Andy Piper <andy(a)xemacs.org&gt; writes: Did you want to include this...? In particular and Some comments (from a casual glance) about your specifier stuff. I agree that the specifier stuff can be hard. (I had to debug frob-face-property!) I don't think this is quite correct: Note that for each locale there is a LIST of cons pairs. You don't want to use 'remove-all, that would remove the spec-list from other locales too. Just use nil, which will do the right thing. I don't think this a good idea. You probably want to inherit the other properties from the lower locales. You should call plist-put on the (specifier-instance gutter-specifier locale tag-set) if locale is a domain. You seem to be doing a partial reinvention on frob-face-property. Two points. 1. frob-face-property is ugly because the font specifier of a face is combination of many properties (family, weight etc..). We now recognize that we might have been better off if these properties were independent specifiers. You should be maybe stop here and consider whether you want to take this road. (If understand correctly the number of elements in a gutter isn't fixed so this would be not so easy.) 2. All your helper functions seem to be instances of the same structure. Why not add a generalized version like this to specifier.el: Untested but obvious[ahem]. (defun modify-specifier-instances (specifier func &optional args force default locale tag-set) "Modify all specifications that match LOCALE and TAG-SET by FUNC. For each specification that exists for SPECIFIER, in locale LOCALE that matches TAG-SET, call the function FUNC with the instance as its first argument and with optional arguments ARGS. The result is then used as the new value of the instantiator. If there is no specification in the domain LOCALE matching TAG-SET and FORCE is non-nil, an explicit one is created from the matching specifier instance if that exists or DEFAULT otherwise. If LOCALE is not a domain (i.e. a buffer), DEFAULT is always used. FUNC is then applied like above and the resulting specification is added." (let ((spec-list (specifier-spec-list specifier locale tag-set))) (cond (spec-list ;; Distructively edit the spec-list (mapc #'(lambda (spec) (mapc #'(lambda (inst-pair) (setcdr inst-pair (apply func (cdr inst-pair) args))) (cdr spec))) spec-list) (add-spec-list-to-specifier specifier)) (force (set-specifier specifier (apply func (or (and (valid-specifier-domain-p locale) (specifier-instance specifier)) default) args) locale tag-set))))) Then your function can be rewritten as ;;; Gutter helper functions (defun set-gutter-element (gutter-specifier prop val &optional locale tag-set) "Set GUTTER-SPECIFIER gutter element PROP to VAL in optional LOCALE. This is a convenience function for setting gutter elements." (modify-specifier-instances gutter-specifier #'plist-put (list prop val) 'force nil locale tag-set)) (defun remove-gutter-element (gutter-specifier prop &optional locale tag-set) "Remove gutter element PROP from GUTTER-SPECIFIER in optional LOCALE. This is a convenience function for removing gutter elements." (modify-specifier-instances gutter-specifier #'plist-remprop (list prop) 'force nil locale tag-set)) (defun set-gutter-element-visible-p (gutter-specifier prop &optional visible-p locale tag-set) "Make gutter element PROP VISIBLE-P for GUTTER-SPECIFIER in optional LOCALE. This is a convenience function for hiding and showing gutter elements." I don't quite understand what this function is doing. I hope this helps. I need some sleep. Jan