Re: On the new startup and scratch buffer

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

>> OK, let's do everything what would be the best now to avoid any kind of
>> incompatibility for the upcoming release, but I still don't understand
>> the problem.
>>
>>     inhibit-startup-message
>>     initial-scratch-message
>>
>> The option inhibit-startup-message as an alias for inhibit-startup-screen
>> still disables the startup screen regardless of the value of
>> initial-scratch-message.
>>
>> In 22.1, inhibit-startup-message was an alias for inhibit-splash-screen
>> that disables the startup screen.  So users who have inhibit-startup-message
>> set to non-nil in .emacs will not see the startup screen (though they will
>> see the initial message in the scratch buffer if not explicitly disabled it
>> using nil for initial-scratch-message).
>
> No.  I just checked this: in 22.1, non-nil inhibit-startup-message
> causes Emacs to start up with an empty scratch buffer, the same as in
> Emacs 21.

The problem here is in the terminology: in Emacs 21 "startup message"
meant the same thing as "splash screen" in Emacs 22 that we later
renamed to "startup screen".  In contrast, the initial text in the
scratch buffer is named "initial scratch message", not "startup message".

The fact that `inhibit-startup-message' also disabled the initial
scratch message as a side effect now created a problem that users
who need to see the initial scratch message will not get it.

> For compatibility, I think your patch has to be modified so that
> inhibit-startup-message is no longer an alias of
> inhibit-startup-screen, and then make it do what it did in Emacs 22
> (i.e, display an empty scratch buffer on startup).

Another solution is to create a new internal variable and set it in
places that automatically disable the startup screen.  This variable
will be separate from the user option `inhibit-startup-screen'.
So when the user has explicitly disabled the startup screen by setting
`inhibit-startup-screen' (or its aliases) to non-nil, then the scratch
buffer will be empty.  Otherwise, when the startup screen is automatically
disabled, the user will see the initial scratch message in the scratch buffer.

> In the meantime, however, please revert this change for the 22.2
> release.

OK, reverted.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/