Re: basic settings of Emacs

> Sent: Friday, March 27, 2026 at 1:44 AM
> From: "Ken Goldman" <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: basic settings of Emacs
>
> On 2/26/2026 10:07 AM, Gottfried wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have got a basic question.
> > 
> > 1.
> > Some people use their init.el file and put everything there
> > They have a nice overview of all their settings for emacs.
> > But it is very long.
> > 
> > 2.
> > Some people use init.el and gnus.el and other .el files
> > to sort them topically.
> > 
> > 3.
> > Some people use the Emacs customization to customize everything.
> > And besides the init.el file there appears then a custom.el file in 
> > which you can´t change anything, but through customization options 
> > everything is done.
> > 
> > 4.
> > What option should one prefer?
 
Make other .el files that sort your customisations topically.
In addition, change init.el and gnus.el, if you need to.
And allow the Emacs customization to customize whatever you want.
Changes through the Emacs customization should be made to override
the tools provided by your .el, init.el and gnus.el files.

> I have a .emacs file with custom values for each OS and platform:
> paths, fonts, clipboard, keyboard, colors. They then call a 
> .emacs.commom.el for platform independent customizations.
> 
> 
>