Re: Bug: wrong-type-argument when changing TODO state [7.7]

[Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>]

Stelian Iancu <stelian.iancu@gmail.com> wrote:


> > So it is a customization issue. Now the question is what :-). I should
> > mention that I am using both dev versions for Emacs and org-mode
> > (Emacs from bzr from a few days ago and org-mode from git from a few
> > days ago) on Mac OS X 10.7. Emacs is installed using homebrew.
> >
> 
> Ok, it seems like I've found the culprit. It's this line:
> 
> ;; Make org-mode default for all the new files
> (setq major-mode 'org-mode)
> 
> If I comment it out, it all works beautifully. I thought it was
> because I was executing it before loading org-mode, but I've made sure
> org-mode is loaded before executing that line and I still get the same
> error.
> 
> Any ideas why it happens?
> 

Yes - don't ever do that. The major mode of a buffer is set by calling a
function (e.g. the org-mode function for buffers that should be in org
mode).  That function does a million things to make sure that everything
works properly: your setting a single variable does none of that and all
you end up doing is confusing emacs.

In most cases, you don't even call the mode function explicitly: it is
called for you automatically, e.g. through the setting of auto-mode-alist.
I have the following in my basic customizations:

(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.org$" . org-mode))

That says to emacs: when find-file is called to open a file whose name
ends in `.org' arrange to call the function org-mode on it. The function
takes care of the setting of major-mode.

Be sure to read Ch.23 of the emacs manual on major modes.

Nick