various bits of code

various bits of code

[Dave Love]

I've posted various stuff to gnu-emacs-sources which rms obviously
doesn't want, but monnier told me I should have sent here for some
reason.  In case they're of interest, these are things I've written
(i.e. assigned).  They live in <URL:ftp://dlpx1.dl.ac.uk/fx/emacs> for
now and, presumably, the gnu-emacs-sources archive.

autocap.el: minor mode for auto-capitalizing sentence starts.

diary-outlook.el: dealing with appointments sent as mail by MS Outlook
(Exchange?); intended for diary-lib.el.

indent-tabs-maybe.el: decide whether to use indent-tabs-mode in a
buffer; intended for simple.el.

haskell.el: simple mode for Haskell, particularly in support of
haskell-latex.el.

haskell-latex.el: mode for LaTeX-based `literate Haskell' based on
multi-mode.el.

maths-menu.el: input of maths/technical characters through menus.

multi-mode.el: addresses the TODO item `Implement a clean way to use
different major modes for different parts of a buffer' in the way
intended.

noweb.el: mode for literate programming with `noweb' based on
multi-mode.el.

(cif.el and pdb.el there are for crystallographic data formats -- not
of wide interest.)

Re: various bits of code

[Glenn Morris]

Dave Love wrote:

> diary-outlook.el: dealing with appointments sent as mail by MS Outlook
> (Exchange?); intended for diary-lib.el.

RMS asked me to look at this one a looong time ago; and while I
didn't forget about it I've clearly been very tardy, for which I
apologize.

What do you think about installing it as calendar/diary-import.el;
since as you said in your g-e-s posting it is potentially adaptable
to other similar systems besides Outlook?

Re: various bits of code

[Dave Love]

Glenn Morris <gmorris+emacs@ast.cam.ac.uk> writes:

> What do you think about installing it as calendar/diary-import.el;

I thought it was small enough and appropriate enough to go in
diary-lib, but I don't have a strong opinion.

> since as you said in your g-e-s posting it is potentially adaptable
> to other similar systems besides Outlook?

`import' sounds a bit general to me -- I'd expect that to cover things
like importing from your PDA, but I think I didn't have a good
alternative, so I'll leave to others' judgement.  (I don't know
whether any other systems actually do send out this sort of thing, but
it is reasonable modulo the semi-useless variable format from
Exchange.)

Re: various bits of code

[Glenn Morris]

Dave Love wrote:

> I thought it was small enough and appropriate enough to go in
> diary-lib, but I don't have a strong opinion.

Me neither. I wouldn't quibble with the appropriateness at all; I just
thought that it was bigger than some of the existing .el files already
in calendar/, and that diary-lib was already of a fair size.

> `import' sounds a bit general to me -- I'd expect that to cover things
> like importing from your PDA, but I think I didn't have a good
> alternative, so I'll leave to others' judgement. 

The simplest solution would therefore be for me to add it to
diary-lib.el for now at least.

Re: various bits of code

[Glenn Morris]

Glenn Morris wrote:

> The simplest solution would therefore be for me to add it to
> diary-lib.el for now at least.

Now installed.

Re: various bits of code

[Detlev Zundel]

Glenn Morris <gmorris+emacs@ast.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dave Love wrote:
>
>> diary-outlook.el: dealing with appointments sent as mail by MS Outlook
>> (Exchange?); intended for diary-lib.el.
>
> RMS asked me to look at this one a looong time ago; and while I
> didn't forget about it I've clearly been very tardy, for which I
> apologize.
>
> What do you think about installing it as calendar/diary-import.el;
> since as you said in your g-e-s posting it is potentially adaptable
> to other similar systems besides Outlook?

Could you take a look at the icalendar.el stuff from Ulf Jasper[1] while
being on the job?  I think an ical import/export would be very useful
as the new Mozilla calendar can also work with this format.

Thanks
  Detlev

[1] http://de.geocities.com/ulf_jasper/lisp/icalendar.el.txt

-- 
It's very important  that you sleep because that's  when your brain is
garbage  collecting.  And a  dream is  if you  are interrupted  in the
middle and have junk left in the registers.
                                          -- Gerald Sussman

Re: various bits of code

[Richard Stallman]

Should we consider icalendar.el for inclusion in Emacs?
Could you summarize briefly what job it does?

Re: various bits of code

[Detlev Zundel]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> Should we consider icalendar.el for inclusion in Emacs?

I'd like to see something with its functionality inside Emacs, yes.
It should be better integrated however before it will be useful for
more people.

> Could you summarize briefly what job it does?

Sure.  From the source:

;;  icalendar.el aims at providing an implementation of the iCalendar
;;  standard as defined in "RFC 2445 -- Internet Calendaring and
;;  Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar)".

As an interchange format between calendar applications, the iCalendar
standard would allow us diary users to connect to other iCal
applications and to create and react to emails having such content.

Especially the recent Mozilla Calendar plugin can work with this
format so Emacs diary users could connect to it.  As Mozilla Calendar
allows to access remote calendar files this is very interesting for
teams to share their schedules.

The current implementation can export a complete diary file into an
iCal file and translate most iCal records into diary syntax from a
buffer or a file.

On the todo list is a synchronization method via http.  Perhaps
someone would pick up this interesting feature and implement it once
such code is in the Emacs release.

I should state that the code is apparently in an early stage however:

(defconst icalendar-version 0.05
  "Version number of icalendar.el.
Version 0.05 is a pre-alpha release!")


Cheers
  Detlev

-- 
Once the  implementation is  up and running,  it is still a trick to keep it
running.  In a normal,  closed implementation,  this is not a problem;  in a
system with metaobject protocols [..] there is the potential for spectacular
failure modes if certain situations are not properly anticipated.
                                       -- The Art of the Metaobject Protocol

Re: various bits of code

[Richard Stallman]

    The current implementation can export a complete diary file into an
    iCal file and translate most iCal records into diary syntax from a
    buffer or a file.

    On the todo list is a synchronization method via http.  Perhaps
    someone would pick up this interesting feature and implement it once
    such code is in the Emacs release.

    I should state that the code is apparently in an early stage however:

    (defconst icalendar-version 0.05
      "Version number of icalendar.el.
    Version 0.05 is a pre-alpha release!")

It sounds like a good feature to add.  Can you tell me the name
and email address ofthe developer?

Re: various bits of code

[Detlev Zundel]

Hello Richard,

>     The current implementation can export a complete diary file into an
>     iCal file and translate most iCal records into diary syntax from a
>     buffer or a file.
>
>     On the todo list is a synchronization method via http.  Perhaps
>     someone would pick up this interesting feature and implement it once
>     such code is in the Emacs release.
>
>     I should state that the code is apparently in an early stage however:
>
>     (defconst icalendar-version 0.05
>       "Version number of icalendar.el.
>     Version 0.05 is a pre-alpha release!")
>
> It sounds like a good feature to add.  Can you tell me the name
> and email address ofthe developer?

Sure.  According to the source the author is

  Ulf Jasper <ulf.jasper@web.de>

Cheers
  Detlev

-- 
Peace of mind isn't at all superficial to technical work.  It's the
whole thing.   That which  produces it is good work  and that which
destroys it is bad work.
                                        -- Robert M. Pirsig