customize

[Edward Welbourne]

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In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-debian-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2002-03-22 on raven, modified by Debian
configured using `configure  i386-debian-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr 
--sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var/lib 
--infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-pop=yes --with-x=yes 
--with-x-toolkit=athena --without-gif'
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: C
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

I used customize.  When I was done, I clicked Finished on the pages.
Then I did C-x C-b and deleted them from the *Buffer List* window.
Now I can't save files.  I get told: max-lisp-eval-depth exceeded.
Every time I use customize, this happens.

Furthermore, I can't turn *off* having the wretched customize system
interfere with my configuration: I told it not to mess with the
trailing whitespace face now that I've remembered how to configure
that from elisp (of course, customize doesn't take the trouble to help
me there so I had to remember set-face-background's name; before I did
so, I rashly used customize to configure that background): turning off
the configuration option for it merely leaves a (custom-set-faces
'(trailing-whitespace ((t nil)))) in my .emacs rather than removing
the entire reference; I'm clearly going to have to exit from emacs
(now that customize has managed to leave me unable to do stupidly
necessary things like save files) and vi my .emacs.

Meanwhile, would any kind soul like to tell me what to put in some
elisp *other* than (custom-set-variables '(show-trailing-whitespace
t)) to achieve the only other thing I'm letting customize mess with in
my config ?

Having a nice clever gui interface to customizing emacs is a lovely
idea - however, as it stands: customize manages to leave my emacs
session in a broken state from which I don't know how to recover; and
finding the right part of the hierarchy to look in to control anything
*still* depends on knowing how the thing to be configured is
described, so it might as well depend on knowing the name of the
relevant function/variable/... like configuring via my own elisp does.

Give me better indexing of the help system, so I can *find* which
thing to ask for help about so that I can configure it, I'd far sooner
use that than a painful failed attempt at a customization gui.  Using
elisp isn't really very hard: using customize breaks things.  It
doesn't actually help, but it *really* annoys those who would be
perfectly happy to carry on doing things the old way.

Yes, I'll probably calm down in a while.

Recent input:
C-M-S-b _ C-S-e _ SPC & & SPC ! _ S I _ F A X _ C-a 
C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-n C-x C-t C-p C-f C-f 
C-f C-f 0 SPC / / <backspace> <backspace> & & SPC <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> / / SPC C-n C-a C-k C-n C-n 
C-n C-n C-k C-x C-s C-p C-b C-n C-a M-{ M-} C-M-b C-M-f 
C-M-b C-n C-n C-n C-x o d o w n <return> k i l l <return> 
y <return> q u i t <return> C-x k <return> M-x r e 
p o r <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
History item: 1
Saving file /usr/local/home/eddy/qt-embed/doc/logtree/htm_ldoc.cpp...
file-readable-p: Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth
Saving file /usr/local/home/eddy/qt-embed/doc/logtree/htm_ldoc.cpp...
vc-cvs-registered: Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth
Mark saved where search started
Mark set [4 times]
when: Lisp nesting exceeds max-lisp-eval-depth
Auto-saving...done
Loading emacsbug...done