[Erc-help] erc TODO and Re: fix for erc-fill-variable

[Mario L. <ml...@de...>]

Peter Solodov <pe...@al...> writes:

> I have a little fix which will take time-stamp into account when
> filling buffer. Patch for erc-fill.el is attached. 
Thanks, please note that it is slightly broken, the first line
can stick out on the right side if fill-column is set like 78 or so.

> Let me know it's good or not.
Keep up hacking, but please try to make generic soltuions.
I am not really liking the way this works currently, i.e.,
erc-fill has a hardcoded dependency on how erc-stamp works.
This normally leads to a maintainance nightmare.

e.g. erc-insert-timestamp-left could just insert a rectangle, this would
fix all filling problems.  The user would "just" need to set fill-column
a bit lower if he uses -left.

(just an idea...)
 
Since the new erc on sourceforge, many people hacked it.  The experiment
is really a success in all directions.  What I like most is that
people use erc as a elisp learning platform.  A irc client covers
nearly all aspects of emacs, the user interface, process interaction,
text properties, highlighting, menus and so on.  There is still alot
of room for improvments in erc.  People, keep up the good work!


For interested people, here is a little list of cool things you could
try to do, or try to collaborate on:

erc-dcc.el: We need it, it's possible, but it's no thtat easy.
 Using CVS Emacs, we can do both directions, send and get.

customizable module system: It would be really great, if we had a 
 customizable module system, so that users could add erc-fill, or
 erc-notify and whatever to erc, without having to manually put stuff
 in .emacs.  Any elegant solution to this problems would be nice.

reconnect fixup:  erc-process-sentinel could really
 use a fixup, and we could try to make reconnects nicer.

port zenirc-triggers.el: The idea is wonderful, all those info-bot
 like things (mallow) could use such an api, and it would be cool
 for users too.  It's simple to port, maybe we dont even need a 
 change in erc.el to port it, not sure though.

Fixup erc-speedbar.el: erc-speedbar could really use a maintainer.
 I originall wrote the code as a proof-of-concept,
 but really ran out of energy, because I dont use speedbar
 usually.  erc-speedbar would make a wonderful replacement
 for the info buffers if it would work right.  If that were fixed,
 we could rip out info-buffers from erc.el completely, because speedbar
 would do exactly that, in a much better way.
 Look at current code, it already does fancy stuff like expand
 whois info of users and so on.


Well, that are the larger tasks I can think of, maybe someone picks on up.

-- 
CYa,
  Mario