / mirror / code / Atom feed
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
To: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
Cc: 60032@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#60032: 30.0.50; [WISH] Customizing Info directories
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2022 16:39:42 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <834jtzpdu9.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87r0x3beqx.fsf@localhost> (message from Ihor Radchenko on Tue, 13 Dec 2022 13:43:50 +0000)

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Cc: 60032@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2022 13:43:50 +0000
> 
> The user attempted to customize `Info-default-directory-list' and got
> surprised that it was ignored.
> 
> Upon my further investigation, `Info-default-directory-list' is indeed
> ignored when INFOPATH is set by OS.

Yes.  But why didn't that user modify INFOPATH?

> However, `Info-default-directory-list' being ignored is rather
> surprising, especially given that setting the other defcustom
> (`Info-additional-directory-list') does not allow overriding system
> settings.

It is done for a good reason.  Setting up the list correctly is
difficult enough, what with the requirement that Emacs's own manuals
should sometimes be before the system-wide installation, and sometimes
after it (to support different use cases).  When INFOPATH is defined,
and used by the stand-alone Info reader, install-info, and other
stuff, it becomes impossible to DTRT.  So we punt, in effect saying:
if you have INFOPATH, you should already know what you are doing.

If you want the gory details (which I happily forgot), run "git log -L"
(or vc-region-history) on the area where Info-default-directory-list
is defined and used, and read the discussions related to the changes
and bugs reported against that.

> Changing environment variables is something I never ever needed to
> customize Emacs' behaviour. Once I see it, my thinking goes: "Surely,
> there should be some custom variable.", but no such variable exists.

Does this include PATH?  If not, why not?

IME, the *PATH variables are quite special: they should generally be
set from outside Emacs, and doing the same via customization options
is usually not a good idea.





  reply	other threads:[~2022-12-13 14:39 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2022-12-13 13:19 bug#60032: 30.0.50; [WISH] Customizing Info directories Ihor Radchenko
2022-12-13 13:31 ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-12-13 13:43   ` Ihor Radchenko
2022-12-13 14:39     ` Eli Zaretskii [this message]
2022-12-14 10:27       ` Ihor Radchenko
2022-12-17 12:55         ` Eli Zaretskii
2022-12-15  0:23 ` Michael Heerdegen

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

  List information: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=834jtzpdu9.fsf@gnu.org \
    --to=eliz@gnu.org \
    --cc=60032@debbugs.gnu.org \
    --cc=yantar92@posteo.net \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox

	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).