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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-02T07:47:34+00:00

Using jtags-mode (version 0.96) via ELPA in a development version of Emacs 24+, I

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Using jtags-mode (version 0.96) via ELPA in a development version of Emacs 24+, I cannot seem to enable the minor mode programmatically (manual invocation works fine). Before I drill into the gory details with what I have tried and the setup that I expect to work, the bottom line is that, after adding jtags-mode to the Java hook variable, I get the following complaint from Emacs when I first vist a Java source file:

Toggling jtags-mode off; better pass an explicit argument. [2 times]

After thoroughly reading the documentation on jtags-mode setup, I expected the following to suffice:

;; Support for Java coding. 
(autoload 'jtags-mode "jtags" "Toggle jtags mode." 1)

(defun java-setup ()
  (setq tab-stop-list '(4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 80 84 88 92)
    indent-tabs-mode nil
    tab-width 4
    fill-column 96
    c-comment-start-regexp "\\(@\\|/\\(/\\|[*][*]?\\)\\)"
    jtags-display-menu-flag t
    jtags-mode 1)
  (java-mode-indent-annotations-setup))

(add-hook 'java-mode-hook 'java-setup)
(add-hook 'java-mode-hook 'jtags-mode)
...

But this led to the complaint above. I have since tried to invoke jtags-mode directly in the java-setup() function, to no avail.

I would gladly take pointers on how to debug this issue if there is no obvious or easy solution.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Functions named xxx-mode are often toggle functions when called without arguments, i.e. they turn the mode on if it was off and vice versa. As you have added this function to a hook, this is how it is called. Several minor modes provide a function like turn-on-xxx-mode that are designed to be added to hook directly.

    When called with an argument, 1 typically activates them and -1 deactivates. Try calling it from your setup function rather than adding the jtags-mode function to the hook

    I would suggest activating the minor mode from your setup function. Also, in your setup code, you set the jtags-mode variable to 1, which normall is not the right thing to do. For example:

    (defun java-setup ()
  (setq tab-stop-list '(4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 80 84 88 92)
    indent-tabs-mode nil
    tab-width 4
    fill-column 96
    c-comment-start-regexp "\\(@\\|/\\(/\\|[*][*]?\\)\\)"
    jtags-display-menu-flag t)
  (jtags-mode 1)
  (java-mode-indent-annotations-setup))

(add-hook 'java-mode-hook 'java-setup)

    Finally, a reservation. I haven’t used jtags-mode, this answer is based on general knowledge on how minor modes work.

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