Re: best practices for implementing Emms configuration

[Yoni Rabkin <yoni@rabkins.net>]

Akib Azmain Turja <akib@disroot.org> writes:

> Yoni Rabkin <yoni@rabkins.net> writes:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> We are trying to make Emms (https://www.gnu.org/software/emms/) better
>> out of the box.
>>
>> The idea is to have the user invoke "M-x emms-setup", have Emms ask some
>> questions (check which player binaries the user has installed, which
>> metadata programs are installed, where the music is located, etc.), and
>> have Emms generate and write the appropriate elisp configuration.
>>
>> I can think of two approaches. I am wondering which, if any, would be
>> considered best practice:
>>
>> Write the configuration to the user's ~/.emacs in the same manner as "
>> ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom." or ";; Added by
>> Package.el."  I'm not a huge fan of this option for the sole reason that
>> I don't appreciate packages automatically editing a file I manually
>> edit.
>
> This is better IMO.  Just use Custom.  The user can set 'custom-file'
> to redirect the extra line to somewhere else.

To be clear though: the goal isn't to present the user with one of the
customize-group interfaces; I don't use them and wouldn't force anyone
else to.

The idea is to tell the user to invoke "M-x emms-setup", have the user
answer a few y-or-n-p questions, and write the configuration based on
that.

>>
>> XOR
>>
>> Write the configuration to ~/.emacs.d/emms/auto-config.el. Emms would
>> then look for that configuration file there during startup. This is
>> cleaner, and can have the benefit of Emms being configured without a
>> single line needing to be added by the user to their ~/.emacs.
>
> Not bad, but is there really any need to reinvent the wheel once again?

As above, I consider Emacs' customize interface to be a rather square
wheel (but then, I don't like org either, so I accept that the problem
may be me.)

Thank you for the input.

-- 
   "Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice"