Re: emacspeak causes gnus not to work

[Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Raman,

Thanks for that clarification. This is related to an issue I've been
wondering about for some time. I have my emacspeak startup as the very
first lines in my .emacs file and on the whole this works
fine. However, I've been wondering about the impact of the various
distributions beginning to incorporate site-init files/directories in
their standard distributions. 

When I first started using emacs and emacspeak, nearly all Linux
distributions just provided emacs with little or no support for add on
packages and specific site configuration. Normally, there was no
site-init files etc.

In the last couple of years, many of the main distributions now
provide packaged versions of many popular emacs packages and have
introduced scripts and directory structures for handling the setup and
initialization of these packages. I know that RedHat, Mandrake, Debian
and I think SuSE do this. I know that some of the problems people have
encountered with getting emacspeak working has been due to these
"default" site configurations. 

Now, my question. Should we be loading emacspeak before any of these
site files? Under Debian, you have a /etc/emacs/site-init.d directory
which contains *.el files with leading numbers (so that you can set
their execution order). I was thinking of adding an emacspeak.el file
to this directory with a number lower than any other number in the
directory to ensure it is executed first. 

Would this approach be a more reliable way of loading emacspeak than
in my .emacs file or is it more trouble/effort than its worth? 

Finally, what sort of symptoms are you likely to encounter if
emacspeak is loaded too late? Is there any impact on defadvice if the
function it is advising has not yet been loaded etc? What sort of
thing happens if you have a function which is advised more than once
(lets say by different packages) - is this why we should have
emacspeak loaded as early as possible so that we are advising the
*base* function and don't get caught up in odd defadvice side effects?

Am I on track here or am I talking out of the wrong orafice?

Tim


  >>>>> "T" == T V Raman
<tvraman@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

 T> The shell script was never intended to be the primary way of
 T> running emacspeak, but rather as a means for novice users to start
 T> emacspeak.

 T> Emacspeak files need to be loaded before *anything* else for
 T> Emacspeak to have a prayer of working.

 T> And anyone who is using gnus doesn't count as a novice user in my
 T> emacs book.

 T> The recipe for starting emacspeak from one's .emacs has been
 T> posted numerous times on this list --
>>>>> "Tim" == Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:


 Tim> The problem is the emacspeak.sh shell script uses the -q switch
 Tim> to turn of loading of init files, but also looks for a .emacs
 Tim> file in the users home directory and loads it explicitly with
 Tim> the -l switch - this is why your .emacs is not being ignored,
 Tim> but possibly other init files are.

 Tim> I'm not sure why the script is like this - personally I don't
 Tim> use it. Maybe Raman can enlighten us as to the rationale for
 Tim> doing this - perhaps emacspeak works better if emacspeak is
 Tim> loaded before local init files?

 Tim> Tim
>>>>> "John" == John Covici <covici@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

 John> But, my .emacs file is not being ignored, so I don't understand
 John> why the .gnus file is so special?

 John> On 19 May 2003, Nath wrote:

 >>>> After searching during a long time, I discovered that if we want
 >>>> the .gnus file to be considered when launching Emacspeak we must
 >>>> erase the "-q" option which is written in the emacspeak starting
 >>>> script. The reason : when emacs is started with the "-q" option
 >>>> (as in the emacspeak starting script) the initialization files
 >>>> are ignored.  Hope this help !
 >>>> 
 >>>> 
 >>>> John Covici <covici@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
 >>>> 
 >>>> > Emacspeak 18.0 causes gnus to (apparently) not obey some
 >>>> variables in > my .gnus file -- at least the gnus-select-method
 >>>> is wrong.
 >>>> >
 >>>> > Any assistance would be appreciated.
 >>>> >
 >>>> > --
 >>>> > John Covici > covici@xxxxxxxxxxx
 >>>> >
 >>>> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 >>>> > To unsubscribe from the emacspeak list or change your address
 >>>> on the > emacspeak list send mail to
 >>>> "emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx" with a > subject of
 >>>> "unsubscribe" or "help"
 >>>> >
 >>>> >
 >>>> >
 >>>> 
 >>>> 

 John> -- John Covici covici@xxxxxxxxxxx

 John> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 John> To unsubscribe from the emacspeak list or change your address
 John> on the emacspeak list send mail to
 John> "emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx" with a subject of
 John> "unsubscribe" or "help"


 Tim> -- Tim Cross Senior Analyst/Programmer Applications Group -
 Tim> Information Technology University of New England Phone: +61 2
 Tim> 6773 3210 Fax: +61 2 6773 3424 E-Mail: tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx
 Tim> Web: http://www.une.edu.au/itd/systems/systems.html --- Please
 Tim> avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.  See
 Tim> http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

 Tim> "The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts
 Tim> agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer
 Tim> professionals.  We cause accidents."  -Nathaniel Borenstein


 Tim> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Tim> To unsubscribe from the emacspeak list or change your address on
 Tim> the emacspeak list send mail to
 Tim> "emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx" with a subject of
 Tim> "unsubscribe" or "help"

 T> -- Best Regards, --raman
 T> ------------------------------------------------------------
 T> T. V. Raman: PhD (Cornell University) IBM Research: Human Language
 T> Technologies Architect: Conversational And Multimodal WWW
 T> Standards Phone: 1 (408) 927 2608 T-Line 457-2608 Fax: 1 (408) 927
 T> 3012 Email: tvraman@xxxxxxxxxxx WWW:
 T> http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman AIM: TVRaman PGP:
 T> http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman.asc Snail: IBM Almaden Research
 T> Center, 650 Harry Road San Jose 95120

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