Suggested doc change for cus-edit.el

Suggested doc change for cus-edit.el

[Luc Teirlinck]

In cus-edit.el we see:

  ;; 6. rogue

  ;;    There are no standard value.

There are two problems with this.  The lesser of the two is that this
does not appear to be grammatically correct.

The second, less trivial one is that the situation, as described,
appears to be impossible:

  ;; 4. The standard value.

  ;;    This is the value given in the 'defcustom' declaration.

As (defcustom foo) is illegal, it would seem that there _always_ is a
standard value.

So this needs to be clarified.  What about:

;; 6. rogue

;;    Custom has no properly stored record of the standard value.

I could install this, if desired.

Or does it mean that there is no defcustom?  I have the impression
that Custom completely _ignores_ variables without defcustom.  To try
I put:

 '(aha "oho")

in my `custom-set-variables' form and Custom seems to completely ignore it.

M-x customize-option RET aha RET 

says: [No match].  I do not get a Custom buffer with 'aha marked as rogue.

Sincerely,

Luc.

Re: Suggested doc change for cus-edit.el

[Per Abrahamsen]

Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu> writes:

> Or does it mean that there is no defcustom?  

Yes.

> I have the impression
> that Custom completely _ignores_ variables without defcustom.  To try
> I put:
>
>  '(aha "oho")
>
> in my `custom-set-variables' form and Custom seems to completely ignore it.

You need to set the "now" flag.  This is automatically set on rogue
options. 

> M-x customize-option RET aha RET 
>
> says: [No match].  I do not get a Custom buffer with 'aha marked as rogue.

Customize was designed to work on all variables, declared with
customize or not.  Pretty much needed back when nothing was declared
with customize.  Apparently someone decided to remove that feature.

Re: Suggested doc change for cus-edit.el

[Luc Teirlinck]

   > M-x customize-option RET aha RET 
   >
   > says: [No match].  I do not get a Custom buffer with 'aha marked as rogue.

   Customize was designed to work on all variables, declared with
   customize or not.  Pretty much needed back when nothing was declared
   with customize.  Apparently someone decided to remove that feature.

In interactive commands, minibuffer completion prevents creation of
Custom buffers for variables without defcustom.  Non-interactively,
you can bypass this and still create such buffers.

I believe that the following is accurate.  Again, I could install this
in cus-edit.el if it looks OK:

;; 6. rogue

;;    There is no standard value.  This means that the variable was
;;    not defined with defcustom.  In newer Emacs versions, this state
;;    does not occur in normal usage.  You can not create a Custom
;;    buffer for such variables using the normal interactive Custom
;;    commands.  However, such Custom buffers can be created in other
;;    ways, for instance, by calling `customize-option' non-interactively.

Sincerely,

Luc.

Re: Suggested doc change for cus-edit.el

[Luc Teirlinck]

Maybe the following is better.  The state does occur, there are plenty
of variables without defcustom, it just does normally not occur in a
Custom buffer (unless you do something special):

;;    There is no standard value.  This means that the variable was
;;    not defined with defcustom.  In newer Emacs versions, you can
;;    not create a Custom buffer for such variables using the normal
;;    interactive Custom commands.  However, such Custom buffers can
;;    be created in other ways, for instance, by calling
;;    `customize-option' non-interactively.

Sincerely,

Luc.

Re: Suggested doc change for cus-edit.el

[Richard Stallman]

    Customize was designed to work on all variables, declared with
    customize or not.  Pretty much needed back when nothing was declared
    with customize.  Apparently someone decided to remove that feature.

Now that all the variables useful for beginners to customize have
Custom definitions, I don't think this that feature is needed any
more.