Re: Scratch buffer annoyance

[Tassilo Horn]

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <address@hidden> writes:

Hi Alfred,

>    What's wrong with
>
>    - automatically saving *scratch* in a place other than ~/ (where it
>      is out of the way) via auto-save and before exiting Emacs,
>      without any user interaction
>
> As other have pointed out, this won't work when you have multiple
> emacses running.

There are other modes facing the same problem. For example
`desktop-save-mode' uses a lock file and asks the user what to do.

And when multy-tty gets merged there are no good reasons to start
multiple emacsen anyway.

>    - automatically restoring *scratch* from that file upon startup
>      (i.e.  making it persistent)
>
> This defeats the whole concept of *scratch* IMHO.

I don't think so. If you scratch up some notes on a paper they will
still be there when you return to the office. (Well, maybe that depends
on the charwomen.)

And the effort to delete the contents of a buffer is not really a
matter.

>    - not offering to save it anywhere else (even though users may to C-x  
>      C-w and save it, thereby converting it to a normal, non-persistent  
>      buffer, and creating an empty *scratch* buffer automatically).
>
>    This would preserve the equivalence to a real-life scratch paper
>    that one keeps on one's desk, which will not magically disappear
>    overnight, but which may be filed somewhere else when needed.
>
>    It would be unobtrusive and solve the original problem.
>
> I disagree, and strongly.  It defeats the whole concept of a scratch
> buffer.

Well, I would like that new behavior. So users could use *scratch* to
quickly write down some todos that need to be done the next day.

Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
Chuck Norris can skeletize a cow in two minutes.