It sounds like you basically want to turn specific minor-modes on or off for "specific buffers". Usually, the "specific buffers" can be distinguished by their major mode, which is how I usually look at this type of problem. How to turn minor modes on or off depends on the implementation of both the minor mode you're trying to turn on/off and the major mode you're trying to turn it on/off in.
The usual way to enable/disable things based on major-mode is via the major-mode-hook variable. This is where you stick things to customize the mode:
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'auto-fill-mode)
I usually write my own function, even if it's a simple one-liner, because I almost always will add stuff later on:
(defun my-text-mode-hook ()
"Stuff to do when `text-mode' is invoked."
(auto-fill-mode 1))
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'my-text-mode-hook)
You can also make things within the hook conditional:
(defun my-text-mode-hook ()
"Stuff to do when `text-mode' is invoked."
;; skip modes based on text-mode
(when (eq major-mode 'text-mode)
(auto-fill-mode 1))
)
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'my-text-mode-hook)
I usually do all of this in a major-mode-load-hook, so that it only happens when the major-mode's code is loaded:
(defun my-tnt-load-hook ()
(defun my-tnt-im-mode-hook ()
"Hook for TNT's im-mode hook."
(flyspell-mode 1)
(setq fill-column (- (frame-width) 5)))
(add-hook 'tnt-im-mode-hook 'my-tnt-im-mode-hook)
(add-hook 'tnt-chat-mode-hook 'my-tnt-im-mode-hook))
(add-hook 'tnt-load-hook 'my-tnt-load-hook)
A well-written major-mode will have a load-hook variable defined (I usually look at the mode's source code to find out). If it doesn't have a load-hook, you can simulate one with the eval-after-load function:
(defun my-view-mode-after-load-hook ()
"Stuff to do after view mode loads."
(defun my-view-mode-hook ()
"Stuff to run in `view-mode'."
(flyspell-mode 0))
(add-hook 'view-mode-hook 'my-view-mode-hook)
(define-key view-mode-map "b" 'View-scroll-page-backward)
(define-key view-mode-map [(delete)] 'View-scroll-page-backward)
(define-key view-mode-map "q" 'View-kill-and-leave)
(define-key view-mode-map "Q" 'View-quit))
(eval-after-load 'view '(my-view-mode-after-load-hook))
If you don't do this in a load-hook then you have to make sure the mode-hook is customizable, and then add in your my-mode-hook via customize; I'd rather have all of the stuff in one place in my .emacs, so I don't usually customize my hooks this way.
If you ever find a major-mode that does not have a major-mode-hook you can create your own major-mode based off of it using define-derived-mode. You'll then have to get the newly defined mode invoked whenever the old mode was.
(defun replace-alist-mode (alist oldmode newmode)
(dolist (aitem alist)
(if (eq (cdr aitem) oldmode)
(setcdr aitem newmode))))
(define-derived-mode hooked-foobar-mode foobar-mode "Foobar")
(replace-alist-mode auto-mode-alist 'foobar-mode 'hooked-foobar-mode)
(defun my-hooked-foobar-mode-hook ()
"Hook to run when `hooked-foobar-mode' is called."
(flyspell-mode 0))
(add-hook 'hooked-foobar-mode-hook 'my-hooked-foobar-mode-hook)
Some minor modes can be enabled globally. If you want them on most of the time and it supports it, you can turn it on globally and then turn it off for specific major modes.
(global-font-lock-mode 1)
;; example of how to do it without a defun
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook (function
(lambda () ""
(interactive)
(font-lock-mode 0))))
If the minor mode can't be enabled globally, or you don't want it enabled globally, just turn it on for specific modes, as shown above.