GNU bug report logs - #19328
[PATCH] Add mechanism to prompt about unsaved customizations

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From: Cameron Desautels <camdez <at> gmail.com>
To: Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
Cc: 19328 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Ted Zlatanov <tzz <at> lifelogs.com>
Subject: bug#19328: [PATCH] Add mechanism to prompt about unsaved customizations
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 19:56:59 -0600

> I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I wonder if it's
> sufficiently unintrusive.

Well, on quick sessions in-and-out of Emacs (say, on git commits), users
will never be prompted because there won't be any customizations.  But I
suspect that if someone took the time to edit their preferences, odds
are good they want them saved.  Experiments to try something like
`global-auto-revert-mode' seem like the minority of cases (plus "no" isn't
*that* long of a word in the event that you are prompted), and more
serious Emacs users (1) don't even close Emacs that often, (2) probably
have most of their configuration done through handwritten Elisp, and (3)
can easily disable the prompt.  Hell, we could even make the "prompt for
unsaved customizations" option customizable.

I don't have an exceedingly strong opinion but FWIW I sat down to hack
this out after seeing a friend and Emacs newbie spend quite a while
customizing faces for visibility and then lose it all at quit time.
Then I found the same request in the TODO file and it seemed worth
doing.  Obviously that's highly anecdotal, but I can imagine it being a
common problem.
--
Cameron Desautels <camdez <at> gmail.com>


On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Stefan Monnier
<monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>> What about turning something like this on by default?
>
> I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I wonder if it's
> sufficiently unintrusive.
>
> E.g. if you just want to try out a minor mode like global-auto-revert-mode,
> IIUC this will set the var and mark it as "set but unsaved", so when you
> exit, Emacs will prompt you to save this setting.
>
> Maybe it's actually the right thing to do, but I wonder if it will turn
> out to be more annoying than useful.  And I don't see a good solution for it.
>
>
>         Stefan

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