I've just asked myself if there's any convention for announcing defaults when reading from minibuffer. Skimming the Elisp manual didn't reveal anything in this regard. Seaching the archives of this list I found this message from RMS:
The standard for Emacs is (default foo). There may be some nonstandard functions that use [foo], due to imperfect quality control, but we should stick to the standard (unless we decide to change it). [http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2004-06/msg00085.html] So I documented this convention in "(elisp) Text from Minibuffer". Here's the patch: 2005-08-28 Emilio C. Lopes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> * minibuf.texi (Text from Minibuffer): mention convention for announcing default values when reading from the minibuffer. diff -rN -c old-emacs-darcs.eclig/lispref/minibuf.texi new-emacs-darcs.eclig/lispref/minibuf.texi *** old-emacs-darcs.eclig/lispref/minibuf.texi Sun Aug 28 14:20:31 2005 --- new-emacs-darcs.eclig/lispref/minibuf.texi Sun Aug 28 14:05:41 2005 *************** *** 154,159 **** --- 154,167 ---- empty string, @code{""}. In this respect, it is different from all the other minibuffer input functions in this chapter. + Note that the standard way in Emacs to announce a default value when + reading from the minibuffer is to put it between parenthesis following + the word ``default'' as in + + @smallexample + Enter value (default 42): + @end smallexample + If @var{keymap} is [EMAIL PROTECTED], that keymap is the local keymap to use in the minibuffer. If @var{keymap} is omitted or @code{nil}, the value of @code{minibuffer-local-map} is used as the keymap. Specifying _______________________________________________ Emacs-devel mailing list Emacs-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-devel
