Honoring traditional defaults - how to do it. [was: Transient Mark Mode on bydefault]

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Drew and Paul R!

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 03:47:38PM -0700, Drew Adams wrote:

[ .... ]

> Users could then choose among a few predefined Emacs "skins" (though
> it's more than skin deep) in, say, the Options menu. Each skin would
> make a bunch of settings, such as CUA selection mode, show/hide menus,
> toolbars, tooltips,..., whatever. Things that we think newbies might
> appreciate. And oldbies: Sets that correspond to the default Emacs
> behavior for previous releases (what you described) could be included.

I've been thinking; what are the requirements here?  I think they're:
(i) It must be _easy_ for a newbie to start an Emacs in "lazy" mode
  (i.e., with the UI stuff from lesser applications enabled).
(ii) The said newby must be made aware that she's started a "dumbed down"
  version of Emacs, and encouraged to switch a standard setup.
(iii) The most standard way of starting emacs (i.e., the command "emacs")
  must start the standard setup.

> With the possibility of providing more than one skin, just which
> settings to use for each skin would be less of a big deal (fight). One
> of the available skins would be chosen as the default Emacs behavior.
> For now, at least, that default would have the default settings that
> Emacs already has.

I think all these things can be achieved with a simple alias:

    % alias emacs_easy='emacs --load /path/to/lisp/emacs-easy.el'

.  emacs-easy.el, besides setting up the "easy" defaults, should display
a startup screen with a message something like:

   "You are running an Emacs configuration designed to be easy to
    _learn_.  When you have become somewhat proficient in its use, you
    may wish to switch to a standard Emacs setup, which is optimised for
    ease of _use_ rather than ease of learning."

What do people think?

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).