Re: Visual cleanup for customize buffers

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

Lennart Borgman wrote:

   My impression when we started looking at Custom was that not many 
   developers or advanced users were using it.

We do get bug reports about Custom, so it _is_ used by many people
knowledgeable enough to file bug reports.

Some Emacs developers apparently do not use it.  I use it
extensively, but never use the whole buffer buttons in multi-option
buffers, except for testing purposes if I am making code changes to
them.  I have the impression that the latter use _still_ means that I
use the whole buffer buttons in multi-option buffers a lot more
extensively than other people do.

Custom is, in as far as I know, the only reliable option browser
Emacs has.  The `apropos' facility is not a reliable alternative,
because you can not find non-loaded stuff that way and, in my own
experience, most of the time the options I need to find turn out not
to be loaded.  If after using customize-browse, you find the option
you want, it is a lot more convenient to customize it right in the
buffer you have in front of you, than to visit your .emacs and start
writing some Lisp code, no matter how well you know Elisp.  So there
are good reasons for advanced users to use it.

Sincerely,

Luc.