Re: Bugs caused by recent use of define-derived-mode

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> This is an improvement over inheritance, but we still face the
> question of how the user should control which table to use for a newly
> defined abbrev.
>
> That is the crucial question.  None of these ideas is acceptable if it
> doesn't come with a clean and convenient solution to that question.

Suggestion: by default, the commands use the "most local" abbrev
table.  There is a command that changes the abbrev table for C-x a l
and C-x a i l to use.  (Is there any other command except
add-mode-abbrev and inverse-add-mode-abbrev that should be affected
by the command?)

Another similar case are tags where we have the command
visit-tags-table.  A difference to tags is that M-. will ask the user
for a tags table to use, whereas I proposed C-x a l to use a default
value, without asking the user.  Maybe it is a good idea to ask the
user, instead.  But that would change the prompting behavior of C-x
a l.  Given that many users probably don't want to think about which
abbrev table to use, making C-x a l ask more questions is probably
not a good idea.

Another case is ispell where we have ispell-change-dictionary.  Here,
it works like I propose for abbrevs: M-$ uses a default dictionary
without asking the user.

kai
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