[AUCTeX-devel] Re: Usability of docTeX-mode

[Ralf Angeli]

* David Kastrup (2006-07-22) writes:

> David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Ralf Angeli <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> * David Kastrup (2006-07-14) writes:
>>>
>>>> But to save the user the work of rescanning the buffer after a change
>>>> of the parsing variables seems a bit pointless.
>>>
>>> Not if you want to spare the user having to think about rescanning the
>>> buffer.  That's one thing less the user has to care about.  Is there a
>>> reason not to be as userfriendly as possible if that's achievable with
>>> moderate effort?
>>
>> I consider it not userfriendly to double the amount of variables he
>> has to look for.  If we want to save the user the trouble of applying
>> his changes manually to existing buffers after customization, we can
>> use an appropriate setter function.
>
> Something like
>
> (defun TeX-local-list-setter (var value)

Evaluating

(progn
  (defun TeX-local-list-setter (var value)
    (let ((old (symbol-value var)) tail)
      (dolist (buffer (buffer-list))
        (when (local-variable-p var buffer)
          (with-current-buffer buffer
            (setq tail (symbol-value var))
            (while (consp tail)
              (if (eq (cdr tail) old)
                  (progn
                    (setcdr tail value)
                    (setq tail nil))
                (setq tail (cdr tail))))))))
    (custom-set-default var value))

  (defcustom foo nil
    "Some var.")
  (make-local-variable 'foo)
  (TeX-local-list-setter 'foo '(a b))
  (customize-variable 'foo))

will result in

foo: Hide Value (a b)
   State: CHANGED outside Customize; operating on it here may be unreliable.

That means there are two effects I don't want to happen.  First, the
changed value shows up in the customization buffer.  If a style file
adds some elements to the respective list I don't want the user to see
them because those additional elements are purely a result of the
LaTex files he loaded before and not the general case.  Second, the
State description issues a warning that operating on the value may be
unreliable.  That might be confusing for the user.  I don't know if
this is intentional, though.

Again, the user has no business in looking at the local variables.

-- 
Ralf