Re: Getting more info on a variable in Customize buffers

[David Kastrup]

Stefan <address@hidden> writes:

>> - You need to load `cus-edit.el' to see this variable (not a
>>   great problem, but it would be good to have it autoloaded).
>
> Most variables are only visible once the corresponding package is loaded.
> That's normal.
>
>> What about 1) having click-a-name-to-toggle-its-display-type, as I just
>> mentioned, and 2) display a message in the echo area when you do this,
>> saying that you can use `custom-unlispify-tag-names' to set the custom
>> display type globally. Finding this (oddly named) option would then be
>> fairly easy and common.
>
> The problem is that custom's "variables" aren't the same as
> Elisp variables.  They look very much alike, and they usually are exactly
> the same, but that's not always the case.
> The :get, :set, and :init thingies allow you to define a custom setting
> "foo-bar" which controls "toto" rather than the variable "foo-bar".

AFAIR, set-variable by now obeys the :set function.  So everything
that is user-visible behaves consistent.

`setq' OTOH is "low-level".  Perhaps we should warn people in the
introduction to writing .emacs that setq or setq-default might not do
the trick for user-settable variables.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum