bug#19603: 24.4.51; Improve emacs startup message.

bug#19603: 24.4.51; Improve emacs startup message.

[Thierry Volpiatto]

Hi,

Now emacs packages are widely used,
it would be great to improve the startup message of emacs with a link
about how to quickly setup package.el to be usable.
I have regularly people complaining "It is not working" because
they install packages through package.el and they don't add in their
init file `package-initialize', or they try compiling autoload file
etc...  I have provided a link in my Readme file to redirect to a brief
documentation on how to use all this, but apparently many don't read
this...

WDYT ?



In GNU Emacs 24.4.51.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.10.8)
 of 2015-01-11 on dell-14z
Repository revision: b544ab561fcb575790c963a2eda51524fa366409
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11501000
System Description:	Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS

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-- 
Thierry
Get my Gnupg key:
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 59F29997 

bug#19603: 24.4.51; Improve emacs startup message.

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2015 07:21:02 +0100 Thierry Volpiatto <thierry.volpiatto@gmail.com> wrote: 

TV> Now emacs packages are widely used,
TV> it would be great to improve the startup message of emacs with a link
TV> about how to quickly setup package.el to be usable.
TV> I have regularly people complaining "It is not working" because
TV> they install packages through package.el and they don't add in their
TV> init file `package-initialize', or they try compiling autoload file
TV> etc...  I have provided a link in my Readme file to redirect to a brief
TV> documentation on how to use all this, but apparently many don't read
TV> this...

I bring this up every 2 years or so; it's time...

In Gnus and Emacs we have assistant.el, which could be used to guide the
user through the necessary steps to get packages working and then go
straight to `list-packages'.  Maybe it could be useful here?

Ted

bug#19603: 24.4.51; Improve emacs startup message.

[Stefan Monnier]

> Now emacs packages are widely used,
> it would be great to improve the startup message of emacs with a link
> about how to quickly setup package.el to be usable.
> I have regularly people complaining "It is not working" because
> they install packages through package.el and they don't add in their
> init file `package-initialize',

Right, we do call package-initialize automatically for them, but we do
it "too late" in many cases.  Maybe the best option is to emit some
message at startup in the following case:
- there are packages installed.
- the .emacs file is non-empty.
- there is no call to package-initialize in the .emacs file.

> or they try compiling autoload file etc...

No idea how/why they'd do that, hence no idea how to help them
understand they shouldn't/needn't do it.  This said, it should do no
harm, does it?


        Stefan

bug#19603: 24.4.51; Improve emacs startup message.

[Thierry Volpiatto]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:

>> Now emacs packages are widely used,
>> it would be great to improve the startup message of emacs with a link
>> about how to quickly setup package.el to be usable.
>> I have regularly people complaining "It is not working" because
>> they install packages through package.el and they don't add in their
>> init file `package-initialize',
>
> Right, we do call package-initialize automatically for them, but we do
> it "too late" in many cases.  Maybe the best option is to emit some
> message at startup in the following case:
> - there are packages installed.
> - the .emacs file is non-empty.
> - there is no call to package-initialize in the .emacs file.

Yeah, anything will be good as long as they are warned.

> No idea how/why they'd do that, hence no idea how to help them
> understand they shouldn't/needn't do it.  This said, it should do no
> harm, does it?

It should not, normally it should not be possible compiling this, but
one time one succeeded to do this, don't know how though, but yes that is
not the problem the main problem is package-initialize not called.

Thanks.

-- 
Thierry
Get my Gnupg key:
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 59F29997 

bug#19603: 24.4.51; Improve emacs startup message.

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 01/15/2015 06:12 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote:

> Maybe the best option is to emit some
> message at startup in the following case:
> - there are packages installed.
> - the .emacs file is non-empty.
> - there is no call to package-initialize in the .emacs file.

But deferring packages initialization till after the init file has been 
loaded is a valid strategy.

Maybe instead `require' should be advised during init file loading to do 
something smart if the feature isn't found, but corresponds to a file in 
.emacs.d/elpa/**/.

bug#19603: 24.4.51; Improve emacs startup message.

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Maybe the best option is to emit some
>> message at startup in the following case:
>> - there are packages installed.
>> - the .emacs file is non-empty.
>> - there is no call to package-initialize in the .emacs file.
> But deferring packages initialization till after the init file has been
> loaded is a valid strategy.

It interacts poorly with hand customizations in ~/.emacs which typically
assume/need the packages to be initialized.

Note that the equivalent initialization (i.e. loading the autoloads) is
done (long) before loading the .emacs file for all the built-in packages.


        Stefan

bug#19603: 24.4.51; Improve emacs startup message.

[Noam Postavsky]

close 19603
quit

Thierry Volpiatto <thierry.volpiatto@gmail.com> writes:

> Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:
>
>>> Now emacs packages are widely used,
>>> it would be great to improve the startup message of emacs with a link
>>> about how to quickly setup package.el to be usable.
>>> I have regularly people complaining "It is not working" because
>>> they install packages through package.el and they don't add in their
>>> init file `package-initialize',
>>
>> Right, we do call package-initialize automatically for them, but we do
>> it "too late" in many cases.  Maybe the best option is to emit some
>> message at startup in the following case:
>> - there are packages installed.
>> - the .emacs file is non-empty.
>> - there is no call to package-initialize in the .emacs file.
>
> Yeah, anything will be good as long as they are warned.

The package-initialize problem is now solved in master in a different
way (such that nothing extra needs to be added for the typical case).

[1: 24acb31c04]: 2018-02-17 13:36:16 +0200
  Add early init file, stop package-initialize insertion
  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/commit/?id=24acb31c04b4048b85311d794e600ecd7ce60d3b