Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function'

[Peter Münster]

On Fri, Jul 08 2011, Richard Stallman wrote:

>     Why not just print a big message on standard output at the end of
>     "make install" (or also at the beginning), like for example:
>
>     "Attention: the default value of send-mail-function is now smtp.
>      If you want emacs to make use of your local MTA, then please change
>      line X in file Y."
>
> `make install' produces lots of output; people are likely not to read
> it closely.
>
> To make this solution work, it would be necessary to make this
> message stand out so people would notice it.

Indeed. What about something like:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
echo $BIG_OUTSTANDING_MESSAGE
read -t100 -p"Sleeping 100 seconds. Press enter to continue immediately!"
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
?

And you can put the message into the NEWS and the INSTALL files.

The benefit would be, that you won't need any heuristics: you would
delegate this configuration issue to the system administrator who knows
well his MTA setup or to the package maintainer who knows well his
distro.

-- 
           Peter