Re: "Text is read-only"... except it isn't... or shouldn't be

[ken <gebser@mousecar.com>]

On 05/14/2013 04:59 AM Peter Dyballa wrote:
>
> Am 14.05.2013 um 08:46 schrieb Eli Zaretskii:
>
>>>> Solution: remove that extension from auto-mode-alist, and Bob's
>>>> your uncle.
>>>
>>> Cool.  That's what I want.  So I guess I put something in
>>> ~/.emacs... but what?
>>
>> I don't know what is the file-name extension of that file, so I
>> cannot give a precise recipe.  Assuming for a moment that its
>> extension is .png, I see that auto-mode-alist includes this
>> element:
>>
>> ("\\.png\\'" . image-mode)
>>
>> So to remove this, you need to do this:
>>
>> (delete '("\\.png\\'" . image-mode) auto-mode-alist)
>
> Since this removes all image support from PNG (or the actual type of)
> files it might be more useful to either rename the file temporarily
> or to create a link with an extension like .txt and edit that link.

Yeah, I thought about all that.  As I said in my original post though, 
I've been happily editing this file with this name for years.  I would 
sooner switch to using vi on it than to change the file's name in any 
way.  Second and more importantly, I don't care for the Windozy attitude 
toward users, treating then like idiots and upon that rationale, taking 
control away from users, or their overly simplistic strategy for 
determining a file type merely by looking at the filename extension, 
especially when this can be more suitably and accurately and 
intelligently accomplished by determining a file's magic number as the 
Linux "file" utility does.