From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta,gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Emacs setup assistants Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 22:55:17 +0200 Organization: Programmerer Ingebrigtsen Sender: xemacs-beta-admin@xemacs.org Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1084914706 22712 80.91.224.253 (18 May 2004 21:11:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 21:11:46 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: xemacs-beta-admin@xemacs.org Tue May 18 23:11:38 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BQBsA-0001tC-00 for ; Tue, 18 May 2004 23:11:38 +0200 Original-Received: from gwyn.tux.org ([199.184.165.135]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BQBs6-0005D6-00 for ; Tue, 18 May 2004 23:11:37 +0200 Original-Received: from gwyn.tux.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by gwyn.tux.org (8.11.6p2/8.9.1) with ESMTP id i4IL81s01025; Tue, 18 May 2004 17:08:01 -0400 Original-Received: (from turnbull@localhost) by gwyn.tux.org (8.11.6p2/8.9.1) id i4IL7xI00998 for xemacs-beta-mailman@xemacs.org; Tue, 18 May 2004 17:07:59 -0400 Original-Received: (from mail@localhost) by gwyn.tux.org (8.11.6p2/8.9.1) id i4IL7wD00979 for turnbull@tux.org; Tue, 18 May 2004 17:07:58 -0400 Original-Received: from main.gmane.org (main.gmane.org [80.91.224.249]) by gwyn.tux.org (8.11.6p2/8.9.1) with ESMTP id i4IL7vs00969 for ; Tue, 18 May 2004 17:07:57 -0400 Original-Received: from root by main.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BQBoa-0004CZ-00 for ; Tue, 18 May 2004 23:07:56 +0200 Original-Received: from quimbies.gnus.org ([80.91.231.2]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 18 May 2004 23:07:56 +0200 Original-Received: from larsi by quimbies.gnus.org with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 18 May 2004 23:07:56 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org Original-To: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org Original-Lines: 60 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: quimbies.gnus.org Mail-Copies-To: never X-Now-Playing: Coil's _Love's Secret Domain_: "Further Back And Faster" Face: iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADAAAAAwAgMAAAAqbBEUAAAADFBMVEWpd0UnEBJ0NSVUHxzJ JpK9AAACCElEQVR4nCXSz2vTYBgH8K8p/sro/AO8FETUiPXkdRT/h5eA0KXgQRwIQyiVjC25yOYu uw+ZsbDSPampCMPZuiToZXjyUnuQNT1qylovXWdj8vqme0/vh+/zPO/LywsmVnF1bBjjEwbGJqwY BzwaPxVQjSKfJlHkeLFI1CI/80a81uRIezpHXpwM7XN0/XwUukkyAxdwnF4rRTnqO9R2uUjKKm+9 XyNb++lBLRucPrtEj/QmVPbCoRZVFS8cQdOWFWr92rQcnUPjfcX+ShuQjRT1T2GVCHe5gbXgdJ/Z dyobSmRgerpQ27Hw1pJXVUz/Uc0iZMJ5xqCHTsO6AklXZqjv+jKyul1UoU8bewULl7apyLAU1V6V FOR3PAF9QHZJxjXuVQR+N6ggI0+uGLAUNpoFCfddNy0bHqVoyi2ejva3fCDfbhtjLIZmtmDi1vYH 0aMOzKsAsklVlLGQGhJwoUeTDhjJQ6SQOyKpyzWYmHs9nyI0m5Csy9Y5rEwB9QQLgcBzgH3JHsCJ Bc5yuO6v50wcCvQOcO/beg5Iz1nkyGxuWTI9EQgCRVJumMqPNAmOxXNAMt88E5jEEFtI3RMVjBs+ CWS0scCI/10m6fbNrnYsEj587M+9+6itVASSYR/Sy1jlac80+Q5c3FU1DWzKvT8SHuwzY0XcehCX 8rQ3Fl8ALGodPqQZ2H8vjCYQEHIoHAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== User-Agent: Gnus/5.110003 (No Gnus v0.3) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:+sRepgmy50h9jwVNvMIjrhgaN10= X-XEmacs-List: beta Errors-To: xemacs-beta-admin@xemacs.org X-BeenThere: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: XEmacs Beta Testers List-Unsubscribe: , Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta:14732 gmane.emacs.devel:23661 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:23661 One project that's been on my mind (well, far back of my mind) for a few years has been to implement something that would make it easy to set up complex stuff by guiding the user through the process. This differs from Customize by being a guided tour through the options, not just a big whopping menu of stuff to twiddle. For instance, when setting Gnus up for reading news, an assistant would look around the environment for sensible news server defaults, present these to the user, ask for corrections, and at the end check whether the information given is sensible (ie., that the news server exists). (That's a pretty trivial example; setting up spam handling or mail reading is much more complicated. :-) My original plan was to use something HTML-like, and use w3, but Per Abraahmsen suggested using something more TeXinfo like, and I thought that was a really groovy idea, so here's an example assistant specification. (It's a mock-up; no code has been written, and most assistants would have more pages than one.) ----------- @title Configuring Gnus for reading news @node Server name and port @variable server :string (gnus-getenv-nntpserver) @variable port :number 119 @validate (let ((stream (condition-case err (open-network-stream "nntpd" nil server port) (error (setq error err))))) (if (memq (process-status stream) '(open run)) (progn (delete-process stream) t) nil))) @end validate @result gnus-select-method (list server port) @text To read Usenet news with Gnus, you first have to tell Gnus where the news server is. The server name is @variable{server}; port number @variable{port}. @end text ----------- Rendering this is another issue. I'm posting this here (on the Emacs and XEmacs development lists) to let all y'all know what's up, and get the loud objections that I'm sure are imminent... :-) And also -- would actually extending the texinfo.el parser be a good idea, or should I just roll my own (which would call texinfo.el functions, of course)? -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen