Subject: bug#50674: Major mode for etc/AUTHORS with basic font-locking

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2021 01:28:05 -0700

Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]> writes:

> Juri Linkov <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>>> If the worry is that it will clutter
>>> lisp/textmodes, perhaps we could add a new directory where such
>>> "small" modes could go.
>>
>> It really will clutter lisp/textmodes.
>
> I'd prefer to have it as a separate file.

Same.

> However, it is a really, really specialised mode -- for one single
> Emacs file -- so perhaps it would make sense to create a specific
> sub-directory for it (and similar things that are kinda meta-Emacsey).

Yes, we could add a new directory.

It seems to me that very few things would be in a directory for
meta-Emacsey things.  The only other file I could think to add
font-locking for is COPYING and perhaps DISTRIB (as those are reachable
from the splash-screen).  Maybe the tutorial could use some font-locking
as well, but we could put that in tutorial.el.

Another idea is to add, on the same level as progmodes and textmodes, a
new directory "display-modes", in which we would put modes that are not
really meant for editing.  I can see several modes that would in
principle fit in such a directory: help-mode, tabulated-list-mode,
world-clock, etc.  (There would be no immediate need to move anything,
however.)

Or, you know, we just live with having it in textmodes.  I don't think
it's too bad, all things considered.  We are talking of a very small
number of files here, and it's not like we add new textmodes every week.
Worst case, we move it later; it's small enough that convenient access
to its git history is probably not even a concern.