Re: New version of todo-mode.el (announcement + user guide)

[Stephen Berman <stephen.berman@gmx.net>]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:28:35 -0400 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> wrote:

> Stephen Berman wrote:
>
>> - If Glenn Morris approves, can I install the patch I included for
>>   diary-lib.el?
>
> Fine by me, though if possible I think it would be better to add some
> new diary hooks(s) so that you can do whatever it is you want to do
> without needing to put todo-specific stuff in diary-lib. But feel free.

Thanks for the go-ahead.  I do agree with you that a hook would be
better and in fact gave it some thought, but couldn't see how to do it
using an existing hook.  I didn't consider adding a new hook, and I'm
not sure I what that should be.  The problem is, after the button is
clicked in the Fancy Diary display, if the todo file is in a buffer, it
will probably be narrowed, so it has to be widened before going to the
position of the marker, and then it has to be narrowed again afterwards
to get the proper display.  So either there have to be two hooks
sandwiching the goto-char for the marker, or the latter has to be passed
to the hook function.  Neither really seems much better than the ad hoc
patch I posted, but it's not unlikely I'm overlooking a better
alternative.  If you have any ideas, I'm all ears.

>> - I also have a question about documentation.  The user guide I posted
>>   is certainly too long and detailed for the commentary section of the
>>   source code, and I guess also for the Emacs manual.
>
> It is longer than the entire current todo-mode.el is...

Yes, but then the new version is nearly seven times longer than the old
one.  Still, I'd welcome suggestions for slimming down the
documentation.  Maybe when others use the package some of the features
will be found to be dispensible.

> (244k will make it about the 15th largest Lisp file in Emacs.
> I doubt anyone has time to review that in detail.)

I don't expect that (though I'd welcome any feedback).  The package has
had an excessively long genesis (I'm not a fast coder) and I was
probably strategically unwise not to post earlier, less featureful,
versions.

Steve Berman