From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Luc Teirlinck Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Custom themes Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:19:05 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <200506260319.j5Q3J5Q14922@raven.dms.auburn.edu> References: <200506250127.j5P1RWJ11778@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <200506250157.j5P1v5L11801@raven.dms.auburn.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1119756438 5105 80.91.229.2 (26 Jun 2005 03:27:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:27:18 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Per Abrahamsen , emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jun 26 05:27:08 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DmNnU-0003DI-TS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 26 Jun 2005 05:27:05 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DmNur-0007U8-5D for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:34:41 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DmNu6-0007Fv-Aj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:33:54 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DmNu1-0007DG-7X for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:33:49 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DmNu0-0007BX-Bp for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:33:48 -0400 Original-Received: from [131.204.53.104] (helo=manatee.dms.auburn.edu) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DmNld-0004Hy-Ol; Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:25:09 -0400 Original-Received: from raven.dms.auburn.edu (raven.dms.auburn.edu [131.204.53.29]) by manatee.dms.auburn.edu (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id j5Q3KjCK010012; Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:20:45 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (from teirllm@localhost) by raven.dms.auburn.edu (8.11.7p1+Sun/8.11.7) id j5Q3J5Q14922; Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:19:05 -0500 (CDT) X-Authentication-Warning: raven.dms.auburn.edu: teirllm set sender to teirllm@dms.auburn.edu using -f Original-To: rms@gnu.org In-reply-to: (rms@gnu.org) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:39535 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:39535 Richard Stallman wrote: I don't remember the details, but it is a matter of defining a collection of custom settings and giving them a name. Then you can enable them and disable them by name. I have the impression nobody knows the details, or would be able to document them, except a very few people who probably do not read Emacs Devel regularly. I guess Per may know some of the details. The first question seems to be whether Custom themes are currently a correctly working and fully developed feature that people might be able to use if they knew how, or whether it is unfinished work in progress, not really ready to be used or documented. Is it really ready do be documented in the manuals at this stage, assuming somebody would be willing and able to do it? I believe that in as far as usage goes, Custom themes are nowhere used, definitely not in the Emacs source tree and probably not elsewhere either, except for the `user' and `standard' internal themes. People want to use themes but when they look at the current implementation and its documentation (or better, lack thereof) they have no idea of how to use it, assuming it can be used at all (at present). There appears to be a widely used, popular and well documented alternative, color-theme.el. Its problem is that it does not interact very well with Custom: it creates "rogue" variables. I could at least partially alleviate the worst parts of the problems with cus-theme.el I pointed out, as long as I would know what is an appropriate default directory for theme files. A new customizable variable custom-theme-directory with default the user's home directory? Sincerely, Luc.