Re: Default directory in startup buffer

[Kevin Rodgers]

On 1/21/11 12:53 AM, Jarmo Hurri wrote:
> I am installing GNU Emacs on a bunch of Windows machines for a group of
> students in order for them to be able to run R via ESS. So the students
> will just start Emacs and run R in it. I just installed the newest
> version of GNU Emacs from emacs-22.3-bin-i386.zip.

The most recently released version is actually 23.2.

> The problem is that the startup screen does not obey
> default-directory. Putting the following line in site-startup.el
>
> (setq default-directory "~/")
>
> does change the default directory in buffer "*scratch*", but not in
> buffer "*GNU Emacs*"

(mapc (lambda (buffer)
        (with-current-buffer buffer
          (setq default-directory "~/")))
      (buffer-list))

...

> [ As a related note, I found it surprising that I had to include the
>    line
>    (setq default-directory "~/")
>    in site-start.el in order to get a reasonable default directory even
>    in buffer "*scratch*". Should that kind of behaviour be the default in
>    Emacs? ]

Did you specify the start directory, in the Start In property of the program
shortcut?

--
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA