[NonGNU ELPA] New package proposal: highlight-parentheses.el

[NonGNU ELPA] New package proposal: highlight-parentheses.el

[Tassilo Horn]

Hi all,

I'm maintaining highlight-parentheses.el [1] and would like to push it
to NonGNU ELPA.

Originally, I wanted to propose it to GNU ELPA but sadly of the 7
contributors, only five have signed CAs.  In April, I've contacted the 4
ones missing back then and two of them finished their process recently.
One other agreed to assign in April but actually didn't and isn't
responsive anymore since then.  One contributor hasn't even answered my
April's mail (and another mail send a month ago) and I couldn't find
other ways to contact him (also, his github profile shows no activity
since 2020).  Well, I keep trying but don't have high hopes.

Anyway, NonGNU ELPA is better than no standard archive, so here I
go. :-)

Comments?  If it's ok, I think I know how to push it (or come back to
you, Stefan, once I've messed up. ;-)).

Bye,
Tassilo

[1] https://sr.ht/~tsdh/highlight-parentheses.el/

Re: [NonGNU ELPA] New package proposal: highlight-parentheses.el

[Adam Porter]

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm maintaining highlight-parentheses.el [1] and would like to push it
> to NonGNU ELPA.
>
> Comments?  If it's ok, I think I know how to push it (or come back to
> you, Stefan, once I've messed up. ;-)).

Hi Tassilo,

This looks very useful.  I think I've seen the package's name before,
but I'm not sure I ever looked at it.  That may be partially due to its
somewhat ambiguous name, that seems to resemble similar packages.  For
example, I'm pretty sure I've conflated it with the built-in
show-paren-mode.  And I guess users could generally think it does
something like rainbow-delimiters.el or prism.el, even though it serves
a different purpose.

If I may engage in a little bikeshedding, would you consider giving it a
more descriptive name?  Maybe something like highlight-surrounding, or
highlight-enclosing?  That would help distinguish it from other
parens-highlighting packages and better describe what it does.

Re: [NonGNU ELPA] New package proposal: highlight-parentheses.el

[Tassilo Horn]

Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net> writes:

Hi Adam,

>> I'm maintaining highlight-parentheses.el [1] and would like to push
>> it to NonGNU ELPA.
>
> This looks very useful.  

It is! :-)

> I think I've seen the package's name before, but I'm not sure I ever
> looked at it.  That may be partially due to its somewhat ambiguous
> name, that seems to resemble similar packages.  For example, I'm
> pretty sure I've conflated it with the built-in show-paren-mode.  And
> I guess users could generally think it does something like
> rainbow-delimiters.el or prism.el, even though it serves a different
> purpose.

Yes, they are all similar but have a different focus.

  - show-paren-mode flashes "the other" paren, i.e., the opening when
    you are on the closing one.
  - rainbow-delimiters colorizes all parens (and brackets, braces) in a
    different color based on their depth.
  - highlight-parentheses is basically like rainbow-delimiters, i.e., it
    also colorizes parentheses (and brackets, braces) based on their
    depth but only the ones surrounding/containing point.

So you could view highlight-parentheses as a cross-breed of
rainbow-delimiters and show-paren-mode.  Just that it's actually a bit
older than rainbow-delimiters.

> If I may engage in a little bikeshedding, would you consider giving it
> a more descriptive name?  Maybe something like highlight-surrounding,
> or highlight-enclosing?  That would help distinguish it from other
> parens-highlighting packages and better describe what it does.

Indeed, but one doesn't change names after more than 13 years of
existence and establishing a user-base.  But I hope that it's
description "Highlight surrounding parentheses" describes it pretty
clear in the `list-packages' listing.

Bye,
Tassilo