Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!umix!b-tech!m2-net!scs
From: scs@m2-net.UUCP (Steve C. Simmons)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Creeping .fileism solved in Elm
Keywords: patches fixes centralized posting
Message-ID: <1752@m2-net.UUCP>
Date: 29 May 88 14:54:07 GMT
Organization: M-net, Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 18

One problem that a lot of nice programs have is the proliferation
of .files.  Elm has .elmrc, 3 .alias files, .filter files, and so
forth.  Eventually your home directory fills up (well...) with this
crap, and soon enough there will be name hits.

Taking a cue from PicoSpan and the recent posting of pcomm, I have
modified elm 1.7 beta to look for and use a .elm directory.  All
of the utilities that used to look in $HOME for their init files
now look first in $HOME/.elm, then in $HOME.  Thus old files still
work, but new ones can be consolidated into one place and keep the
clutter down.

The changes involved hacking (in a minor way) about 20 sourcefiles.
As far as I can tell all the utilities work, but since I only use a
few of them it's difficult to tell for sure if everythings covered.
Let me know if (a) a new persons taken up responsibility for elm,
and (b) this would be of general use.  I don't usually read this 
newsgroup, so mail to scs@lokkur.uucp would be appropriate.