Re: Starnge comment in Custom Theme code.

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

Richard Stallman wrote:

   I am not sure what is the right way to deal with theme settings of
   variables that have been setq's outside Custom, but the argument you
   made this time does not seem persuasive.

I believe that setq expresses just as much an individual preference by
the user than a saving or setting through Custom.  If a program did
the setq, the situation may be worse, because the program may be
relying on the setq-ed value for its proper functioning.

One example of a problem that can occur if loading a theme overrides
"rogue" values, but not the user theme:
  
If the user sets cua-mode via Custom then cua-mode seems to set
transient-mark-mode, delete-selection-mode and pc-selection-mode using
setq or minor mode invocation.  Now the user loads a theme with tons
of settings, one of them setting one of these to some other value.
Even if the theme also sets cua-mode to nil, cua-mode stays enabled,
because the theme does not override the cua Custom setting.  With the
cua-set variables away from their cua-defaults, cua-mode is, I
believe, pretty much going to become disfunctional to the user.  There
are also, I believe, going to be problems when the user, seeing the
inconsistency, disables cua-mode.  Then cua-mode seems to reestablish
its own saved old user settings, overriding the theme again.

Sincerely,

Luc.