Re: Customize custom-file is not useful as it works now

[Lennart Borgman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Stallman" <address@hidden>

>     What is needed is an entry in .emacs like (setq custom-file
".custom").
>
> That isn't enough, is it?  To make the settings take effect, the user
> has to load the file which is specified as custom-file.  But I hesitate
> to recommend editing .emacs automatically to do this, since one of the
> reasons people want to use a separate file is to avoid automatic editing
> of .emacs.

I have just learned that custom-file is loaded after .emacs by startup.el if
it was not loaded before.

The editing I proposed shows the old entry if any in .emacs marked and asks
the user whether to change it. It looks mostly like query replace, but with
some more marking. (Though I forgot to add a question when adding.) This
could all be made a bit nicer (it is just not quite finished yet) and I
realize that many would not want automatic editing of .emacs. And it is a
bit scary to do the editing too. However when the user is asked to accept
the change and clearly shown what will be done it might perhaps be accepted
by most users?

- Lennart