Re: Customize buttons that change user's custom fileshouldaskforconfirmation

[Luc Teirlinck]

Kim Storm wrote:

   Both of us seem to primarily customize one option at a time --
   so it's mostly a matter of how far you have to move the mouse
   to active that changes...

We all seem to usually set one option at a time.  There is no need in
that case to have to worry about thirty other options in the buffer
which I do not want to set or save, but for which I might have changed
the widget value, just for information purposes, to see what choices I
have (this happens often with more complex "Value Menu" buttons).
Using the whole buffer buttons forces you to be very careful, and
there is no need for that.

   My main objection to the customize interface is the long babble
   at the start of the buffer and the long text on the buttons.

That is completely unrelated to single option or whole buffer buttons.

   But it would make sense if C-x C-s saved the settings, while C-c C-c
   just set them.

Neither that nor a header line address my concerns in the first
paragraph above.  When I want to set or save a single option, I do not
want a convenient way to accidentally set or save some of the other
thirty or so options in the buffer.  What I want is to not have to
worry about the thirty other options.

I believe that the single option buttons are definitely needed.  The
usefulness of the whole buffer buttons is much less clear to me.
Using the whole buffer buttons is dangerous.  We could either
eliminate them, print them only if the user chooses to have them
through a customizable option in the custom-buffer group that would be
off by default, make them print a warning or whatever.  There is no
need to decide on that now.  We can decide on such issues when we take
up this discussion again after Emacs 22 is out, depending on how soon
after that Emacs 23 would be released, even after 23 is released.

Sincerely,

Luc.