RE: Risky local variable mechanism

[Drew Adams]

    I also thought of this, but couldn't find a good way to fit multiple
    choices onto a single prompt.  Is there an example of this kind of
    prompt elsewhere in Emacs?

Others have mentioned novice and query-replace questions, as existing
multiple-choice mechanisms. They don't actually use a single prompt, but
they do correspond to the need to choose multiple items or answer multiple
y/n questions.

Another place where I've seen multiple-choice menus in Emacs is check boxes
next to menu items. This is used, for example, in Options and printing.el
(menu Printing).

It's not clear to me whether Richard wants to use an alternative to risky
local variable treatment in this release or in a future release. That wasn't
stated clearly, but the urgency suggests that it is for this release.

After the release, it might be useful anyway (more generally) to implement
simple multiple-choice menus that can be used with the mouse or via the
keyboard.

Icicles offers one way to do that. It extends the use of buffer
*Completions*, letting you choose multiple "completions" (which can be any
set of strings). Depending on the use, users can also choose the same menu
item more than once (to, for example, effect an action more than once). Food
for thought - see
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/MultiCommandsAndMultipleChoiceMenus#Mu
ltipleChoiceMenus.