Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ima!think!rlk
From: rlk@think.com (Robert Krawitz)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: GNU Emacs:  site specific vs. personal hooks
Message-ID: <20734@think.UUCP>
Date: 14 May 88 18:01:45 GMT
References: <8805132121.AA00704@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Sender: usenet@think.UUCP
Reply-To: rlk@think.com (Robert Krawitz)
Organization: Thinking Machines Corp., Cambridge MA
Lines: 35
In-reply-to: sdl@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Litvintchouk)

In article <8805132121.AA00704@mitre-bedford.ARPA>, sdl@mitre-bedford (Litvintchouk) writes:
]  -- If we set the standard mode hooks (e.g. mail-mode-hook) to do
]	site-wide things for everyone at our company (in default.el,
]	say), then this will deprive users of the ability to write 
]        their own mail-mode-hook to do their own personal customizations.

No, either they can set inhibit-default-init in their .emacs file or
you can write the mail-mode-hook to first run your customizations,
then theirs.  For example,

(setq mail-mode-hook (list 'progn system-mail-mode-hook mail-mode-hook))

]  -- If we insist that each user write their own mail-mode-hook to
]	invoke the site-wide stuff, then enforcement of conventions
]	is impossible, as the site-wide stuff may change.

Also put quite a burden on the user...

]I don't see any good solution to this problem.  It's beginning to look
]to me that each GNU Emacs mode needs to have at least *two* hooks for
]each mode:  one to run site-wide customizations, followed by one to
]run user's personal customizations.  This is especially true if one of
]the site-wide customizations is to invoke menus from a standard window
]system, such as Suntools or X, for which you really do want to enforce
]some company-wide conventions.

Well, the only time you need two hooks is if you want to "mix" two
modes.  For example, mail-mode runs text-mode-hook and mail-mode-hook
since mail mode is a small enhancement of text mode.  In any case,
menus seem to be a particularly bad example, since those are normally
personal preference type items.
-- 
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