Re: More bugs in Custom themes

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

       First new bug.  After requiring a theme and then setting and saving
       some option through Custom, all my customizations for all options for
       which the theme specified a value were deleted.

   Can you fix that?

       Second new bug: `custom-create-theme' can not handle variables with
       a defcustom that needs a :require and there are a lot of those.

   Can you fix that one?

The current code appears to need a complete rewrite, not just fixing
of a few bugs.  This rewrite has to be done carefully, because the
current attempt at implementation has been superimposed on the entire
Custom code.

   No need.  We won't make the release before fixing this up.

   This is an important feature.  We are not going to give up on it.
   We're going to *fix it and make it work*, and then we will make
   the release.

Custom themes would be a completely new complex feature, not a bug
fix: Custom themes did not come remotely close to working in any prior
Emacs version.  I do not suggest giving up on it, but I do suggest
putting it off until after the 22 release.  Custom themes may be
important, but I do not believe that they are important enough to put
off the release of 22 from a possible 2005 date to some very vague and
very distant future.

I know of various remaining problems concerning the manuals and the
code.  These _really_ need fixing and fixing all of them would be less
difficult and less time consuming than coming up with a workable
Custom themes implementation.  If we fix these first, we can make a
release and we may have a shot at still doing that in 2005.  After
that, we could concentrate on Custom themes.

Correctly implementing Custom themes is complex and will be time-consuming.
People have a need for multiple themes with conflicting settings, that can
be individually removed, so we can not make any simplifying assumptions.
The implementation, once ready, will need thorough testing (people writing
and using themes).  It is impossible to guarantee a time table.

Sincerely,

Luc.