I've always had view-mode come on by default, and I have a bunch of custom keybindings for view mode which are nicer on the hands when you're just reading text.

So (add-hook 'find-file-hook 'start-view-mode) to turn it on automatically.

(defun view-mode-background () (if (bound-and-true-p view-mode) (face-remap-add-relative 'mode-line '((:background "#9400D3"))) (face-remap-add-relative 'mode-line '((:background "red"))))) ^ this helps a lot to know whether or not you're in view mode

And then: (defun view-mode-keybindings () (define-key view-mode-map (kbd "j") 'View-scroll-line-forward) .. etc