Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!mitre-bedford.ARPA!sdl
From: sdl@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Litvintchouk)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: GNU Emacs:  site specific vs. personal hooks
Message-ID: <8805132121.AA00704@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Date: 13 May 88 21:21:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 50


We would like to have a *site wide* mode hook for each of the common
GNU Emacs modes, as well as allowing the user to write his own
personal mode hooks.

Specifically, at our company, we have a menu system which activates a
mode-specific Suntools popup menu for each GNU Emacs mode.  (We may
soon ditch it in favor of X windows/menus, but the principle is the
same.)  The problem is, how to invoke such mode-specific functions for
all users at our site?  Consider mail-mode for example:

  -- 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.

  -- 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.

  -- If we physically modify the mail-mode function to add a second
	hook; for example, in the "defun mail-mode," add:
	      (run-hooks 'corporate-mail-mode-hook 'mail-mode-hook)  
        then every time that a new release of GNU Emacs becomes
	available, we will need to modify the newly released 
	version of the mail-mode function to put back this site-wide hook.
	
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.


Comments?


Steven Litvintchouk
MITRE Corporation
Burlington Road
Bedford, MA  01730
(617)271-7753

ARPA:  sdl@mitre-bedford.arpa
UUCP:  ...{cbosgd,decvax,genrad,ll-xn,mit-eddie,philabs,utzoo}!linus!sdl

	"Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to
	 conquer the world."  -- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp.