RE: How to apply a minor mode to all buffers

[Drew Adams]

> > Hello, I am a new and relatively inexperienced emacs user.  I was
> > wondering if there was an easy way to make a minor mode apply to all
> > created buffers.  I want to do this so that I can use the column
> > marker mode in all of my buffers.
>
> Well, if you want to have a minor mode running all the time, putting
> (whatever-mode t)
> into your .emacs file should do the trick. I'm not sure if it works with
> all modes, but here it does with column-number-mode and
> global-font-lock-mode.

A minor mode "running all the time" does not mean that it is turned on in
all buffers. (whatever-mode t) will turn on minor mode `whatever-mode' in
the current buffer only, unless `whatever-mode' happens to be defined as a
*global* minor mode.

`column-number-mode' and `global-font-lock-mode' are global minor modes, so
what you say about them is true, but I don't think it is pertinent to the
question.

If, by "column marker", the OP means what is provided by library
`column-marker.el' (e.g.
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/column-marker.el), then it is
unrelated to `column-number-mode' and it is not a mode at all - neither
minor nor major.

Library `column-marker.el' provides commands that create column markers in
the current buffer. AFAIK, no automatic way is provided to get the same
effect in all buffers. However, you can always use a column-marker command
in a mode hook, so that each buffer of that mode calls the command to create
the same column marker.