Re: [Ebib-users] Ebib 0.25 released!

[Joost K. <joo...@fa...>]

On Sat, Aug 19, 2006 at 05:08:46PM +1000, Steve Youngs wrote:
>   > The new version incorporates two suggestions made by Jesse: first,
>   > the command keys are now customisable.
> 
> In what way were they not customisable before?

you needed to hack the source before. of course they were customisable, but
someone that knows latex cannot be assumed to know elisp, i think. even
when they use emacs. ok, they might now enough to add some lines that they
find somewhere via google to their .emacs, but actually going into a larger
source file? i dunno.

>   > Note that the key definitions are now all in .ebibrc. That means
>   > that if you install the new version, you must also copy the new
>   > ebibrc to your HOME dir (or at least copy the key definitions to
>   > your existing .ebibrc), otherwise no command keys will be defined.
> 
> Wow, this is an incredibly _bad_ idea.  Why are you leaving the
> responsibility of default key bindings up to the user?
> 
> What happens to the poor user that downloads the Ebib dist tarball,
> installs, and then deletes the tarball.  Then one day, disaster strikes
> and he blows away his ${HOME}[1]...

ok, that's a good point. 

> I also don't see any benefit or point to the `ebib-key' macro.
> Isn't...
> 
>         (define-key ebib-foo-map [(control c) x] #'foo-function)
> 
> ...good enough?

this and the other two macros are just to sugar-coat lisp syntax a bit for
non-lispers.

>   > I've added a few key bindings, so that C-p, C-n and M-p, M-n now
>   > do what one would expect in Emacs.
> 
> That's great, except you haven't defined M-p/M-n, you've defined
> A-p/A-n.  Alt != Meta.  They quite often are the same key, but not
> necessarily.

that falls into the category oops... i'll correct it ASAP.

>   > Jesse made a few other suggestions, that I'm considering
>   > incorporating. One thing I think I won't do, is to use Emacs'
>   > standard customisation interface (M-x customize) for Ebib.
> 
> I'm not sure how much of Ebib is customisable, but I think this is a mistake.

what is? doing it through M-x customize or *not* doing it through M-x
customize?

>   > and the elisp code it generates is so cluttered that it can hardly be
>   > modified by hand. 
> 
> The type of user that relies on `M-x customize' is most likely _not_
> the type of user to look at, or want to modify what it generates. :-)

true. ;-) and most likely people that use latex (and it's safe to assume
that all ebib users do ;-) probably won't be intimidated by having to edit
a config file by hand.

>   > Plus, I feel that the little customisation that Ebib might need
>   > can easily be handled through .ebibrc. 
> 
> OK, I'm heading off on a bit of a tangent here, but, from what I can
> see, there isn't anything in .ebibrc that couldn't be left in
> ebib.el.  I don't see the need to have an rc file.  Couldn't you just
> state in the manual... "if you want to add your own entry types, put
> (defentry foo-entry (...)) into your init.el/.emacs" ?

well, that would be an option, but that would kinda defeat the purpose of
using autoload. not a big deal perhaps, but some people might prefer that
ebib isn't loaded until it's actually used.

> Actually, I'd be inclined to turn those `defentry's into `defcustom's,
> although I'm not quite sure how hard that would be. :-)

but doesn't defcustom imply using M-x customize?

>   > (I'm of course open to counter-arguments on this point, so please
>   > let me know if you feel differently.)
> 
> The counter argument is that _all_ user-configurable variables should
> be defined with `defcustom'.

just like we should all be using MS Windows and Word...

> One last tangent before I finish... Why oh why isn't the manual in
> Texinfo format?  From there you could generate your PDF and HTML,
> while the rest of us can read the Ebib manual inside our emacs in
> info. :-)

that's one of jesse's points as well. truth is, i don't know anything about
texinfo. jesse offered to see if he could convert the latex source, though
perhaps i should just dive into it myself.

> Footnotes: 
> [1]  Don't laugh, I've done it. :-(

i couldn't help but grin. it's never happened to me. yet.


-- 
Joost Kremers, PhD
Graduate College "Satzarten"
J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main
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60486 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
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