How to turn on a minor mode in my init file?

Question

I want to add global-semantic-idle-summary-mode in my .emacs file instead of calling everytime it by using M-x. I tried with (setq ...) but it doesn't work. What's the right way?

Answer 1

It is a minor-mode which can be enabled with: (global-semantic-idle-summary-mode 1)

The doc-string states: "Toggle Global Semantic Idle Summary mode. With ARG, turn Global Semantic Idle Summary mode on if ARG is positive, off otherwise. When this minor mode is enabled, 'semantic-idle-summary-mode' is turned on in every Semantic-supported buffer."

In general, a user may test for whether a minor-mode is active by inspecting the variable containing the same -- e.g., M-x describe-variable RET semantic-idle-summary-mode RET Unless the variable has been specifically defined beforehand, it will not exist until the minor-mode has been activated.