[Erc-help] Additions to NEWS, request for comments (was: Release on Friday, copyright policy)

[Lawrence M. <we...@gm...>]

Michael Olson wrote:

> I'm planning on putting together a release of erc on Friday the 6th.
> If there are any major changes that still need to be completed, please
> let me know.

> Do we have a policy on what copyrights to list in `debian/copyright'?
> If not, I guess I'll add everyone who is listed in `AUTHORS'.

Hi there, here's a possible NEWS file, can people look at it and
add comments, corrections, additions?

* Changes since ERC 4.0

** Channel members are now stored as a hash-table.
`erc-server-users' and `erc-channel-users' are now hash-tables, rather
than alists.  This significantly increases performance, especially in
large channels.  Each channel member is stored as an `erc-server-user'
struct, with additional information about the channels they are on
stored in an `erc-channel-user' struct.  Code using old alist-style
channel members needs to be updated to work with hash-tables.
This new code also removes the need for erc-members.el, which has been
removed.

** The way ERC deals with input from the server has changed.
All server response code is now in a new file, erc-backend.el.  There
should be no real user visible changes.  There are, however, a few
major changes for implementors, and module writers:

  o The PARSED response that all handlers get called with is
    no longer a vector, but an `erc-response' struct.  

    This means LESS MAGIC NUMBERS in the ERC source code, but a few
    changes in how you get at parsed responses.

    The sender is accessed via `erc-response.sender'.

    The command is accessed via `erc-response.command'.

    The arguments to the command (everything after the command and
    before the colon) are accessed via `erc-response.command-args'.
    This is a /list/ of arguments in the order they appear in the
    unparsed response.

    The contents of the response is accessed via
    `erc-response.contents'.

    Should, for some reason, you want to do something with the
    /unparsed/ response, you can get it via `erc-response.unparsed'.

  o The `erc-server-hook-list' mechanism is gone.

    All server response handlers should be defined with
    `define-erc-response-handler'.  This defines functions and
    corresponding hook variables.

    The mapping of server commands to hook variables is no longer
    done via `erc-event-to-hook', but through an #'equal hashtable,
    `erc-server-responses'.  In order to find a hook you do:

    (erc-get-hook command)

    See the docstring of `define-erc-response-handler' for more
    information.

  o ALL hook variables have been renamed.

    In accordance with recommendations in the Emacs Lisp manual,
    the hook variables are no longer called `erc-server-FOO-hook',
    but rather `erc-server-FOO-functions'.  This is to indicate
    that the functions they call take arguments.

    All the modules in ERC have been updated to reflect this change,
    but external module authors should beware.


** ERC has a new way of displaying nicknames in a channel.
The new file erc-nicklist.el defines a new command `erc-nicklist'
which pops up a small Emacs window showing the nicknames of all
members of the current channel.  The implementation is not complete
and is rather proof-of-concept for now.  The result is something a bit
like erc-speedbar, but not quite as invasive, and doesn't require use
of a new frame.

-- 
Lawrence Mitchell <we...@gm...>