suggestion for Messages buffer

[Michael John Downes]

In GNU Emacs 20.7.1 (sparc-sun-solaris2.7, X toolkit)
 of Thu Sep 21 2000 on thor
configured using `configure  --with-x'

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

The *Messages* buffer is extremely useful on occasion. I think its
usefulness could be increased slightly by disabling the accidental
insertion of text from normal typing keys that run self-insert-command,
and binding q to mean bury-buffer (sort of a "quit" operation).
I sometimes want to copy text out of the *Messages* buffer, but I can't
think of any compelling reason that I would ever want to type material
into it by hand.

For most read-only buffers I would like to be able to consistently quit
out of them using the "q" key. This is currently true in Dired mode, in
many help buffers, and in most Gnus buffers, for example, and the
*Messages* buffer seems like a natural candidate to have the same
behavior.

(defun message-buffer-mode ()
  "Special mode for the *Messages* buffer."
  ...
  (use-local-map message-buffer-mode-map)
  ...
)

Maybe this should be done by turning on view-mode ?? But then anything
that writes to the Messages buffer would need to temporarily toggle the
buffer-read-only variable.