Re: [ELPA] Want to submit two packages "ilist" and "blist"

[Durand <mmemmew@gmail.com>]

>>>>> On Sun, 19 Sep 2021 03:15:42 -0700, Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> said:

    Stefan> Durand <mmemmew@gmail.com> writes:
    >> I have written two Emacs pacakges, called "ilist" and "blist"
    >> (the former is the "engine", and hence a dependency, of the
    >> latter).  Now I am thinking about submitting the packages to GNU
    >> ELPA.
    >> 
    >> The package "blist" is to display the list of bookmarks, in the
    >> sense of "bookmark.el", in a similar way as Ibuffer.

    Stefan> Thanks, this looks useful at a first glance, and something
    Stefan> that I think we should definitely welcome on GNU ELPA.

Thanks.

    Stefan> I wonder why you chose to write this as an entirely new
    Stefan> package instead of improving the bookmark list we already
    Stefan> have in bookmark.el.  Could you explain your rationale for
    Stefan> this?

    Stefan> One thing that stands out is that you list bookmarks by
    Stefan> category, like in ibuffer, something that I don't think is
    Stefan> currently possible with `tabulated-list-mode'.

Yes, this is one reason: it would be a breaking change if I want to
modify the existing library.

And when I was thinking about this idea my main concern was in fact the
package "ilist", which is an abstract library package.  It seems natural
that "ilist" should be a separate package, and I did not think too much
when I built "blist" upon "ilist".  I guess I am not used to the idea of
modifying existing Emacs packages.

    Stefan> Some other scattered comments:

    Stefan> - Is any of this suitable for inclusion in bookmark.el?  I'm
    Stefan> thinking of `blist-show-all-annotations', for example.

I think maybe some functions of bookmark.el can be improved, like its
annotation-showing functions: it would be a good idea to refrain from
showing empty annotations.  Also I think the function "bookmark-load"
can be improved as well: its documentation string says that the newly
loaded bookmarks will be appended at the front of the list, but from the
codes it seems that the new list will be appended at the end (as seen in
the function "bookmark-import-new-list").  But in general my codes are
built upon the outputs of ilist, so might not be directly suitable for
inclusion in bookmark.el.

    Stefan> - I would add (defalias 'blist 'blist-list-bookmarks) for
    Stefan> discoverability.

This is a good idea.  Thanks!

    Stefan> - blist-show-annotation says "No bookmarks to show" when it
    Stefan> should probably say "No annotation for this bookmark".  I
    Stefan> think?

Thanks, I will modify this later.

    Stefan> - Instead of the in-buffer header, you could use
    Stefan> `header-line-format', which means that the header stays on
    Stefan> top even as you scroll down.

I am not sure a header is that useful to see all the time.  But I
understand that some users might prefer the header.  I will attempt to
provide a user option to control this behaviour.  Thanks for the
suggestion.

-- 
Durand