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: understanding emacs packages Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:18:52 +1000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <877ilys38j.fsf@lion.rapttech.com.au> References: <1191413661.873145.69990@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> <874ph8nwe1.fsf@W0053328.mgh.harvard.edu> <1191420317.776020.58280@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com> <87ejgb2pdz.fsf@lion.rapttech.com.au> <1191731933.039348.11670@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> <1191793709.844823.323110@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1191814884 17461 80.91.229.12 (8 Oct 2007 03:41:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 03:41:24 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Oct 08 05:41:23 2007 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 4.50) id 1IejUf-00027u-Uw for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:41:22 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1IejUa-0001Wx-Q9 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:41:16 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xt-sjc-03!sn-xt-sjc-08!sn-post-sjc-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:LqbENe5ZUezrgJDR/+S/43S1674= Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Original-Lines: 49 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:152697 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:48202 Archived-At: knubee writes: >> > what is a use scenario for this function? >> >> When you want to find Emacs packages by a keyword. For example, all >> packages related to multimedia are marked with the "multimedia" >> keyword. > > Yes, but for those of you who actually use this function, when do you > find it helpful? > For example, lets say I've been doing some programming and there are a couple of things I'd like to modify in my working environment. In particular, 1. I'd like to be able to hide parts of a program source that I'm not interested in 2. I'm working in a specific problem domain and there are lots of similar constructs I need to code in most programs I write. I'd like to have some sort of template system that would automate this 3. I'd like to have better integration between my editor and the version control system we are using 4. I'd like my source files to be automatically updated with a last edited time stamp when I save them 5. I'm wondering what other tools emacs may have which I could find useful. I do C-h p and look through the list of categories. I spot one called tools, which apparently consist of programming tools. That looks promising. I enter that category and see a list of different tools. I'm not familiar with all of them. While some are obvious from the name of the source file, others are more cryptic. I hit enter on the ones which I'm not sure about and get the summary from the commentary section. From this, I can usually tell if I need to look at this package further or if I can just ignore it and move on. I'm lucky - I find existing emacs support for all the things I was hoping to find, plus I find out about something called imenu, which looks like it could be very useful. I can now start using much of what I've found, spend a bit of time learning about some of the others and maybe even schedule some time to look at other potentially interesting items I noticed in the listing. I now know there is no need for me to spend hours writing elisp to make the editor do what I want - the wheel has already been invented and all I need to do is learn how to use it! Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au