Recardless of whether a feature freeze is the appropriate time to discuss I propose the following (I fell that if we are meddling with it to create seperate custom files etc, it is better to do it correctly now) 1. early-packages is made to depend on the value of init-file-user (I thought we already agreed to do that). 2. custom-set-variables is changed to set 'last-custom-loaded-from' to the current load file. 3. In cus-edit ;; NB "init-file-user" independent (defcustom custom-file (concat "~" user-init-directory "lisp/options.el") Furthermore when saving options, cus-edit creates the whole path if need be. 4. Before any init file loading is done in starup.el ;; This depends on init-file-user through early-package-path (setq custom-file (or (locate-library "options" nil early-package-load-path ) custom-file)) (setq custom-default-file custom-file) 5. ".emacs-early" is loaded by (setq user-early-init-file (or (locate-library "init-early" nil early-package-load-path) (concat "~" init-file-user "/" init-user-directoy "/lisp-init-early.el"))) (load user-early-init-file t t t) 6. load-user-init-file is replaced by (IMHO a lot cleaner than the current version because it uses built in search mechanisms). (defun load-user-init-file (init-file-user) "This function actually reads the users init files." (when init-file-user (setq last-custom-load-from nil) ; Prefer ".xemacs/lisp/init.[el[c]]" if there is one ; Fall back to "~/.emacs" other wise. (setq user-init-file (or (locate-library "init" nil early-package-load-path) (concat "~" init-file-user "/.emacs"))) (load user-init-file t t t) ; Load the custom file (unless inhibit-default-custom (load custom-file t t t)) ; ; Set custom-file to a decent place to save the customizations. ; i.e. if the customizations were in ~/.emacs, they stay there. ; If we were told to put them somewhere explictly we put them ; there. (when (eq custom-file default-custom-file) (setq custom-file (or last-custom-load-from (get 'custom-file 'standard-value)))) (unless inhibit-default-init (let ((inhibit-startup-message nil)) ;; Users are supposed to be told their rights. ;; (Plus how to get help and how to undo.) ;; Don't you dare turn this off for anyone except yourself. (load "default" t t))))) This design ensures (assuming init-file-user = "" and u-i-directory= ".xemacs") Backwards compatibility (with FSF and 20.4) a. No ~.xemacs/lisp/init.el => .emacs is used. b. If customize stuff is in .emacs that gets evalled (of course) and custom stuff also saved there Sensible, 'no suprise' defaults c. ~/.emacs is still the default when init.el is not there. [do we want that] d. Customize stuff gets saved to a seperate file (~/xemacs/lisp/options.el). Easy configuration e. It would be easy to write a "migrate.el" that can covert .xemacs-options and .emacs custom settings to ~/xemacs/lisp/options.el and optionially move the rest to ~/xemacs/lisp/init.el. f. Want to copy somebody elses custom options? xemacs -u otheruser Reset custom-file to default value Save all customizations.