sb> Deliberate. mail-abbrevs no longer installs itself on load (as per sb> Lisp package coding standards we've been starting to enforce). To sb> initialize the keymaps, you need to call `mail-abbrev-init-keys': sb> (mail-abbrev-init-keys mail-mode-map) sb> (mail-abbrev-init-keys message-mode-map) Jeff> hmm, this is gonna get ugly. Yup. A peek at mail-abbrev.el only reveals installation instructions for Emacs 18. And even those instructions are broken. It's horrible that comments in mail-abbrevs.el now gives the user no clue how to `activate' the package, except a hint that loading it will work (which it does not). Jeff> first time abbrevs gets loaded for me is when I try to create my first Jeff> email to send. Probably the same for message-mode. Jeff> that means, either i add something onto a mail-mode-hook or Jeff> message-mode-hook. hmm, should it be a lambda or a wrapper ....... Martin