GNU bug report logs - #6234
undocumented, unsupported option for initial-buffer-choice

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Cc: Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>
Subject: 23.2; inhibit-startup-screen does not work in site-start.el
Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 20:07:29 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

From: vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: 23.2; inhibit-startup-screen does not work in site-start.el
--text follows this line--
This bug report will be sent to the Free Software Foundation,
not to your local site managers!
Please write in English if possible, because the Emacs maintainers
usually do not have translators to read other languages for them.

Your bug report will be posted to the bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org mailing list,
and to the gnu.emacs.bug news group.

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug.  If you can, give
a recipe starting from `emacs -Q':

I believe, I might be observing a deliberate behaviour of Emacs 23.2 rather than a bug. We have a specific setting where we want to create a ready-to-run distribution of Emacs. We have succeeded in putting all required customizations in site-start.el und are very happy with this - except that it would be helpful if inhibit-startup-screen also worked if set to t in site-start.el, it appears that this only works in a user-specific .emacs file.

We tried to use initial-buffer-choice but this has an unwanted side effet: the splashscreen no longer appears, however, dropping a file on the Emacs icon no longer opens that file.

Without "initial-buffer-choice" drag & drop works as expected - but yields a split screen with the splash screen in the lower part (and a full splash screen if the Emacs icon is just clicked).

So it seems that there is no easy way to configure Emacs 23.2 to not display the splash screen (split or full screen), apart from using a "--no-splash" start option or a user specific .emacs file where inhibit-startup-screen does work (if one still wants to have drag & drop support for the Emacs icon). 

I think that it would be a good thing if inhibit-startup-screen also worked in a site-start.el-file. -

You have done a great job with Emacs and I am really surprised how well it works on MS Windows (naturally, it runs extremely well on Unix platforms). I am sorry that the type of problem described above is fairly typical for users who often start Emacs and immediately close the application when a small editing job is done. This is not how I use Emacs - still, it is a compromise to also support this type of usage and user (a bit like supplying binaries for Windows).

Thank you!

If Emacs crashed, and you have the Emacs process in the gdb debugger,
please include the output from the following gdb commands:
    `bt full' and `xbacktrace'.
For information about debugging Emacs, please read the file
c:/data/stefan/emacs-23.2/etc/DEBUG.


In GNU Emacs 23.2.1 (i386-mingw-nt6.0.6002)
 of 2010-05-08 on G41R2F1
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 6.0.6002
configured using `configure --with-gcc (3.4) --no-opt --cflags -Ic:/xpm/include'

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: DEU
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: cp1252
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Emacs-Lisp

Minor modes in effect:
  recentf-mode: t
  cua-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<drag-n-drop> <drag-n-drop> C-x 1 <drag-n-drop> <mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> <mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <mouse-1> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-movement> 
<mouse-movement> <drag-mouse-1> C-c <timeout> <help-echo> 
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <menu-bar> 
<help-menu> <send-emacs-bug-report>

Recent messages:
Error setting version-control: (void-variable never)
Loading c:/Users/stefan/AppData/Roaming/.recentf...done
Cleaning up the recentf list...
File c:/Users/stefan/AppData/Roaming/untitled removed from the recentf list
Cleaning up the recentf list...done (1 removed)
untitled has auto save data; consider M-x recover-this-file
OVERVIEW
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
C:/data/stefan/emacs-23.2/site-lisp/site-start.el and c:/data/stefan/emacs-23.2/site-lisp/site-start.el are the same file [2 times]

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr message ecomplete rfc822 mml mml-sec
password-cache mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mailcap mail-parse rfc2231
rfc2047 rfc2045 qp ietf-drums mailabbrev nnheader gnus-util netrc
gmm-utils mailheader canlock sha1 hex-util hashcash mail-utils emacsbug
browse-url url-util url-parse url-vars mm-util mail-prsvr pc-select
org-indent org-wl org-w3m org-vm org-rmail org-mhe org-mew org-irc
org-jsinfo org-infojs org-html org-exp org-exp-blocks org-agenda
org-info org-gnus org-docview org-bibtex org-bbdb org-protocol org-id
org byte-opt bytecomp byte-compile advice help-fns advice-preload
org-footnote org-src org-list org-faces org-compat org-entities org-macs
time-date noutline outline easy-mmode regexp-opt cal-menu calendar
cal-loaddefs org-install recentf tree-widget wid-edit easymenu cua-base
edmacro kmacro tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel
dos-w32 disp-table ls-lisp w32-win w32-vars tool-bar dnd fontset image
fringe lisp-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select
scroll-bar mldrag mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core
frame cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai
tai-viet lao korean japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european
ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help
simple abbrev loaddefs button minibuffer faces cus-face files
text-properties overlay md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom
widget hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process multi-tty
emacs)

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Message #8 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>
To: Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>
Cc: 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#6234: 23.2;
	inhibit-startup-screen does not work in site-start.el
Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 15:02:25 -0400

Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de> writes:

> I believe, I might be observing a deliberate behaviour of Emacs 23.2
> rather than a bug. We have a specific setting where we want to create
> a ready-to-run distribution of Emacs. We have succeeded in putting all
> required customizations in site-start.el und are very happy with this
> - except that it would be helpful if inhibit-startup-screen also
> worked if set to t in site-start.el, it appears that this only works
> in a user-specific .emacs file.

Yes, inhibit-startup-screen does not take effect if it is set in
site-start.el.

> We tried to use initial-buffer-choice but this has an unwanted side
> effet: the splashscreen no longer appears, however, dropping a file on
> the Emacs icon no longer opens that file.

I can not reproduce this.  Can you provide a simple reproducible test
case?  I tried with a .emacs file containing only the line

  (setq initial-buffer-choice t)

and dragging a file into the Emacs window (I don't know what you mean by
"dropping a file on the Emacs icon") opens that file, as expected.
However, this is on GNU/Linux.  It's possible that there is a bug in the
Windows port; maybe someone else can check.

Message #11 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>
To: Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>
Cc: 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>
Subject: Re: bug#6234: 23.2; inhibit-startup-screen does not work in
	site-start.el
Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 21:20:56 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Dear Chong,

On 20.05.2010, at 21:02, Chong Yidong wrote:

[...]

>> We tried to use initial-buffer-choice but this has an unwanted side
>> effet: the splashscreen no longer appears, however, dropping a file on
>> the Emacs icon no longer opens that file.
> 
> I can not reproduce this.  Can you provide a simple reproducible test
> case?  I tried with a .emacs file containing only the line
> 
>  (setq initial-buffer-choice t)
> 
> and dragging a file into the Emacs window (I don't know what you mean by
> "dropping a file on the Emacs icon") opens that file, as expected.
> However, this is on GNU/Linux.  It's possible that there is a bug in the
> Windows port; maybe someone else can check.

my description was not very precise, I am sorry. Here is what we did:

we have a site-start.el file in emacs-23.2/site-lisp which ends with

(find-file "~/untitled")

(1) That works fine if one uses inhibit-startup-screen in a personal .emacs file, or uses the "--no-splash" option with the icon shortcut (but this is not what you want for a ready-to-run distribution). 

(2) Our next attempt was to add

(setq initial-buffer-choice "~/untitled")

as a last line. Emacs, when started by a double-click on the icon shortcut, behaves exactly as requested by our Windows users and if we drop a file onto a running Emacs instance, that file is opened as expected (this is what you tested). 

If one creates an icon shortcut of a program on MS Windows, users expect that program to open files if they are dropped onto that icon shortcut. This works fine if (1) holds, but not for (2).

Warm regards,
 Stefan
-- 
Dr. Stefan Vollmar, Dipl.-Phys.
Head of IT group
Max-Planck-Institut für neurologische Forschung
Gleuelerstr. 50, 50931 Köln, Germany
Tel.: +49-221-4726-213  FAX +49-221-4726-298
Tel.: +49-221-478-5713  Mobile: 0160-93874279
Email: vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de   http://www.nf.mpg.de

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Message #14 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>
To: Johan Bockgård <bojohan <at> gnu.org>,
	Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>,
	"Joel J. Adamson" <adamsonj <at> email.unc.edu>,
	Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
Cc: help-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org, 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Leo <sdl.web <at> gmail.com>,
	Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>
Subject: Re: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 22:14:07 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Dear Johan,
dear Drew,
dear Chong,
dear Joel,

On 20.05.2010, at 21:34, Johan Bockgård wrote:

> [...]
> Try
>    (setq initial-buffer-choice 'none)


this solves my problem beautifully.

Apparently, if you want the equivalent of
(setq inhibit-startup-screen t)
which works fine in .emacs, 
(setq initial-buffer-choice 'none)
is the way to do it if it should work in site-start.el.

I have tested it with the Emacs 23.2 on Windows and even dropping a file onto the Emacs icon shortcut will now work as expected.

Thank you and sorry for the noise.

Warm regards,
 Stefan
-- 
Dr. Stefan Vollmar, Dipl.-Phys.
Head of IT group
Max-Planck-Institut für neurologische Forschung
Gleuelerstr. 50, 50931 Köln, Germany
Tel.: +49-221-4726-213  FAX +49-221-4726-298
Tel.: +49-221-478-5713  Mobile: 0160-93874279
Email: vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de   http://www.nf.mpg.de

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Message #17 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Štěpán Němec <stepnem <at> gmail.com>
To: Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>
Cc: Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>,
	Johan Bockgård <bojohan <at> gnu.org>,
	Leo <sdl.web <at> gmail.com>, help-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org,
	6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, "Joel J. Adamson" <adamsonj <at> email.unc.edu>,
	Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 10:36:43 +0200

Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de> writes:

> Dear Johan,
> dear Drew,
> dear Chong,
> dear Joel,
>
> On 20.05.2010, at 21:34, Johan Bockgård wrote:
>
>> [...]
>> Try
>>    (setq initial-buffer-choice 'none)

Could this please be documented somewhere? I don't see `none' as a
possible value in `initial-buffer-choice' docstring or the Elisp manual.

Štěpán

Message #20 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Joel J. Adamson" <adamsonj <at> email.unc.edu>
To: =?utf-8?B?xaB0xJtww6FuIE7Em21lYw==?=
	<stepnem <at> gmail.com>
Cc: Leo <sdl.web <at> gmail.com>, Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>,
	Johan =?utf-8?Q?Bockg=C3=A5rd?=
	<bojohan <at> gnu.org>, "Joel J. Adamson" <adamsonj <at> email.unc.edu>,
	help-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org, 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
	Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>, Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 11:32:09 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Štěpán Němec <stepnem <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de> writes:
> 
> > Dear Johan,
> > dear Drew,
> > dear Chong,
> > dear Joel,
> >
> > On 20.05.2010, at 21:34, Johan Bockgård wrote:
> >
> >> [...]
> >> Try
> >>    (setq initial-buffer-choice 'none)
> 
> Could this please be documented somewhere? I don't see `none' as a
> possible value in `initial-buffer-choice' docstring or the Elisp manual.

Would any quoted symbol work?

Joel
-- 
Joel J. Adamson
Servedio Lab
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

FSF Member #8164
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj

[Message part 2 (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #27 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: "Joel J. Adamson" <adamsonj <at> email.unc.edu>
Cc: stepnem <at> gmail.com, Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>, bojohan <at> gnu.org,
	Stefan Vollmar <vollmar <at> nf.mpg.de>, 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
	Leo <sdl.web <at> gmail.com>, Drew Adams <drew.adams <at> oracle.com>
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:55:43 +0200

"Joel J. Adamson" <adamsonj <at> email.unc.edu> writes:

>> Could this please be documented somewhere? I don't see `none' as a
>> possible value in `initial-buffer-choice' docstring or the Elisp manual.
>
> Would any quoted symbol work?

Any symbol would work, but I've now added `none' to the doc string.  For
the particular use case here, it's probably right, but I'm not sure this
is a particularly common use case, so I wasn't quite sure how to explain
it in the doc string.

But I had a go.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

Message #30 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:46:24 -0400

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:

> Any symbol would work, but I've now added `none' to the doc string.  For
> the particular use case here, it's probably right, but I'm not sure this
> is a particularly common use case, so I wasn't quite sure how to explain
> it in the doc string.

Does this usage (which looks like an accident rather than something
intentional) offer anything other than a dodge round the fact that
inhibit-startup-screen cannot be set in site-start? If not (and maybe
even if it does), it should be removed, not documented.

Message #33 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 01:55:41 +0200

Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> writes:

> Does this usage (which looks like an accident rather than something
> intentional) offer anything other than a dodge round the fact that
> inhibit-startup-screen cannot be set in site-start?

It's probably accidental that it works, yes.

> If not (and maybe even if it does), it should be removed, not
> documented.

It is a dodge of a kind, but it seems like it is slightly useful.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

Message #36 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:59:01 -0400

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:

> It is a dodge of a kind, but it seems like it is slightly useful.

Useful for what? Because IIUC rms is keen that the startup screen not be
suppressible on a site-wide basis.

Message #39 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 02:09:51 +0200

Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> writes:

> Useful for what? Because IIUC rms is keen that the startup screen not be
> suppressible on a site-wide basis.

Oh, if it's a designed malfeature, then I guess it should be
de-documented again...

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

Message #42 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>
To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:48:41 -0400

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> writes:

> Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Useful for what? Because IIUC rms is keen that the startup screen not be
>> suppressible on a site-wide basis.
>
> Oh, if it's a designed malfeature, then I guess it should be
> de-documented again...

It's better to leave this option out of Customize.

Message #45 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:55:48 +0200

Chong Yidong <cyd <at> stupidchicken.com> writes:

> It's better to leave this option out of Customize.

Ok; I'll remove it again.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  bloggy blog http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/

Message #48 received at 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: larsi <at> gnus.org, 6234 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#6234: site-start.el: inhibit-startup-screen?
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:10:07 -0400

    Useful for what? Because IIUC rms is keen that the startup screen not be
    suppressible on a site-wide basis.

Yes.  The startup screen gives users information that we want them to see.
Once they have seen it, if they want not to see it again, we give
them a way to turn it off.  But we don't want someone else to turn
it off in advance for them so they never see it.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/

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