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Re: Suggest installer optionally set ALTERNATE_EDITOR


From: Eli Zaretskii
Subject: Re: Suggest installer optionally set ALTERNATE_EDITOR
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 14:40:55 +0300

> From: Joel Reicher <joel.reicher@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 20:16:51 +1000
> 
> Since the recommended way (in the W32 FAQ) to get file associations working 
> is to set ALTERNATE_EDITOR (amongst other things) I think it would add value 
> for the installer to offer this as an optional step.
> 
> In my opinion a nice default value is
> 
> <emacs root>\emacs-28.1\bin\runemacs.exe --no-splash
> 
> as I believe most users would expect the splash screen to be suppressed when 
> launching emacs via a file association, but may still want the splash screen 
> when launching emacs directly.
> 
> It also seems to me quite benign to set an environment variable that probably 
> isn't used by anything else.
> 
> An additional option to add
> 
> (server-start)
> 
> to an init file (creating if necessary) would also be nice, but perhaps a 
> little less benign.
> 
> Thoughts?

The above is perfectly OK as your personal preferences.  But I'm not
at all sure they should be the default behavior.  Specifically:

  - file associations:

    . are people really using them so widely as to offer that by
      default?
    . what exactly would you offer? Emacs can visit and display many
      different formats of files. which associations to create is very
      personal, so without showing all the file types we are capable
      to support and letting user check the boxes, we are risking an
      annoyance, because people will select the option and suddenly
      their long-time system-wide associations no longer work
    . setting environment variables tends to be a privileged operation
      on many Windows systems lately (don't ask me why), so using that
      we risk getting innocent users into trouble with their admins

  - splash screen: we show it for a reason, and require users to
    disable it by an explicit customization for a reason -- we _want_
    new users to see that stuff, including the links there

  - server-start: you assume that many people use the server-client
    protocol and want it enabled by default. IME, this is far from the
    truth, especially on MS-Windows.  (Full disclosure: I start the
    server in my init file, have done so for many years.)

So once again: why do you think these should be turned on by default?
You never explained that.  If anything, you should first lobby for
them to become the default on all supported platforms, not just on
Windows.  There's nothing Windows-specific about any of them.

Thanks.



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