bug#53280: 29.0.50; M-x recover-this-file's file list not informative

bug#53280: 29.0.50; M-x recover-this-file's file list not informative

[Jean Louis]

When doing M-x recover-this-file, I am presented with list of files
similarly like in Dired listing. If file is 465k and difference small
with files, then I just see 2 files, one being "#file#" and other
"file". That list presented as a choice for decision if to recover the
file or not is not sufficiently informative. It gives me no information
on why should I recover the file.

Something more informative would be if Emacs would tell me which file is
larger.

Even better would be if I could be represented an option to quickly see
the difference between the files.


In GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, cairo version 1.17.4, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2022-01-09 built on protected.rcdrun.com
Repository revision: 3984ea855361f8c82cdeffbc616dbb459c257dae
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12013000
System Description: Parabola GNU/Linux-libre

Configured using:
 'configure --with-x-toolkit=lucid'

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG
JSON LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES NOTIFY INOTIFY
PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS
WEBP X11 XAW3D XDBE XIM XPM LUCID ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $LANG: de_DE.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=exwm-xim
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message mailcap yank-media rmc puny
dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg
rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date seq gv
subr-x byte-opt bytecomp byte-compile cconv mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader cl-loaddefs
cl-lib sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils
iso-transl tooltip eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd
tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace
newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar
rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock
font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer cl-generic
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript
charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray
cl-preloaded nadvice button loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files
window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages
mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote threads
dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting
font-render-setting cairo x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process
emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 46060 9863)
 (symbols 48 6198 3)
 (strings 32 17417 1648)
 (string-bytes 1 539956)
 (vectors 16 11662)
 (vector-slots 8 161706 12752)
 (floats 8 22 52)
 (intervals 56 236 0)
 (buffers 992 11))

-- 
Thanks,
Jean Louis

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bug#53280: 29.0.50; M-x recover-this-file's file list not informative

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> Even better would be if I could be represented an option to quickly see
> the difference between the files.

This is the same as bug#52242, so I've now merged the two.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#53280: 29.0.50; M-x recover-this-file's file list not informative

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2022 13:01:21 +0300
> 
> 
> When doing M-x recover-this-file, I am presented with list of files
> similarly like in Dired listing. If file is 465k and difference small
> with files, then I just see 2 files, one being "#file#" and other
> "file". That list presented as a choice for decision if to recover the
> file or not is not sufficiently informative. It gives me no information
> on why should I recover the file.
> 
> Something more informative would be if Emacs would tell me which file is
> larger.

I don't understand: the Dired-like display does include the sizes of
both files.  It also shows the dates, which could be no less important
factor for making the decision.

> Even better would be if I could be represented an option to quickly see
> the difference between the files.

I agree; patches to that effect are welcome.

bug#53280: 29.0.50; M-x recover-this-file's file list not informative

[Jean Louis]

* Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2022-01-15 13:35]:
> I don't understand: the Dired-like display does include the sizes of
> both files.  It also shows the dates, which could be no less important
> factor for making the decision.

File was huge and I could not see byte differences.

Maybe it is due to my Dired listing settings being: -gohl
--group-directories-first 

Though it would be better if I can actually see differences and not
just seeing differences by using my personal dired listing settings.

Jean

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