Re: toolbar conventions

[Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>]

I have been using "option" in the MH-E manual (125 pages and growing)
and code (21k lines) to refer to anything you can customize. I've been
using "variable" for the remaining variables that must be set with setq.

My rationale was that I wanted to differentiate variables that were
customizable. In addition, both customize-option and customize-variable
have "Customize option:" as the prompt (not "Customize user option
variable:").

At the time I started this convention, I was unaware of the term "user
option." However, with my usage, "user option" is redundant.

I haven't looked recently to see the usage trends. But I think my
terminology is clean and unambiguous.

Note that I haven't quite got around to documenting faces. I'm not sure
if it makes sense or not to refer to them as options. If we do, then we
need to modify customize-option to accept a face and pass it off to
customize-face (maybe we should do that anyway). It feels like I'll be
calling them faces, but I haven't thought about how you would
distinguish between faces that can be customized and those that cannot.
I'll be getting to that chapter in about a week and provide more
visceral feedback then.

Thoughts?

-- 
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and MH-E. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.