Re: Rmail conversion misfeature

[Glenn Morris]

Richard M Stallman wrote:

> Querying before converting a Babyl file is misguided feature.
> There is no way to proceed except to convert it.

Why not add a defcustom controlling this:

nil                   don't convert, just visit literally
t                     convert without asking
anything else         ask

When asking, it could offer you the choice to set said defcustom to
either t or nil (similar to how unsafe file local variables get handled).

> I can envision a better way to achieve that goal: (1) mark the
> buffer unmodified after conversion, and (2) change the operations
> that would modify the buffer first warn you and query. That feature
> won't cause any hassles just to look at the file, but when you try
> to alter it, you will be notified that this would result in changing
> its format when you save the changes.

That seems a bit complicated.