RFC: adding erc-hide-lines to GNU ELPA

RFC: adding erc-hide-lines to GNU ELPA

[Corwin Brust]

Hi Emacs devotees,

The forwarded message describes a "new" module for ERC. I sending on
to this list as an "RFC" regarding adding this to GNU ELPA.

Based on the discussion so far, we think publishing it separately for
now (via GNU ELPA) may be nice.  This could let us improve the feature
via feedback from more people, while we work on what may be a long
discussion regarding integrating it with ERC, proper.  As context,
there is some sense this approach may eventually supplement or even
replace several features currently deeply ingrained in ERC, such as
for discarding messages and channel activity tracking.

TIA for comments and feedback of any type, but especially your views
on adding this to ELPA.

Corwin

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Corwin Brust <corwin@bru.st>
Date: Sun, Feb 13, 2022 at 9:20 AM
Subject: erc-hide-lines - per channel hide/show
To: <emacs-erc@gnu.org>
Cc: F. Jason Park <jp@neverwas.me>


TL;DR  Appears stable, might try for patches to ERC "soon".

erc-hide-lines - toggle display of IRC message visibility

  https://sr.ht/~mplscorwin/erc-hide-line/

Please test/review & share your feedback!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I have been using this in my daily driver for around 1yr and I'm happy
with it.  So much so that I will likely offer a patch to see it
included in ERC in the not-too-distant future.  Alternately, this
could go to ELPA (as separate from ERC) -- hence cross-posting to
devel as a sort of Pre-RFC, in case the consensus may be to go that
direction, at least initially. Please share your thoughts if you like
one or the other of these approaches better.

_Recent Updates_

- add ERC module declaration
- easily hide most types using ":most"
- fix inf-loop given invalid settings
- improve README/docstrings

_Less Recent Updates_

- remove need for patching ERC (thanks JP)
- erc-hide-show: (C-h C-h h) set/apply to defaults or channel
- cmd: erc-hide-show-toggle: (C-h M-h) hide/show in current buffer

_Next Steps_

- improve keymap (remove bindings when disabling)
- use erc-track-exclude for (fallback?) defaults
- prep patches to merge to ERC or publish via ELPA

_Later Maybe_

- get hidable types via introspection/code-scraping
- hide stuff per-network, per-nick, combinations, etc.
- support ignore/fools/pals/...?
- extract the "mini-DSL" for ease of reuse
- roadmap supplementing/replacing "drop" based features with
"hide-line" approach

TYVM to many, especially JP for up-to-and hasty drive-by copy-edits of
this note and Emanuel for help getting rid of byte/native comp
warnings, and in advance to the community for your help testing this,
and for your feedback and suggestions.