Re: Suggestion for improving ergonomics of repeat-maps: define-repeat-map

[Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net>]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Doesn't the manual document the syntax of both of these?

I'm sorry, you're right, it does, the key being in these lines:

  @defun define-keymap &key options... &rest pairs...

  @defmac defvar-keymap name options &rest defs

That's what I get for trying to read the raw texinfo in a diff buffer.

> But I guess it's a bit confusing how the syntaxes are similar but
> different?  I went back and forth a number of time on the syntax --
> define-keymap is a function, so it can't do the function-line macro
> syntax that defvar-keymap can (which is better).  But having the first
> argument of define-keymap be a list (which would be preferable in most
> ways) just looked awkward.
>
> (define-keymap (list :full t)
>   ...)
>
> But I'm open to changing it if it's too confusing the way it is now.

If users see this function and macro as "siblings," I could imagine
their slightly different signatures being confusing.  I don't know if
that would justify changing them to be more similar.

To be honest, I was surprised to see defvar-keymap as a separate macro.
I was expecting, e.g. define-keymap to be used inside a defvar,
something like:

  (defvar foo-map
    (define-keymap ...)
    "Docstring for foo-map.")

Not to complain about having the macro, of course.  :)