Re: Mail mode vs message mode

[Reiner Steib]

On Wed, Nov 18 2009, Chong Yidong wrote:

> Reiner Steib <address@hidden> writes:
[ derive message-from-style's default from mail-from-style ]
>> I don't like this.  The current default value of message-from-style
>> tries to avoid quoting if possible and therefore is preferable to
>> `angles'.  BTW, message-mode doesn't handle the value
>> `system-default'.
>
> We should switch the mail-mode default to `angles'.  

mail-from-style already is `angles' in Emacs 23.1, isn't it?

But deriving message-from-style from mail-from-style would change the
latter from `default' to `angles' (as I already tried to explain).

> Not sure what to do about the `system-default' setting; maybe we
> should deprecate it, as I'm not sure it's useful anymore.

AFAICS, in message-mode, setting message-from-style to
`system-default' leads to a plain "From: address@hidden" header i.e. without
the user name (user-full-name).  So probably this is not a problem.

>> If I understand the correctly, the goal is not to provide full
>> compatibility with mail-mode but to have a default mail composition
>> mode that handles MIME correctly.  So how about simply providing a
>> function, say `message-initalize-from-mail-mode' that initializes
>> message variables and hooks from the corresponding mail-mode ones?
>
> One minor problem: Customize would complain about the value being
> changed from the default.  In general, it's not nice to set the default
> value of a variable outside of its defcustom, as that can lead to
> confusion.

Well, it's not really about setting the default value since it is
change made by the user like any other setq change.

> We can do it your way if you really object to making the message-mode
> options default to the corresponding mail-* options, but I'd like to
> know the reasoning first.  (If any of the default values for the mail-*
> options grate, like mail-from-style, we can change them.)

If the message-mode defaults aren't changed by deriving from mail-*, I
don't object.

I'd certainly object to any change that makes message-mode less
"standard" compliant ("standards" like RFCs, GNKSA [1], good common
practice, ...).  Changing the default `message-yank-prefix' to nil
violates GNKSA, item 10 b and c:

,----[ http://www.newsreaders.com/gnksa/cgi/gnksa-form.cgi ]
| 10. Provides adequate quotation and attribution facilities
| 
|    b. Clearly distinguishes quoted material
|    c. Prefixes quoted material with `>' (or `> ' for the "first" followup)
`----

I didn't check all the other variables you listed.

I doubt that adjusting the mail-* default and the message-* defaults
is worth the effort: user who dislike the message-* values may ...

- stay with mail-mode (by customizing `mail-user-agent' back to
  `sendmail-user-agent')

- use the suggested `message-initalize-from-mail-mode' function.

- customize those few options that (s)he really cares about

Bye, Reiner.

[1] GNKSA (The Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval)
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~js/gnksa/
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