Re: Easy/Possible to globally change prompt strings of messages? e.g. changing find-file's prompt string from "Find file:" to "open file:" ?

[Christian Seberino]

Drew

Thanks!  As a consolation prize...what if I only wanted to change the 
prompt string when I called wrapper functions *myself*
with a shortcut key?

e.g. I could write my own function called my-find-file that had whatever 
prompt string I wanted, and, then have
it call find-file internally.  I actually went down that route.  The 
problem I had was that I rely on the
TAB completion and abbreviation features of find-file for Tramp and 
other stuff with long path names.

Perhaps it would be feasible/easier to somehow add all those wonderful 
features (TAB completion and abbreviations)
to my own wrapper functions? How hard is *that* by comparision?

cs








On 01/29/2015 10:19 PM, Drew Adams wrote:
> > Is it easy/possible to change the prompt strings of various Emacs commands?
> >
> > For example, what Emacs calls find-file I think of as "opening a file"
> > and hence would like to change the prompt from "Find file:" to "open file:".
> >
> > Are global changes like that possible/easy?  Perhaps it would require
> > an Lisp style macro or something?
> Generally speaking, no.  Typically, a general function that reads
> input is called by a command, and it is passed a literal string as
> the prompt to use.
>
> Anything is possible, of course.  You can replace, for example, the
> standard definition of `find-file-read-args' (which reads the file
> name for `find-file' and similar commands), so that it uses your
> preferred prompt.
>
> But there is a reason that such functions take a PROMPT argument:
> so that they can be called by different commands or in different
> contexts, using different prompts.  For `find-file-read-args',
> for example:
>
> files.el:1433:   (find-file-read-args "Find file: "
> files.el:1453:   (find-file-read-args "Find file in other window: "
> files.el:1476:   (find-file-read-args "Find file in other frame: "
> files.el:1490:   (interactive (nbutlast (find-file-read-args "Find existing file: 
> " t)))
> files.el:1513:   (find-file-read-args "Find file read-only: "
> files.el:1522:   (find-file-read-args "Find file read-only other window: "
> files.el:1531:   (find-file-read-args "Find file read-only other frame: "
> menu-bar.el:206:         (filename (car (find-file-read-args "Find file: " 
> mustmatch))))
> files.el:1433:   (find-file-read-args "Find file: "
> files.el:1453:   (find-file-read-args "Find file in other window: "
> files.el:1476:   (find-file-read-args "Find file in other frame: "
> files.el:1490:   (interactive (nbutlast (find-file-read-args "Find existing file: 
> " t)))
> files.el:1513:   (find-file-read-args "Find file read-only: "
> files.el:1522:   (find-file-read-args "Find file read-only other window: "
> files.el:1531:   (find-file-read-args "Find file read-only other frame: "
> menu-bar.el:206:         (filename (car (find-file-read-args "Find file: " 
> mustmatch))))
>
> Alternatively, you could replace not the utility functions that read
> input but the commands that call the utility functions.  In that case,
> you would have even more to change. ;-)
>
> In sum, don't bother to try.  Just learn to live with "Find file" etc.