Re: Some question about external method of elpa

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

> 1. Does elpa cron auto call  "make external" or similar process to
>    check out all the external packages?

Pretty much, yes.

> 2. If cron auto checkout external packages, does package author need
>    manual-checkout?

I don't understand the question.  When?  Where?

> 3. Does subtree method have any advanced than external branch?

It's different, not really better.  It's most appropriate when you
intend to move the "upstream" from elsewhere to elpa.git.

>    if no, what about obsolote this method? In my opinion, subtree
>    seem to very hard to manage.

If you keep developing your package elsewhere, a "subtree" is indeed
more work than an "external".

> 4. I use subtree to manage posframe package, but I want to switch
>    to  external branch method, how to work?

1- Create the new externals/posframe branch on elpa.git
2- Then "git rm package/posframe" and change the ":subtree" to
   a ":external" in "externals-list".
3- Then push those changes you created at step (2) to the `master` branch
   of elpa.git.

That's pretty much it on your side (I'll probably have to do some clean
on elpa.gnu.org in response to that, tho I keep hoping that I finally
fixed the last issue in the scripts to handle this situation).

>    what about create a subtree2external command?

The demand hasn't been very high, so I wouldn't bother, but fee free to
add one to elpa.git's "admin/" subdirectory.


        Stefan