Yes, backwards compatibility is important, and emacs was there first. Happily, you can leave the old emacs // behaviour and support URLs that use // as well; simply special case the URL syntax. If the line is a URL, interpret it that way, otherwise go back to the old // behaviour. 1. /some/path//root/path old behaviour 2. ftp://nelson＠localhost/foo/bar URL! Extra points if you can type a URL without having to kill the line first. 3. /some/path//ftp://nelson＠localhost/foo/bar URL! 4. /some/path/ftp://nelson＠localhost/foo/bar URL!, maybe better. This all complicates the parsing a bit, but I think it is consistent. Leave out 3 or 4 or both if it's too hard. Unless something new comes up in this discussion, this is the last I have to say on this topic. I don't have time to implement this solution myself and I've kibbitzed all I have the right to do. nelson(a)media.mit.edu . . . . . . . . http://www.media.mit.edu/~nelson/