Add ftable.el to ELPA

Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Yuan Fu]

ftable.el is a small package I wrote that fills (auto-layouts) table.el style tables like `fill-paragraph’ does to paragraphs. It’s really handy and I want to add it to ELPA. WDYT?

GitHub page: https://github.com/casouri/ftable

Yuan

Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Stefan Monnier]

Yuan Fu [2021-08-01 21:14:12] wrote:
> ftable.el is a small package I wrote that fills (auto-layouts) table.el
> style tables like `fill-paragraph’ does to paragraphs. It’s really handy and
> I want to add it to ELPA. WDYT?
>
> GitHub page: https://github.com/casouri/ftable

Sounds good to me.
Could you fix up its header so its copyright says FSF and to say that
it's distributed under the GPLv3+ (look at other packages to see what
it should look like)?
It will also need a `Version:` header.

IIUC it's not just a library for use by other packages but offers
user-level commands, so it should probably have a few `;;;###autoload`
cookies so users don't have to `require` it.

        Stefan

Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Yuan Fu]

> On Aug 2, 2021, at 12:12 AM, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> 
> Yuan Fu [2021-08-01 21:14:12] wrote:
>> ftable.el is a small package I wrote that fills (auto-layouts) table.el
>> style tables like `fill-paragraph’ does to paragraphs. It’s really handy and
>> I want to add it to ELPA. WDYT?
>> 
>> GitHub page: https://github.com/casouri/ftable
> 
> Sounds good to me.
> Could you fix up its header so its copyright says FSF and to say that
> it's distributed under the GPLv3+ (look at other packages to see what
> it should look like)?
> It will also need a `Version:` header.
> 
> IIUC it's not just a library for use by other packages but offers
> user-level commands, so it should probably have a few `;;;###autoload`
> cookies so users don't have to `require` it.

All done.

Yuan

Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Uwe Brauer]

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>>> "YF" == Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com> writes:

> ftable.el is a small package I wrote that fills (auto-layouts)
> table.el style tables like `fill-paragraph’ does to paragraphs. It’s
> really handy and I want to add it to ELPA. WDYT?

> GitHub page: https://github.com/casouri/ftable

Very interesting! It does not work for org tables though, at least not
directly. 

I cloned your repository and see that you are acquainted with org mode,
so any change to get that work with org tables? Yes I can convert it use
your nice package and convert back.

BTW, I did not know about your package, wouldn't it be a good idea, as a
starting point to have it in MELPA, and then later move it to ELPA?

Regards

Uwe Brauer 

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Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Stefan Kangas]

Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:

> BTW, I did not know about your package, wouldn't it be a good idea, as a
> starting point to have it in MELPA, and then later move it to ELPA?

Why would that be a good idea?  It seems better to me to put a useful
package on GNU ELPA, where it will reach more users.

Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Stefan Monnier]

Stefan Kangas [2021-08-02 14:59:38] wrote:
> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
>> BTW, I did not know about your package, wouldn't it be a good idea, as a
>> starting point to have it in MELPA, and then later move it to ELPA?
> Why would that be a good idea?  It seems better to me to put a useful
> package on GNU ELPA, where it will reach more users.

Indeed, GNU ELPA is not meant to be a retirement home,


        Stefan

Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Uwe Brauer]

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

> Stefan Kangas [2021-08-02 14:59:38] wrote:
>> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
>>> BTW, I did not know about your package, wouldn't it be a good idea, as a
>>> starting point to have it in MELPA, and then later move it to ELPA?
>> Why would that be a good idea?  It seems better to me to put a useful
>> package on GNU ELPA, where it will reach more users.

> Indeed, GNU ELPA is not meant to be a retirement home,

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I had feeling that it is easier to get a
package included in MELPA than in ELPA. Maybe I misunderstood something,
but I thought that it is required that *all* authors need to sign the
FSF copyright papers[1], while for MELPA GPL is sufficient, but maybe I
am wrong.



Footnotes:
[1]  this is one of the reasons why matlab.el is still not in ELPA,
     which reminds me to give it another try.


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Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Phil Sainty]

On 2021-08-03 18:18, Uwe Brauer wrote:
> Sorry for the misunderstanding. I had feeling that it is easier to get 
> a
> package included in MELPA than in ELPA. Maybe I misunderstood 
> something,
> but I thought that it is required that *all* authors need to sign the
> FSF copyright papers[1], while for MELPA GPL is sufficient, but maybe I
> am wrong.

That is one reason why it's good to be in GNU ELPA from the outset.

I.e. the thing you see as "easier" about MELPA is the very same thing
which might make it hard to subsequently move a package to ELPA; so
starting in MELPA might end up being counterproductive.

Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Stefan Monnier]

Uwe Brauer [2021-08-03 08:18:30] wrote:
>>>> "SM" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>> Stefan Kangas [2021-08-02 14:59:38] wrote:
>>> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
>>>> BTW, I did not know about your package, wouldn't it be a good idea, as a
>>>> starting point to have it in MELPA, and then later move it to ELPA?
>>> Why would that be a good idea?  It seems better to me to put a useful
>>> package on GNU ELPA, where it will reach more users.
>> Indeed, GNU ELPA is not meant to be a retirement home,
> Sorry for the misunderstanding.  I had feeling that it is easier to get a
> package included in MELPA than in ELPA.

It is usually easier indeed for the reasons you cite, but that doesn't
mean it gets easier later (the more you wait, the harder it gets to get
the paperwork).

In any case, the package under discussion had a sole author who had
already signed the paperwork, so the package is now at

    http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/ftable.html


-- Stefan

Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Yuan Fu]

> On Aug 2, 2021, at 2:45 AM, Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> wrote:
> 
>>>> "YF" == Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> ftable.el is a small package I wrote that fills (auto-layouts)
>> table.el style tables like `fill-paragraph’ does to paragraphs. It’s
>> really handy and I want to add it to ELPA. WDYT?
> 
>> GitHub page: https://github.com/casouri/ftable
> 
> Very interesting! It does not work for org tables though, at least not
> directly. 
> 
> I cloned your repository and see that you are acquainted with org mode,
> so any change to get that work with org tables? Yes I can convert it use
> your nice package and convert back.

You can’t really fill org tables, each cell in a org table can only have one line.

Yuan

Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Uwe Brauer]

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> You can’t really fill org tables, each cell in a org table can only have one line.

Hm, I can add hlines via org-table-insert-hline and I can «fill» cells using org-table-wrap-region. 

Unfortunately this function is a bit cumbersome. 

I did however an experiment. 

I started with a org table, that I wanted to «refill» converted it to
emacs TABLE using org-table-create-with-table\.el used your command, and
than re-converted it to an org table.

Worked like charm.

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Re: Add ftable.el to ELPA

[Jean Louis]

* Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> [2021-08-02 09:46]:
> >>> "YF" == Yuan Fu <casouri@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > ftable.el is a small package I wrote that fills (auto-layouts)
> > table.el style tables like `fill-paragraph’ does to paragraphs. It’s
> > really handy and I want to add it to ELPA. WDYT?
> 
> > GitHub page: https://github.com/casouri/ftable
> 
> Very interesting! It does not work for org tables though, at least not
> directly. 
> 
> I cloned your repository and see that you are acquainted with org mode,
> so any change to get that work with org tables? Yes I can convert it use
> your nice package and convert back.
> 
> BTW, I did not know about your package, wouldn't it be a good idea, as a
> starting point to have it in MELPA, and then later move it to ELPA?

ELPA packages are GNU's official Emacs packages and it is most
beneficial to provide useful packages in ELPA.

Author is free to apply package to MELPA but it is different set of
managers of MELPA than developers on GNU here. We could say it is
different group of people managing MELPA. As it is free software it
can be distributed from any channels or places.


Jean

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