Subject: bug#11298: 24.0.95; (WISH) Re-look scratch buffers

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:53:34 -0400

> 1. Allow multiple scratch buffers one for each mode the user is
>    interested in.

We do not disallow that, so could you be more specific in what you mean
by that?

>    The defcustom can have a solitary text-mode entry.

Which defcustom?

>       C-u C-x b can offer to create *scratch-%s* (or %s-scratch) in
>       %s-mode.

Interesting idea.  It might not even need a C-u: we could simply make
C-x b query the user for a major-mode when the buffer doesn't exist yet
(and we could try and take a hint from the buffer name to guess a good
default: e.g. looking for a major-mode name in the buffer name, or
matching the buffer name against auto-mode-alist).

> 3. I think it is not the scratch buffer that is idiosyncratic but the
>    /name/.  Instead of using scratch one could call it say a notes
>    buffer or a temp buffer.

I'm not married to "*scratch*", but "notes" sounds like something you'd
want to save, and "temp" sounds like something that might disappear
without warning.

        Stefan