bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

[bruce.connor.am]

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Hi,
It seems the longlines package has been marked obsolete for emacs 24.4, in
lieu of visual-line-mode.
<http://emacs.1067599.n5.nabble.com/Marking-longlines-mode-as-obsolete-td271094.html>

However, from what I understand, visual-line-mode isn't capable of wraping
lines to be shorter than window width, which was one of longlines' features.

Is longlines-mode really redundant? Or was it marked obsolete for another
reason.

Cheers,
Malabarba

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bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

[Glenn Morris]

bruce.connor.am@gmail.com wrote:

> It seems the longlines package has been marked obsolete for emacs 24.4, in
> lieu of visual-line-mode.

Yes, it was marked obsolete by its maintainer.
Since your question(s) is not a bug report, I will close it, but feel free
to keep discussing it here.
(If there are features you would like to see added to visual-line-mode,
please make a new bug report for each.)

bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

[bruce.connor.am]

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Ok, thanks.

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bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

[Stefan Monnier]

> However, from what I understand, visual-line-mode isn't capable of wraping
> lines to be shorter than window width, which was one of longlines' features.

You can get the same result by fiddling with the window margins or by
splitting your window.  I seem to remember someone writing code to do
that conveniently, but I wouldn't know where to find it.

> Is longlines-mode really redundant?

visual-lines-mode provides the feature for which longlines-mode was
written, so in this sense it's definitely obsolete/redundant.

Of course, by virtue of working differently, it might provide some
functionality which visual-lines-mode can't provide.  But "lines shorter
than the window" is not really one of them.

Recently someone pointed out that using longlines-mode in a buffer that
contain *very* long lines makes it possible to view&edit the buffer
without suffering unbearable performance problems.  So maybe in this
sense it's not completely obsolete.


        Stefan

bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

[bruce.connor.am]

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On 30 Sep 2014 19:19, "Stefan Monnier" <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>
> > However, from what I understand, visual-line-mode isn't capable of
wraping
> > lines to be shorter than window width, which was one of longlines'
features.
>
> You can get the same result by fiddling with the window margins or by
> splitting your window.
>
> Of course, by virtue of working differently, it might provide some
> functionality which visual-lines-mode can't provide.  But "lines shorter
> than the window" is not really one of them.
>

In my case, I managed to make longlines-mode wrap text while not wrapping
equations (LaTeX-mode). I also got it to indent wrapped lines correctly.
Both of which you can't do if you take the "change the margin" approach.

I understand this is a very specific hack, and doesn't justify unobsoleting
the package. But for the record, the code can be found here.
http://endlessparentheses.com/longlines-mode-in-latex.html


Thanks

Artur Malabarba

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bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

[Stefan Monnier]

> In my case, I managed to make longlines-mode wrap text while not wrapping
> equations (LaTeX-mode).

It would be interesting to extend visual-lines-mode so you can prevent
wrapping of some lines (or prevent wrapping at particular places, as is
done with fill-nobreak-functions).

> I also got it to indent wrapped lines correctly.

adaptive-wrap-mode is another approach at indenting wrapped lines
correctly (but for visual-lines-mode).  I don't guarantee it works well
for LaTeX, tho (I don't think it uses the indent-according-to-mode code,
but rather uses the adaptive-fill-mode code).

> I understand this is a very specific hack, and doesn't justify unobsoleting
> the package. But for the record, the code can be found here.
> http://endlessparentheses.com/longlines-mode-in-latex.html

I wouldn't mind de-obsoleting it.  If you're interested, I think it
would be nice to change longlines.el by adding some hooks to it so you
can cleanly make it work like you do (without overwriting its functions).
Feel like taking over maintainership?


        Stefan


PS: BTW, I don't understand why people want to use
single-line-paragraphs for "LaTeX under version control".  It means that
any change to a paragraph will always appear in the diff as a change to
the whole paragraph, rather than just to the specific line on which the
change happened.  Of course, refilling a paragraph may cause the whole
paragraph to show up in the diff, but as long as you only refill when
you make changes, it's never worse than the "single-line
paragraphs" approach.  And `diff-refine-hunk' lets you see which part of
the paragraph was really changed.

bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

[bruce.connor.am]

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>
> It would be interesting to extend visual-lines-mode so you can prevent
> wrapping of some lines
>
If I understand things correctly, visual-line-mode only wraps lines when
they’re longer than the window-width (or window-width - margins), so making
it not wrap some lines would only cause them to extend beyond the window’s
boundaries.

> adaptive-wrap-mode is another approach at indenting wrapped lines
> correctly (but for visual-lines-mode).  I don't guarantee it works well
> for LaTeX, tho (I don't think it uses the indent-according-to-mode code,
> but rather uses the adaptive-fill-mode code).
>
Thanks, under a few initial tests, it does seem to fix the indentation!

> I wouldn't mind de-obsoleting it.  If you're interested, I think it
> would be nice to change longlines.el by adding some hooks to it so you
> can cleanly make it work like you do (without overwriting its functions).
> Feel like taking over maintainership?
>
Sure, I could take over. What would that involve?

> PS: BTW, I don't understand why people want to use
> single-line-paragraphs for "LaTeX under version control".
>
Me neither, and I agree with everything you said here. The approach I’m
taking is with sentences.

If you give each sentence its own line then, when you change a sentence,
the rest of the paragraph doesn’t show up on the diff.

Best Regards,
Artur Malabarba

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bug#18589: Why is the the longlines package obsolete?

[Glenn Morris]

Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> However, from what I understand, visual-line-mode isn't capable of wraping
>> lines to be shorter than window width, which was one of longlines' features.
>
> You can get the same result by fiddling with the window margins or by
> splitting your window.  I seem to remember someone writing code to do
> that conveniently, but I wouldn't know where to find it.

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2013-12/msg00475.html

bug#51051: Restore longlines.el to non-obsolete status

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> Recently someone pointed out that using longlines-mode in a buffer that
> contain *very* long lines makes it possible to view&edit the buffer
> without suffering unbearable performance problems.  So maybe in this
> sense it's not completely obsolete.

I've now unobsoleted longlines-mode in Emacs 29.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no