Re: default mode for email drafts

[Juri Linkov]

> False positives in `auto-mode-alist' cannot be avoided completely.
> IIRC the policy is to make it work correctly in the common cases.
>
> BTW, when I do `C-x C-f .../drafts/drafts/1240 RET' with `emacs -Q',
> I get:
>
> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (file-error "Searching for program" "no such 
> file or directory" ".../drafts/drafts/install-mh")
> [...]

Perhaps `auto-mode-alist' shouldn't contain

  ("/drafts/[0-9]+\\'" . mh-letter-mode)

in its default value.  mh-e.el could add it after loading, e.g. by using
a top-level form in mh-e.el:

(setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("/drafts/[0-9]+\\'" . mh-letter-mode) 
auto-mode-alist))

I suppose the users who want to visit draft files in mh-letter mode
already have (require 'mh-e) in .emacs or load it by other means.

It seems it is the right thing to do because MH-E's ChangeLog has the
following entry:

        * mh-comp.el (autoload): Don't set auto-mode-alist. This could
        screw things up for users that don't use MH-E (closes SF #1032353).

This means that mh-letter-mode was removed from auto-mode-alist only in the
autoloaded form in mh-comp.el, but not from files.el.  So what about removing
it from files.el too?

Please see also for more information SF #1032353 and
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-pretest-bug/2004-04/msg00023.html.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/