Colin Rafferty <craffert(a)ms.com&gt; writes: Format-alist is also used by insert-file-contents and friends. Thus calling image mode behind your back all the time. See for instance http://www.xemacs.org/list-archives/xemacs-beta/9903/msg00565.html However I am not sure whether Hrvoje's patch isn't just fixing the symptoms instead of the disease. It nice that XEmacs can use magic numbers to identify file types. Maybe the mode setting part of this should be rethought. Also in the message above Kyle really needs a version of insert-file-contents-literally that really does what its name says, i.e. all file name handlers that do not change the content are still allowed. Maybe the best way to do this to make "insert-file-contents-literally" a file-name handler operation. Thinks like efs and rrsh.el could then define this but jka-compress not. Jan