Re: default ~/.octaverc template

[John W. Eaton]

On 29-Apr-2005, Keith Goodman wrote:

| That's perfect! (The only downside I can see is that the ~/.octaverc
| template will be very long.)

Yes, and I realiazed after I sent my message that there are some
built-in variables that are not intended for customization, so we
should not dump everything.  If there is currently no convenient way
to distinguish the variables that should be included, then we should
find a way to tag them at the point of definition (i.e., in the DEFVAR
line in the .cc files).  The point is, we should not be duplicating
the information in multiple places.

| Should the ~/.octaverc file be created when Octave is built or should
| it be created when Octave is run for the first time? The former is
| faster for the user (and it won't crash) but the latter can update the
| automated descriptions if a user changes the help documentation.

We could have Octave write the default ~/.octaverc automatically if the
file does not already exist (why would that cause Octave to crash?).
Or we could simply generate a default version that is installed in the
doc directory along with other examples.  I think I prefer the latter
solution because I don't like the idea of generating a configuration
file for users.

If the file is going to include everything that you might want to
customize, along with the doc strings, then maybe it would make more
sense to just have a complete list in the manual (I think there is
one, but it is likely out of date), and have the .octaverc file just
contain a pointer to the manual (more people could probably use a
pointer to that anyway).

jwe