RE: A wish, a plea

[Drew Adams]

> > (defcustom visit-on-startup "~/"
> >   "File or directory to visit when Emacs is started."
> >   :type '(choice (const :tag "Splash screen only" nil)
> >                  (file  :tag "Visit file or directory" :value "~/"))
> >   :group 'emacs)
> >
> > I'd vote for the default value being `~/', but deciding on the
> > default value is a different issue than deciding to let users
> > customize the startup behavior.
>
> You forgot the option for displaying *scratch* on startup.

No I didn't (it did occur to me), but I might not have considered all the
angles.

Just set the value to "*scratch*". It will open a buffer visiting new "file"
*scratch* (or possibly *scratch*<2>, if *scratch* pre-exists). Maybe the
user option :tags should make such a possibility more clear. And we might
need to configure a visit of *scratch* to use the right mode, but it should
work OK. That was/is my thinking.

That is, visiting buffer *scratch* is not essentially different from
visiting a new file buffer named *scratch*, provided the right mode is in
effect.

If this is not effective enough, then, yes, we can add a buffer to the :type
`choice'.

> Perhaps nil should do that, and I think it should be the default value.

My vote for the default behavior is still Dired. But which default to use is
a different question from deciding to have a `visit-on-startup' option that
users can customize.

> FWIW, I have as the last line of .emacs:
>
>   (dired "~")
>
> that allows me immediately after startup navigate to the necessary
> directory and to open/create files in it.  And *scratch* still exists,
> coming up after pressing `q' in the initial dired buffer.  So I welcome
> a new option to customize this.

You would get exactly that behavior if you just do nothing, in my proposal,
I believe (IIUYC). By default, Dired would be opened to `~/', and hitting
`q' in Dired will give you *scratch*. That's exactly my own preference too.
Currently, I just provide the directory as an argument to `runemacs', but
the effect is the same.