From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Juri Linkov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Helpful in Emacs? Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2021 09:30:53 +0300 Organization: LINKOV.NET Message-ID: <8735qd7ywa.fsf@mail.linkov.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="34841"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/28.0.50 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Cc: me@wilfred.me.uk, Stefan Kangas , Arthur Miller , Emacs developers To: Daniel =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mart=EDn?= Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 10 08:45:58 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1mOaIP-0008v5-0K for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2021 08:45:57 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:48464 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mOaIN-0006AY-TS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2021 02:45:55 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:52518) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mOaGu-0004VL-Sz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2021 02:44:25 -0400 Original-Received: from relay7-d.mail.gandi.net ([217.70.183.200]:48815) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mOaGt-0001ZH-05 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 10 Sep 2021 02:44:24 -0400 Original-Received: (Authenticated sender: juri@linkov.net) by relay7-d.mail.gandi.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 36F5620007; Fri, 10 Sep 2021 06:44:16 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: ("Daniel =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mart=EDn=22?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?'s?= message of "Thu, 09 Sep 2021 17:21:30 +0200") Received-SPF: pass client-ip=217.70.183.200; envelope-from=juri@linkov.net; helo=relay7-d.mail.gandi.net X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE=-0.0001, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_H2=-0.001, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:274497 Archived-At: > Instead of integrating the library as a whole, I'd prefer we extract > those features from Helpful that people think are useful and not already > available in Emacs. I don't think that having two separate help systems > in core is a good idea, there'll be too much duplication and maintenance > burden. Refactoring it as a library is very much needed. Ideally, it should return information in a structured way, for example: ((type . function) (name . "car") (source-file . "src/data.c") (Info-node . "(elisp) List Elements") (docstring . ...) ...) This will allow to use the extracted information in different front-ends such as a html front-end to display Help in eww, etc. I once attempted to represent such information as a generated Info node, but abandoned due to too many small details that are too ambiguous to handle. If it's possible to refactor helpful.el and separate a library from front-end, it would be very helpful and will solve such bugs as bug#49587 that currently displays the Help buffer twice: for the function and the variable part separately when a symbol for 'C-h o' is both a function and a variable.