bug#30737: [patch] global-abbrev-mode

bug#30737: [patch] global-abbrev-mode

[Alex Branham]

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It's currently not very clear how we're supposed to turn on abbrev-mode
everywhere. This patch introduces global-abbrev-mode to solve that
particular problem. I've been using this line in my init.el for a few
months without issue.


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From 4e4ab48f279c0b30708be1f0acdcd6fba85e82c2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Alex Branham <branham@utexas.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 17:24:04 -0600
Subject: [PATCH] * lisp/abbrev.el (global-abbrev-mode): new global minor mode

---
 lisp/abbrev.el | 2 ++
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)

diff --git a/lisp/abbrev.el b/lisp/abbrev.el
index 197276cc9c..2719250189 100644
--- a/lisp/abbrev.el
+++ b/lisp/abbrev.el
@@ -67,6 +67,8 @@ abbrev-mode
 
 (put 'abbrev-mode 'safe-local-variable 'booleanp)
 
+(define-globalized-minor-mode global-abbrev-mode abbrev-mode abbrev-mode)
+
 \f
 (defvar edit-abbrevs-mode-map
   (let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
-- 
2.16.2

bug#30737: [patch] global-abbrev-mode

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Alex Branham <alex.branham@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2018 17:27:05 -0600
> 
> It's currently not very clear how we're supposed to turn on abbrev-mode
> everywhere. This patch introduces global-abbrev-mode to solve that
> particular problem. I've been using this line in my init.el for a few
> months without issue.

Does it make sense to have it turned on in every single buffer?  What
major modes do you routinely use?

Thanks.

bug#30737: [patch] global-abbrev-mode

[Alex Branham]

On Wed 07 Mar 2018 at 11:09, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

>> From: Alex Branham <alex.branham@gmail.com>
>> Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2018 17:27:05 -0600
>>
>> It's currently not very clear how we're supposed to turn on abbrev-mode
>> everywhere. This patch introduces global-abbrev-mode to solve that
>> particular problem. I've been using this line in my init.el for a few
>> months without issue.
>
> Does it make sense to have it turned on in every single buffer?  What
> major modes do you routinely use?

I use a mix of text modes (auctex, org, etc) and programming modes
(python, ess, etc). I find it useful to have the global abbrev table
collect common spelling mistakes or typos like teh and automatically
correct them to "the".

This was inspired by a blog post[1]. The author there recommends turning
on abbrev-mode everywhere with setq-default, but the doc string
explicitly says not to do that: "Use the command ‘abbrev-mode’ to change
this variable."


Footnotes:
[1]  http://endlessparentheses.com/ispell-and-abbrev-the-perfect-auto-correct.html

bug#30737: [patch] global-abbrev-mode

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Alex Branham <alex.branham@gmail.com>
> Cc: 30737@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2018 11:18:29 -0600
> 
> > Does it make sense to have it turned on in every single buffer?  What
> > major modes do you routinely use?
> 
> I use a mix of text modes (auctex, org, etc) and programming modes
> (python, ess, etc). I find it useful to have the global abbrev table
> collect common spelling mistakes or typos like teh and automatically
> correct them to "the".

But what if you have a variable in a program called "teh"?  Or, as a
more practical use case, consider this: in a few places in Emacs we
have a variable named "defalt", because using "default" gets in the
way for some reason.  Having this turned on globally will silently
"correct" these variable names, and could cause you real trouble.

This is what I fear.

bug#30737: [patch] global-abbrev-mode

[Alex Branham]

On Wed 07 Mar 2018 at 12:03, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> But what if you have a variable in a program called "teh"?  Or, as a
> more practical use case, consider this: in a few places in Emacs we
> have a variable named "defalt", because using "default" gets in the
> way for some reason.  Having this turned on globally will silently
> "correct" these variable names, and could cause you real trouble.

That's a fair worry. Ideally, what I'd like is to be able to use these
frequent misspells in much the same was I can use flyspell such that it
turns on in text modes and in comments in prog-modes. I'm not sure how
to implement that, though.

Maybe we could modify flyspell to do these quick auto-replacements using
its own abbrev table? Or something similar to an abbrev table, since
those are per-major mode...

Alex

bug#30737: [patch] global-abbrev-mode

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> But what if you have a variable in a program called "teh"?  Or, as a
> more practical use case, consider this: in a few places in Emacs we
> have a variable named "defalt", because using "default" gets in the
> way for some reason.  Having this turned on globally will silently
> "correct" these variable names, and could cause you real trouble.
>
> This is what I fear.

Yeah, I don't think a global abbrev mode would be generally useful, so
I'm closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no