From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Stephen Leake Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: installed packages long description. Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2018 10:46:47 -0800 Message-ID: <86k1kiilm0.fsf@stephe-leake.org> References: <868t14kazo.fsf@stephe-leake.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1544381130 23243 195.159.176.226 (9 Dec 2018 18:45:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2018 18:45:30 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/26.0.90 (windows-nt) To: emacs-devel Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 09 19:45:26 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1gW44z-0005ui-Hd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 09 Dec 2018 19:45:25 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56272 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gW475-0006vj-Vv for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 09 Dec 2018 13:47:36 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:51987) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gW46R-0006vU-2a for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 09 Dec 2018 13:46:55 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gW46M-0005WN-V4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 09 Dec 2018 13:46:54 -0500 Original-Received: from smtp65.ord1d.emailsrvr.com ([184.106.54.65]:52291) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gW46M-0005Qg-Cg for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 09 Dec 2018 13:46:50 -0500 Original-Received: from smtp1.relay.ord1d.emailsrvr.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp1.relay.ord1d.emailsrvr.com (SMTP Server) with ESMTP id 90D66400DF for ; Sun, 9 Dec 2018 13:46:48 -0500 (EST) X-Auth-ID: board-president@tomahawk-creek-hoa.com Original-Received: by smtp1.relay.ord1d.emailsrvr.com (Authenticated sender: board-president-AT-tomahawk-creek-hoa.com) with ESMTPSA id 4072F400C7 for ; Sun, 9 Dec 2018 13:46:48 -0500 (EST) X-Sender-Id: board-president@tomahawk-creek-hoa.com Original-Received: from Takver4 ([UNAVAILABLE]. [76.77.182.20]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AES256-GCM-SHA384) by 0.0.0.0:25 (trex/5.7.12); Sun, 09 Dec 2018 13:46:48 -0500 In-Reply-To: (Stefan Monnier's message of "Sun, 09 Dec 2018 11:38:59 -0500") X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 184.106.54.65 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:231736 Archived-At: Stefan Monnier writes: >> I see two solutions; describe-package can also look for README or the >> Commentary comment header, or package-install can always populate >> ~/.emacs.d/elpa/-readme.txt > > Another is to look for a corresponding package in the archives and > download its readme file. One problem with this is different versions might be in different archives, and the package description does not include which archive the installed package is from. Perhaps that could be added; it would require a meta-info file, either in ~/.emacs.d/elpa//, or in ~/.emacs.d/elpa/ Another problem is the installed package could be older than the current version in the archive; apparently there is no way to retrieve the readme for an old version. There's also no way to check that an existing -readme.txt corresponds to the installed package version. > The ELPA standard Where is this published/documented? I don't see a reference on https://elpa.gnu.org/, and a web search for "ELPA standard" returned no useful hits. And where are changes to it discussed? > doesn't say how/where to find the description within the package: the > -readme.txt served via HTTP is the only documented/official way > to get the description (the README file and the Commentary sections > are just what existing archives tend to use in their own > package-building scripts). > > While we can come up with a short-term solution, from elpa/admin/archive-contents.el, that appears to be: (archive--get-section "Commentary" '("README" "README.rst" "README.org") srcdir mainsrcfile) That code could be moved to package.el That would also handle old versions nicely. > I think in the long run we should try and improve the ELPA standard in > this respect, e.g. by specifying where the description can be found > within the package (and also by specifying some kind of markup for > this description rather than being limited to plain text). Just document the code above. Markup could be handled by specifying "markdown", and looking for README.md. Or allow any markup for which there is an Emacs mode. -- -- Stephe