Re: Feedback on new Customization

[Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk>]

>>>>> "WH" == Wesley Hardaker <Wesley.Hardaker@sphys.unil.ch> writes:

WH> You know, I hate things that modify my .emacs...  I hate using the
WH> 'save options' menu item for that reason.  Oh well, someday I had to
WH> give in (I did so for 'customize'...).  

RMS wanted it that way.  You can customize it though, by setting the
`custom-file' option.  You will then have to load the new custom file
from `.emacs' explicitly.

WH> However, it would be nice to have some more 'topics', I guess
WH> they're called, to seperate the different sections a bit more.

They are called customization groups.

WH> I don't know how difficult this is to do as I haven't glanced at
WH> the code at all.

I think you will find the code for adding customization support pretty
intuitive.  Maybe you could try to add customization support to
smiley.el?  I don't touch the files that don't have Lars as the
primary author, and would really appreciate if someone else would try
to use the custom API before it gets added to Emacs.

WH> IE, under gnus-summary you could have it divided a bit more into
WH> 'threads', 'hooks', 'display', 'scoring', etc...  

Yes.  I have just basically created one group per lisp file, since
that was the easiest to do.  But I hope someone will organize it a bit
further. 

WH> A decent plan would be to follow the info file(s) hierarchy, which
WH> would make using custom really cool if you were reading the manual
WH> at the same time!

Yes it is.  I also want to be able to attach info-links and perhaps
url-links to each option or group, but haven't figured out how to do
that without cluttering up the display even more.

I already dislike that the help button and the state button look too
similar, and too much like checkboxes.  How and where would a info
button fit?  And additionally, you might want to have multiple info
and url buttons.

At some point, you should be able to edit the options directly in the
online manual.

WH> Anyway, its probably too late to start adding more hierarchy huh?

No, it is quite easy to change.  You can also have the same options
appear in multiple groups, so there could be a `gnus-visual' group
containing all the faces.