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### 7.2 Quick Help Customization

Ediff provides quick help using its control panel window. Since this window takes a fair share of the screen real estate, you can toggle it off by typing `?`. The control window will then shrink to just one line and a mode line, displaying a short help message.

The variable `ediff-use-long-help-message` tells Ediff whether you use the short message or the long one. By default, it is set to `nil`, meaning that the short message is used. Set this to `t`, if you want Ediff to use the long message by default. This property can always be changed interactively, by typing `?` into Ediff Control Buffer.

If you want to change the appearance of the help message on a per-buffer basis, you must use `ediff-startup-hook` to change the value of the variable `ediff-help-message`, which is local to `ediff-control-buffer`.