Re: Patch to make VC annotate async

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> This patch changes the VC annotate command to allow back ends to run
> annotation in the background.  It also changes the CVS back end to
> do this.

I've been using a local patch to do the same thing for a long time now.
The main problem has been that the UI is somewhat incompatible with an async
behavior: the coloring of lines may depend on the overall youngest and
oldest lines, so the color of even the first line may depend on the content
of the last line.
IIRC that was the main reason not to accept my changes at first.
But IIRC I've fixed this since so that the colors are updated as the content
comes along.  I'll try and extract a new patch for it.

> 	* vc.el (vc-annotate-display-select): Don't pop to buffer if one
> 	is specified.
> 	(vc-annotate): Run vc-annotate-display-select via vc-exec-after.

Oh, so you don't even add the coloring until after the whole data
was received.  Hmmm...

> 	* vc-cvs.el (vc-cvs-annotate-output): New variable.
> 	(vc-cvs-annotate-process-filter): New function.
> 	(vc-cvs-annotate-command): Run command async.  Use
> 	vc-cvs-annotate-process-filter.

I don't understand the prupose of vc-cvs-annotate-process-filter.  In my
implementation I haven't needed any change to vc-cvs.el other than passing
the `async' flag to vc-do-command.


        Stefan