Re: Problem with doc-view-previous-major-mode

[Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>]

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:24:34 -0400 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

>>>> what happens with -Q.  But I have customized the global value of
>>>> major-mode to text-mode,
>>> Why?
>> Because I found that I often wanted to do quick tests in text-mode by
>> typing `C-x b a'.
>
> I see.
>
>> Your question suggests suggests that this customization is
>> ill-advised;
>
> No.  Customizing default-major-mode has been supported "for ever" and
> your use case makes sense, but the way it works makes for some annoying
> corner cases, such as the one you've bumped into.
>
> So I'd like to use another mechanism, such that you could still
> configure the mode to use for a new buffer created via C-x b, but
> without it affecting things like your doc-view case.

Do you have something already in the works, or are you soliciting ideas?
If the latter, maybe we could add a prefix argument to switch-to-buffer
that sets the major-mode (using completion and defaulting to the value
of a user option) if the buffer switched to is new.

>> And if it is ill-advised, then major-mode shouldn't be customizable,
>> should it?
>
> If I could rewrite history, indeed the default value of major-mode would
> not be customizable.

When an alternative is in place, the customizability could be obsoleted.

Steve Berman