Hide long copyright message at top of all files

Question

We have 15 line long copyright messages at the top of all our source-code files.

When I have them open in emacs, that wastes a lot of valuable space.
Is there any way to get emacs to always a hide a certain message but still leave it in the file?

Answer 1

You can use hideshow minor mode which is a standard built-in package that has a generalized command called hs-hide-initial-comment-block that will do what you want without having to know how long the top comment section is. You can add it to the mode-hook of any language, but here's an example using C:

(add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook 'hs-minor-mode t)
(add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook 'hs-hide-initial-comment-block t)

Note, it does not hide specifically just the copyrights, but the full initial comment block which may hide useful documentation, as well.