Re: Documentation for custom-file - is not (load custom-file) needed?

[Lennart Borgman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stefan Monnier" <address@hidden>

> >> After all, when moving the custom file, you need to tell future Emacsen
> >> where it'll be, so you need to change your .emacs to either
> >> (setq custom-file "newfile") or (load "newfile").  Just M-C-x won't cut
it.
>
> > I am not sure about this,
> > but I can see situations where it would be good if eval set the "custom
> > file".
>
> No, I think this would be very wrong.  THE custom file should only be set
> by a very explicit user action.  Not just by eval'ing some random
expression
> that might contain a custom-set-variables.

One benefit of setting "custom file" on eval would be that the user may
proceed and use the new "custom file" without having to restart Emacs. (As
you say more things have to be done to use it in the next session.) This
could be of use if you want to save different collections of options states
in different "custom files". But I did not mean THE custom file here, I
meant "push it on custom-files". (What I was not sure about was the value of
this benefit.)


> Again my sugestion is to (for now) only introduce custom-files and only
use
> it to double-check the value of custom-file.
> In a subsequent step we can change custom-file so that when it is nil, it
> means "use the file found in custom-files" (in which case
> custom-set-variables would indeed indirectly set the custom file, tho
> setting custom-file explicitly would still take precedence, or at least
> cause some prompting to occur).
>
> `custom-file' is a user variable and should thus never be changed behind
the
> user's back.

It is a good suggestion. Maybe we can combine this with "cleaning"
custom-file from the property that makes it beeing saved by custom?

- Lennart