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RE: Customize buttons that change user's custom file should askforconfir


From: Drew Adams
Subject: RE: Customize buttons that change user's custom file should askforconfirmation
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 09:22:55 -0800

    >>     Instead of "Erase Customizations":
    >>     1) "Default Values" - resets to default (= installed) settings
    >
    > I would prefer "Reset to Defaults".

    Emacs terminology is a bit messed up here, in that default-value refer
    to the value that in not buffer local.

    Customize is "standard" instead of "default" in the code for that
    reason.  Of course, that need not be reflected in the UI.

Good point.

If we did not have this dilemma, then "Default Values" would be good to use
in the customize UI (it is commonly used to mean this in user-preference
dialogs). But we do, so we should avoid confusing users with two kinds of
"default" value.

It would be good to have two different terms for the two different kinds of
default value, so that we don't have to describe the context each time. One
is the standard value for a user option (variable or face), where "standard"
essentially means defined by defcustom or defface (IIUC). The other is the
value a variable has in a buffer if there is no buffer-local value
(setq-default).

Our choices are to rename the customize term or the global-value term.

- If we rename the customize term, then I think "Standard Values" might be
good, as used in the customize code. Another possibility to consider for
this might be "Installed Values" (or "Stock Values").

This standard value is apparently redefined each time defcustom is executed
for a variable, which perhaps argues against using "installed" as the term
(although multiple defcustoms for the same variable shouldn't exist or
should be rare).

- If we instead rename the global-value term, and use "default" value to
mean the standard value of customize, then we will need to change existing
references to default values in the sense of non-local values
(setq-default), to call them "global" values (or something similar). But
then `setq-default' would become a misnomer. Also, in this case, only user
options would have default values; variables that are not `user-variable-p'
would not.

"Standard Values" seems best to me, so far.







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