Subject: bug#76687: global-hi-lock-mode prompts on its own help

From: Stefan Kangas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2025 09:24:21 -0800

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> From: Daniel Colascione <[email-masked]>
>> Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2025 10:49:15 -0500
>>
>> >From emacs -Q, M-x global-hi-lock-mode, then C-h m, then quit the help
>> buffer, and type C-h m again.  You'll get prompted about whether you
>> want to apply the hi-lock patterns in the help buffer.  And then,
>> because for some reason we don't actually clear the help buffer but just
>> narrow it to what we want, the next time you ask for help, even on
>> something unrelated to hi-lock (e.g. progn), hi-lock will ask you
>> whether you want to apply hi-lock patterns.
>
> That's the default of hi-lock-file-patterns-policy, no?  IIUC, hi-lock
> asks this question for every file you visit, if it finds the patterns
> there.
>
> Or what am I missing?

The default is `ask`, which is documented to mean:

    If `ask', prompt when patterns found in buffer; if bound to a
    function,

but `(describe-function 'progn)` doesn't describe any patterns.

(FWIW, I'm very much not a fan of this default.  If the user didn't want
them highlighted, she would not have turned on `global-hi-lock-mode`.)