Re: A different way to interactively pass options to commands

[Doug Davis <ddavis@ddavis.io>]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Yes, it does sound quite attractive.  For instance, in Gnus, when
> responding to a message, there's...  I don't know how many commands.
> Let's see:
>
> S F		gnus-summary-followup-with-original
> S L		gnus-summary-reply-to-list-with-original
> S N		gnus-summary-followup-to-mail-with-original
> S R		gnus-summary-reply-with-original
> S V		gnus-summary-very-wide-reply-with-original
> S W		gnus-summary-wide-reply-with-original
> S f		gnus-summary-followup
> S n		gnus-summary-followup-to-mail
> S r		gnus-summary-reply
> S v		gnus-summary-very-wide-reply
> S w		gnus-summary-wide-reply
> S B R		gnus-summary-reply-broken-reply-to-with-original
> S B r		gnus-summary-reply-broken-reply-to
>
> 13!  Geez.  Anyway, the interface you describe would fit this use case
> well, it seems to me: The choices are whether to include the original or
> not, and what subset of the To/Cc's to include in the set...  Currently,
> users are probably tapping `S C-h' and then learn what the binding is,
> and then using that.  And then forgetting until the next time.
>
> A Magit-like popup menu would probably be a much superior interface
> here, I think?

I think the menu of gnus-summary response functions can definitely
benefit from something like transient. Below is a proof-of-concept I
just used to call `gnus-summary-wide-reply-with-original' after binding
a new pop-up function to "." followed up by invoking the desired gnus
function with "-w", "-o", "r".

The total number of keystrokes is a bit more than "S W" but the
interface is indeed a welcome addition that would help with
discoverability of the (potentially many) actions, as Óscar mentioned,
if/when the actions and arguments grow. The flag arguments also make it
clear that "-w, --wide" and "-o, --original" are add-ons to the core
action.

I'm sure there's room for refinement; my transient use has been limited
to useless tinkering as a curious magit user, this is honestly the first
real use I've gotten out of writing transient-using code myself ;)
thanks for sparking the idea

#+begin_src emacs-lisp

;; package code:

(require 'transient)
(require 'gnus-sum)

(defun gp--reply-action (&optional args)
  (interactive
   (list (transient-args 'gnus-summary-popup)))
  (let ((-v (member "--very" args))
        (-w (member "--wide" args))
        (-o (member "--original" args)))
    (call-interactively
     (cond ((and -v -w -o) 'gnus-summary-very-wide-reply-with-original)
           ((and -v -w)    'gnus-summary-very-wide-reply)
           ((and -w -o)    'gnus-summary-wide-reply-with-original)
           (-w             'gnus-summary-wide-reply)
           (-o             'gnus-summary-reply-with-original)
           (t              'gnus-summary-reply)))))

(define-transient-command gnus-summary-popup ()
  "Gnus reply popup"
  ["Arguments"
   ("-v" "very" "--very")
   ("-w" "wide" "--wide")
   ("-o" "original" "--original")]
  ["Actions"
   ("r" "Reply" gp--reply-action)])

(provide 'gnus-popup)

;; user code:

(require 'gnus-popup)
(define-key gnus-summary-mode-map (kbd ".") 'gnus-summary-popup)

#+end_src