[Fix #451] Add the ability to preload personal code

README.md

@@ -443,6 +443,12 @@ If you require just a single package you can also use:
 (prelude-require-package 'some-package)
 ```
 
+#### Preloading personal config
+
+Sometimes you might want to load code before Prelude has started loading. Prelude will automatically preload all
+Emacs Lisp files in your `personal/preload` directory. Note that at this point you can't using anything from
+Prelude, except a few variables like `prelude-dir`, etc (since nothing is yet loaded).
+
 #### Disabling whitespace-mode
 
 Although `whitespace-mode` is awesome some people might find it too

init.el

@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@
 Users of Emacs Prelude are encouraged to keep their personal configuration
 changes in this directory.  All Emacs Lisp files there are loaded automatically
 by Prelude.")
+(defvar prelude-personal-preload-dir (expand-file-name "preload" prelude-personal-dir)
+  "This directory is for your personal configuration, that you want loaded before Prelude.")
 (defvar prelude-vendor-dir (expand-file-name "vendor" prelude-dir)
   "This directory houses packages that are not yet available in ELPA (or MELPA).")
 (defvar prelude-savefile-dir (expand-file-name "savefile" prelude-dir)
@@ -83,6 +85,13 @@ by Prelude.")
 ;; each 50MB of allocated data (the default is on every 0.76MB)
 (setq gc-cons-threshold 50000000)
 
+;; preload the personal settings from `prelude-personal-preload-dir'
+(when (file-exists-p prelude-personal-preload-dir)
+  (message "Loading personal configuration files in %s..." prelude-personal-preload-dir)
+  (mapc 'load (directory-files prelude-personal-preload-dir 't "^[^#].*el$")))
+
+(message "Loading Prelude's core...")
+
 ;; the core stuff
 (require 'prelude-packages)
 (require 'prelude-ui)
@@ -95,6 +104,8 @@ by Prelude.")
 (when (eq system-type 'darwin)
   (require 'prelude-osx))
 
+(message "Loading Prelude's modules...")
+
 ;; the modules
 (when (file-exists-p prelude-modules-file)
   (load prelude-modules-file))