From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: rvclayton@verizon.net (R. Clayton) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Major mode weirdness. Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:25:10 -0400 Message-ID: <87d3hejj8p.fsf@UlanBator.myhome.westell.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1310574583 445 80.91.229.12 (13 Jul 2011 16:29:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:29:43 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jul 13 18:29:40 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Qh2Jf-0001ha-LW for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:29:39 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51135 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qh2Je-0000sh-B3 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:29:38 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:57513) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qh1ca-0005kS-Vo for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:45:10 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qh1cY-0008Ep-A3 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:45:08 -0400 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:50446) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Qh1cX-0008E4-Oz for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:45:06 -0400 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Qh1cW-0003YJ-4B for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:45:04 +0200 Original-Received: from pool-108-5-150-85.nwrknj.fios.verizon.net ([108.5.150.85]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:45:04 +0200 Original-Received: from rvclayton by pool-108-5-150-85.nwrknj.fios.verizon.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:45:04 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 27 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: pool-108-5-150-85.nwrknj.fios.verizon.net User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:0k1KIONEi1xIZE9wg4ki/m2VXyQ= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 80.91.229.12 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:81570 Archived-At: I am running GNU Emacs 23.3.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.3) of 2011-04-10 on raven, modified by Debian on a debian testing system updated weekly. I have noticed that the initial scratch buffer, the one you get when you just run emacs with no command-line arguments, is in fundamental mode, even though .emacs contains, in custom-set-variables, '(initial-major-mode (quote text-mode)) and help-variable in *scratch* reports initial-major-mode's value is text-mode. What is the error I'm making in trying to get the initial buffer to be in text mode? I have also noticed that doing (setq major-mode 'text-mode) in .emacs has no effect: new buffers are set to fundamental mode rather than text mode. The help-variable documentation for major-mode indicates that setting help-mode makes it buffer local, which seems like strange behavior for a variable that's supposed to provide a global value. Setting major-mode in custom-set-variables works as expected. Although I expect I know the answer to this one, I'll ask it anyway: why is it that a "top-level" setq on major-mode in .emacs doesn't work? Also, top-level setqs on initial-major-mode and major-mode used to work as expected up until a few weeks ago. What has changed since then? Searching around in the /usr/share/doc/emacs23 change files doesn't produce anything I can recognize as an explanation.