Re: Request to distribute Casual packages on NonGNU ELPA

[Charles Choi <kickingvegas@gmail.com>]

Philip - 

Thanks for responding. My answers to your questions as follows:

> I haven't tried the code yet, and reviewing these will take some time,
> but my understanding that this is reinventing a lot of Emacs
> functionality using Transient, right?

The Casual packages should be viewed as user interface porcelains to existing Emacs functionality and takes great effort to not "reinvent" nor re-implement existing commands and their associated variables. No functions are advised by Casual. The Casual packages do however re-imagine the interactive user interfaces to said commands and variables as keyboard-driven menus.

> Do you have any preferred or recommended order in which you think that I
> should review the code?  From the names I am guessing that casual-lib is
> a dependency that the others share?

casual-lib is a common library to all the Casual packages. It is recommended that this package be reviewed first. casual-suite is an umbrella package that includes all Casual packages and as such should be reviewed last.

At current there are 13 Casual packages to review. Here's a recommended order of review that skews toward the simpler packages to be reviewed earlier. That said the only strict guidance is to review casual-lib first and casual-suite last.

https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-lib/

https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-isearch/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-symbol-overlay/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-avy/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-re-builder/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-dired/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-bookmarks/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-calc/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-ibuffer/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-info/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-agenda/
https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-editkit/

https://github.com/kickingvegas/casual-suite/


> Another question that I can only raise now as I haven't looked at the
> code in greater detail yet is how deep the transient dependency goes.
> Would it be possible to re-use quick-help instead?  I had sketched
> something along those lines a few months back, where a map could bind a
> pseudo-key to return a `help-quick-sections' like structure.  The
> advantage is that you only have to list commands and descriptions,
> without trying to bind key again inside of Transient, as I understand it
> being the case right now.

The Casual packages use Transient to implement keyboard-driven menus with opinionated bindings. I consider these binding decisions to be core to the value of Casual in that they support a truly hand-crafted user experience. I have no interest in refactoring their behavior to use quick-help, nor in maintaining strict conformance to existing default command bindings. That said, many existing default command bindings are supported in Casual. If any of these positions are a block to publication on NonGNU ELPA, I will retract my request for review. Hopefully though this is not the case as I have the greatest enthusiasm to see these packages being reviewed and published on ELPA.


All my best -

Charles

—
Charles Y. Choi, Ph.D.
kickingvegas@gmail.com