Re: Tramp and VMS - I know it doesn't work but...

[Nelson E. Ingersoll]

Michael Albinus wrote:
> 
> The Tramp documentation is a little bit short in explaining the
> differences of the 2 commands. I'll add an explanation.
> 
> In short: (setq tramp-default-method "ftp") keeps Tramp running, but
> passes all commands to Ange-FTP. "M-x tramp-unload-tramp" removes the
> package, and reenables Ange-FTP directly in `file-name-handler-alist'.
> 

Michael,

   Well knock me over with a feather!  Putting "(tramp-unload-tramp)"
into my .emacs allows me to load files from VMS using Ange-FTP.  There
is a message, regardless of whether or not I call the function in .emacs
or as "M-x tramp-unload-tramp".  The message is, "Unexpected element
(autoload . tramp-uuencode-region) in load-history".  It doesn't mean
anything to me; however, might to you.  Other than that it does what I
needed, which is to allow me to use Ange-FTP with remote VMS files.

   Also, for what it's worth, I use two Windows environment variables
containing respectively the node names of the two different systems (one
VMS, one SunOS) I edit the most remote files on.  Under ange-ftp,
including the ange-ftp in EmacsW32 v22.0 after the unload-tramp-unload,
those environment variables expand into their values when I use C-x/C-f
to open a remote file.  However, they do not expand when I use Tramp and
I am forced to type in the actual node name in order to get to a
password prompt.  In those cases I had set Tramp to use ftp by default.

   Thank you for your help getting Tramp out of my way.  I wish I didn't
have to.  Just using Ange-FTP for the VMS systems would be quite
sufficient.  However, I need to be able to edit files on the VMS systems
with little or no delay and having Tramp fail when translating VMS file
specs makes it unusable for me.  Just call me a dinosaur I guess.

- Nelson

BTW - Full emacs-version response:
   GNU Emacs 22.0.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2006-08-12 on W2ONE