Re: [Emacspeak] Setting global prefs in init file

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Andrew,

there are quite a few things technically incorrect with what you are
attempting as well as a few which may indicate some conceptual issues as
well. There is a fairly steep learning curve for both Emacs and
emacspeak.  To further challenge you, Emacs is extremely flexible and
offers multiple ways to achieve the same outcome. While this flexibility
is great, it can be somewhat overwhelming initially.

The two main areas where I think you should focus initially are getting
proficient using the help and info systems. Emacs is extremely good when
it comes to documentation and help, but you do need to practice and get
to know the system to get the most out of it. Get familiar with the
options bound to the help ke, which is control H or C-h as it is often
referred to. In particular, C-h v for documentation on variables and C-h
f for documentation on functions. The C-h k and C-h b keys are very
useful for finding out about key bindings (sometimes referred to as key
shnortcuts).

While writing elisp code and setting variables in your init file is what
most experienced Emacs users prefer, there is also a high level and easy
to use customization interface called custom which is probably a much
better wsay to start customising Emacs when you are beginning. I would
recommend you start with that to begin with. However, I would also
recommend that you keep customisation to a minimum initially. Emacs and
to some extent, emacspeak, are a little unique and approach common
things from a somewhat different perspective. Often the temptation is to
customize things to make them ore familiar. However, this comes at a
cost in that you don't get to experience the 'emacs way', which sounds a
little wanky. However, many people, after perceivering with these alien
approaches end up finding them more superior to what they were
accustomed to. Therefore, I highly recommend using the system as vanilla
as possible for a time and start customising only after you have used
both Emacs and emacspeak for a time. You will also find that with the
increased understanding and familiarity this will create, when you do
customise things, they way you do it will be better, plus often you will
find there is no need to customise anything as the behaviour you wsant
is already there, you just need to enabgle it.

To get started, have a look at the Emacs info pages and in particular
the section on customisation and the easy customisation interface. You
can also try M-x customize or M-x customize-group <ret> emacspeak to get
just the emacspeak customisation group.

Finally, some specific comments regarding the settings in your init.el

> ;; trying to get org-agenda not to say ┄ a zillion times
I don't get bothered by this, but don't know if that is because of other
config settings I have or just due to my workflow being a bit
different. If you can, maybe just put up with it for a while and revisit
once you are more familiar wsith things. I suspect that once you are
better or more familiar with navigation and have applied some other
refinements to how org and the org agenda wsorks, this may no longer be
an issue.

>   (setq dtk-add-cleanup-pattern "┄”)

dtk-add-cleanup-pattern is not a variable, it is a function. You only
use setq to set variables. This aside, I don't think this is actually
what you want. However, because this is a function and because it is
bound to a key, you can execute it when in the agenda buffer to see if
it does what you wqant, just enter C-e d a and at the prompt, add the
character you want removed.

>   (setq emacspeak-use-icons nil)

For technical reasons which will likely cause more confusion at this
stage than help, this one is a bit tricky. I'm also not sure it is what
you really want. However, there is a command
emacspeak-toggle-auditory-icons which will reliably set this variable
for the current session. The command is bound to C-e C-a. Note that by
default, it toggles auditory icons in the current buffer. If you want to
toggle icons in all buffers, you need to call the command with the
universal argument, with is C-u, so the full command to toggle auditory
icons globally for the current session is C-u C-e C-a.

>   (setq emacspeak-character-echo nil)

This is unlikley to be what you want to do. This will turn off echoing
of the character as you type. Again, due to technical issues, setting
this variable directly with setq is unreliable (see below). Instead, you
can use the binding C-e d k to toggle character echo and again, provide
the universal argument to toggle it globally. 

>   (setq dtk-caps nil)
>   (setq dtk-punctuation-mode 'some)

The above have similar issues. The reason is a technical one. These
variables are what are referred to as buffer local variables. The
general concept is that they are variables which can have different
values in different buffers, but which start off with a common default
value. This makes them behave a little differently from other variables
and they need to be set using different mechanisms. I really don't want
to go into full on detail at this point as I fear you will be wading
into the wseeds and it will just make life much harder. Therefore, my
strong recommendation is either use the associated commands to toggle
these settings on a per session basis, possible adding the universal
argument to set them globally or use the M-x customize-group interface
to set the variables as this interface will ensure the variables are set
in such a way as to work correctly.

You do have a fairly steep learning curve to face on multiple levels. I
think the benefits are worth the effort, but be prepared for some
frustration and a lot of reading. I would also recommend reading Micky
Petterson's Mastering Emacs book https://www.masteringemacs.org/ . It
has a fairly good overview of the concepts and rationale underlying
Emacs. ueThe emacspeak info page is pretty good as well as Robert
Chassell's Introduction to Emacspeak. Finally, there is a fairly good
info page called An Introducton to Programming in Emacs Lisp which might
help with some of thye basic emacs lisp concepts as wsell as simple
programming.

HTH and good luck!