Re: customize-apropos

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

Drew Adams wrote:

   IOW, your argument is really an argument for not showing anything
   in a Custom buffer that is not customizable. That might be
   reasonable, but it is not the current policy.

I believe that it _is_ the current policy not to show any variable in
a Custom buffer that is not defined with defcustom.  That is exactly
why I installed my patch to customize-apropos.  The numeric argument
is just a way for a super-sophisticated user to override that policy.
I personally do not care about that numeric argument.  I just kept it
because it was there.  I would not have put it in myself.

   Instead of saying just "NO CUSTOMIZATION DATA; you should not see this"
   (which is what I see, in a CVS snapshot from June), a user option should be
   labeled as such, with, for example, a message/label such as "You cannot
   customize this option, but you can set it with command `set-variable'. That
   might be somewhat confusing, but it is more helpful than what is displayed
   currently.

No.  People should _really_ not see this, unless for some (strange)
reason they very explicitly asked for it.  The message is intended for
two kinds of people: the average user and the person who wrote a
defcustom and checks his work.  The "you should not see this" tells
the average person to stay away from it and, if he saw it without
doing anything unusual, file a bug report.  It tells the programmer
that there is a bug in his defcustom.

Your suggested replacement text is incorrect.  If you really know what
you are doing, you _can_, up to a point, customize these variables in
the Custom buffer.  Since some things will work and others not, I
would definitely not recommend this for the average user.  I also
believe that the usefulness of this feature for advanced users is
limited.  I have never used it except out of curiosity.

Sincerely,

Luc.