From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Juri Linkov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: On the new startup and scratch buffer Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:54:47 +0200 Organization: JURTA Message-ID: <87ablhu96w.fsf@jurta.org> References: <47B319AD.3030804@alice.it> <87zlu4oi48.fsf@bar.jrock.us> <47B3320C.8060800@alice.it> <87ve4ip7g1.fsf@bar.jrock.us> <873arcvg86.fsf@jurta.org> <87hcfrid17.fsf@stupidchicken.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1204428651 19123 80.91.229.12 (2 Mar 2008 03:30:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 03:30:51 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Sascha Wilde , emacs-devel@gnu.org, Jonathan Rockway , Angelo Graziosi To: Chong Yidong Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 02 04:31:17 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JVeuw-0005tB-Se for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:31:15 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JVeuP-00072I-AI for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:30:41 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JVetf-0006ZK-QZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:29:55 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JVete-0006Ya-6h for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:29:55 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JVetd-0006YJ-TJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:29:53 -0500 Original-Received: from relay03.kiev.sovam.com ([62.64.120.201]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JVetd-0002uJ-AZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:29:53 -0500 Original-Received: from [83.170.232.243] (helo=smtp.svitonline.com) by relay03.kiev.sovam.com with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1JVetV-00087M-Ku; Sun, 02 Mar 2008 05:29:45 +0200 In-Reply-To: <87hcfrid17.fsf@stupidchicken.com> (Chong Yidong's message of "Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:00:20 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) X-Scanner-Signature: a96565856d7d777f03ae631b61e05b17 X-DrWeb-checked: yes X-SpamTest-Envelope-From: juri@jurta.org X-SpamTest-Group-ID: 00000000 X-SpamTest-Header: Not Detected X-SpamTest-Info: Profiles 2346 [Feb 29 2008] X-SpamTest-Info: helo_type=3 X-SpamTest-Info: {HEADERS: header Content-Type found without required header Content-Transfer-Encoding} X-SpamTest-Method: none X-SpamTest-Rate: 11 X-SpamTest-Status: Not detected X-SpamTest-Status-Extended: not_detected X-SpamTest-Version: SMTP-Filter Version 3.0.0 [0278], KAS30/Release X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: FreeBSD 6.x (1) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:91028 Archived-At: >>>>>> If people are interested in a change to this behavior (always add text >>>>>> to *scratch* if initial-scratch-message isn't nil), I'll supply a patch. >> >> Installed on the trunk and the Emacs 22 branch. > > I'm not convinced that this change should go into Emacs 22. The > reason is a little subtle. > > If you check the changelogs, inhibit-startup-screen used to be called > inhibit-startup-message, and i-s-m is now an alias for i-s-s. > > With this change, people who've been using Emacs for a while and have > inhibit-startup-message bound to nil in their init file (as I did) > will encounter unexpected behavior. In other words, even though > inhibit-startup-message is non-nil, there's a startup message! > > It's scarcely a serious issue---after all, Emacs progresses, and the > meanings of variables change. All the same, this kind of > incompatibility is best introduced between major versions. 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. I see there are two very similarly named user options (that adds more confusion to this already complicated issue): 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). The recent patch was installed after complaints from users that even when initial-scratch-message is non-nil the scratch buffer is still empty. This is caused by the changes that allow more command line options and other conditions to disable the startup screen and thus to ignore the value of initial-scratch-message. This is bad because many users and especially novices will miss this important text in the scratch buffer after running Emacs with command line arguments. We can expect more such complaints after the release if we will deliver a version that disregards the value of initial-scratch-message after disabling the startup screen. Given these facts, please decide what would be the best to do now. -- Juri Linkov http://www.jurta.org/emacs/