From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim X Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs improvements Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:07:47 +1100 Organization: Unlimited download news at news.astraweb.com Message-ID: <87tyhmao8c.fsf@puma.rapttech.com.au> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1294274454 21677 80.91.229.12 (6 Jan 2011 00:40:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 00:40:54 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jan 06 01:40:50 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PaduI-0006QT-RJ for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 01:40:47 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:57006 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PaduI-0007Vr-7m for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:40:46 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.glorb.com!news2.glorb.com!news.astraweb.com!border6.newsrouter.astraweb.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:sAcA31tO9sjYBtp0UsnBB1rDEnk= Original-Lines: 70 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: ee43528e.news.astraweb.com Original-X-Trace: DXC=HiW@K?I\KgbK; GKPh8BJfdL?0kYOcDh@j7^o:UA4R?ceQoROW03nDNh]G; 2>V^?kWcCAkl5c@XgknH]cBRl5W4>lDhb6V6:>o8f Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:184044 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:78243 Archived-At: Davin Pearson writes: > On my website (www.davinpearson.com) I have outlined 12 different > improvements to Emacs. Only one of these have I submitted to the > Emacs Lisp List at DAMTP, Cambridge University, namely trashcan.el. > > Would it be worthwhile to my time to submit all of my improvements to > the Emacs Lisp List? > > Another thing that I thought of today is how I have made dired to > behave like Windows Explorer on steriods in the following ways: > > Different files appear in different colours (e.g. folders appear in > blue, *.png appears lightmagenta, *.c appears in bold and HTML > documents appear with a yellow background. Text documents and > fundamental mode documents appear with no decoration at all. > > Pressing return on certain files such as images runs cygstart to > launch that an appropriate program much like Windows Explorer. > > I have personally found Emacs' font lock support very useful and I > imagine other Emacs users would find my code helpful too. I think you should certainly make your code available. This has two benefits. Anyone interested enough can install and try out your modifications, providing a good testing base for finding bugs and refining how things work and secondly, if it is used/adopted by a lot of people, it adds weight to any argument for making it part of standard emacs. Provided the functionality can be disabled, it does not adversely impact performance when running under a text console or remotely over X and is well supported on all platforms that support emacs, I have no problems with your proposals, except maybe the last one. I dislike systems that try to be too smart because too often they get it wrong. I find the existing dired features do what you suggest pretty well already. Perhapse, we could change default values (though need a very good argument), make features more obvious via documentation improvements or perhaps unify setup/configuration in some way. Most of what you suggest already appears to be there * Images supported by emacs are displayed when I hit enter on them already. Most common image formats are already supported. * dired-guess-shell functionality provides pretty good defaults for 'executing' programs and I don't see where your suggestion would improve it. * I really like keeping the act of executing a file and viewing or editing it distinct and would prefer not to see that 'muddied'. Currently, enter for editing, v for viewing and ! for executing. * I don't necessarily want external programs run when I hit enter or view file for many programs i.e. html, ps, etc * doc-view handles display of many file types already i.e. pdf, dvi, etc * browse-url handles display/rendering of html content already, though you do need to setup a hot key or tweak dired-guess-shell setup * Given emacs is single threaded, I'm not convinced it makes a really good general purpose file browser. It certainly makes sense in the context of viewing/editing content, bu for general execution of programs, I'm more likely to use an OS level file browser. Of course, this is just one opinion. Certainly make your code available if you can as that gives the most choice. Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au