bug#11459: 24.1.50; Loss of mouse support (and more?) in new Buffer Menu

bug#11459: 24.1.50; Loss of mouse support (and more?) in new Buffer Menu

[Drew Adams]

This is a regression and a real loss of functionality - a step backward
for users.  *Please* restore the ability to use a mouse, in particular
to select/open buffers.
 
Though it's hard to believe, it seems like this change was deliberate,
as all mention of using a mouse has been carefully removed from the mode
help/description.
 
If other features were also lost (dunno yet) then please restore them as
well.
 
It should not be the case that just because you think you have a nifty
new generic mode that might be usable in some places, we should throw
existing functionality overboard in an attempt to shoehorn good existing
code and features into the new but more limited mode.
 
A hammer is not our only tool, and we should not see everything as a
nail.  If Tabulated List mode does not offer what is needed to provide
all of the features that users are used to in the Buffer Menu, then
either improve Tabulated List mode first or extend the buff-menu.el code
itself to DTRT.
 
One way or another, please restore all lost features due to this major
rewrite of buff-menu.el.

In GNU Emacs 24.1.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2012-05-06 on MARVIN
Bzr revision: 108144 cyd@gnu.org-20120507053738-5ovifsb71cmamn2f
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
Configured using:
 `configure --with-gcc (4.6) --no-opt --enable-checking --cflags
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libXpm-3.5.8/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libXpm-3.5.8/src
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libpng-dev_1.4.3-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/zlib-dev_1.2.5-2/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/giflib-4.1.4-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/jpeg-6b-4/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/tiff-3.8.2-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/gnutls-3.0.9/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libiconv-1.13.1-1-dev/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libxml2-2.7.8/include/libxml2'
 

bug#11459: 24.1.50; Loss of mouse support (and more?) in new Buffer Menu

[Chong Yidong]

Fixed, thanks.  Next time, please just stick to facts in bug reports;
the moralizing about "a hammer is not our only tool" etc. is not
necessary.

bug#11459: 24.1.50; Loss of mouse support (and more?) in new Buffer Menu

[Drew Adams]

> Fixed, thanks.

Thanks.

> Next time, please just stick to facts in bug reports;
> the moralizing about "a hammer is not our only tool" etc. is not
> necessary.

It was not at all "moralizing".  The removal of the mouse actions seemed
deliberate, since the mouse command was removed and the doc string was purged of
any mention of it.

Since the overall change to the library was to adapt it to Tabulated List mode,
it seemed reasonable to suppose that this seemingly deliberate feature removal
was a consequence of that.

Apologies for supposing wrong, and delighted to have been mistaken.  If all of
the former features are still present, then it is a good thing to factor the
code to use Tabulated List mode.  The code is much smaller now, for one thing.

My concern was the loss of features.  If that doesn't happen, great.