Re: [AUCTeX-devel] Re: Fontifying of titles...

[David Kastrup]

Ralf Angeli <address@hidden> writes:

> * David Kastrup (2005-04-05) writes:
>
>> Ralf Angeli <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> and don't think that the suggestions will improve it in any way
>>
>> I can't see how providing an easily accessible option for turning it
>> off if desired could be bad.
>
> It will unnecessarily clutter the menu because it is an option used
> once in a lifetime.

All user preferences are that.

> And unless you are thinking of writing directly to the init file
> when changing the option, you have to provide an additional menu
> entry for saving, like it is done in Emacs' "Options" menu.

Yes.

> We have several options which can be set temporarily from the menu
> and for which there is no way to set their default permanently from
> the menu.  For most of them this is not a big deal because they are
> switched more often.  Some of them, like fold mode or math mode
> might warrant the provision of a way to save them.
>
> This is a personal opinion, but I've never used the "Save Options"
> menu entry because I didn't really know what it does.

<menu-bar> <options> <save> runs the command menu-bar-options-save
   which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `menu-bar'.
It is bound to <menu-bar> <options> <save>.
(menu-bar-options-save)

Save current values of Options menu items using Custom.

> For example, will it clutter my init file with an entry for every
> option in the menu?  It probably won't, but who knows.  The options
> menu as a whole just feels awkward.  Every other application has a
> single menu entry for firing up a customization dialog.  The
> "Options" menu looks like a poor-man's version of this.

Well, you could have provided input when the Options menu discussion
was on emacs-devel...

>>> and I am strongly against changing it.
>>
>> It would probably worth doing a poll on the AUCTeX list in order to
>> get more qualified numbers here.  It is clear that our guesses
>> about the public opinion are quite different.  Doing a poll will
>> not change our personal preferences, but will make it better
>> possible to see how relevant they might be to the user base.
>
> I am not really a fan of such polls.  Especially if there is only a
> smaller audience they tend to be distorted and not representative.

We are not going for a majority vote here.  We are trying to find out
whether, as you claim, people not finding the current default setting
optimal for their purposes are in such an exceptional minority that
there should neither be a better accessible way to change it, nor
should there be any changes considered in the actual implementation.
For that purpose, a distorted and not representative audience should
be sufficient.

> But for the sake of finding a conclusion here we might as well give
> it a try.

Well, we have an audience of about 150 people there IIRC.  We might
not expect the highest voter turnout, but it should be sufficient for
figuring out whether nobody except myself would bother.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum