Re: [PATCH] Display extra headers for emacs-mua - db config option

[Tomi Ollila <tomi.ollila@iki.fi>]

On Fri, Nov 22 2019, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:

> On Thu 2019-11-21 08:27:04 -0400, David Bremner wrote:
>> Apologies for being late to the discussion of where to store the
>> configuration. So far we have only stored configuration in the database
>> where it affected the behaviour of the library API.
>
> While i'm being ambitious, i'd like also to eventually consider moving
> more of the existing CLI functionality into being accessible from the
> library.  I think this would help downstream MUAs that use notmuch who
> currently can't (or don't want to, for whatever reason) take advantage
> of the existing CLI, but can use the library.
>
> If we stuff more config in the config file, then the behavior of any
> future move to the library will have to grapple with the config move
> (currently the library never reads the config file, it just opens the
> database).

How can library open the database if it doesn't read the config file
-- the config file defines where database is located =D

>> I know some people (e.g. dkg) have suggested it would be better to
>> store all of the configuration in the database for consistency, while
>> others are disgruntled that some of the configuration is not editable
>> with text editor.
>
> It would still editable with a text editor -- you just need to edit the
> output of "notmuch dump --include config" and feed the result back into
> "notmuch restore" :)

If the library can somehow guess the location of the database without
reading the config file ;D I think dumping -- editing -- restoring
the database is tolerable solution -- provided it is clearly documented
for people like me who wants to edit configuration files w/ text editor(*),
for forgets these instructions easily. If, in the future, we still have
configuration file(+), notmuch could also write such instructions to
the config file.

>
>          --dkg

Tomi

(*) like someone may know I'm not too fond of editing configuration files
    when there are alternatives available (like in this case) -- however
    is someone else(tm) takes the time to create this solution and it uses
    configuration files, I'll use it...

(+) if we dropped the configuration file, then notmuch, and library could
    open database from ~/mail/notmuch/ by default, or from location pointed
    by e.g. NOTMUCH_DATABASE_DIR -- as an additional benefit(?) notmuch
    would pollute user's $HOME by one file less -- the `.notmuch-config`.