bug#23846: 24.5; Sort package list by column

[Francesco Turco]

This is a feature request concerning the package list one can obtain
with M-x package-list-packages or M-x package-list-packages-no-fetch.

It would be good to sort packages by column, for example according to
package name (first column) or according to status (third column),
depending on where the point is.

At the moment you can actually accomplish that by pressing M-: and
running something like: (tabulated-list--sort-by-column-name "Status")

It would be more intuitive instead to just press key "s" (for "sort"),
which is undefined now. If I remember correctly something similar is
implemented in ERC, one of emacs IRC clients, for sorting IRC channels.

Is that a good idea? What do you think?

--

In GNU Emacs 24.5.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.20.6)
 of 2016-06-04 on juergen
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11803000
Configured using:
 `configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --libexecdir=/usr/lib
 --localstatedir=/var --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-xft
 'CFLAGS=-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe
 -fstack-protector-strong' CPPFLAGS=-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2
 LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro'

Important settings:
  value of $LC_TIME: en_DK.UTF-8
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Package Menu

Minor modes in effect:
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  tracking-mode: t
  shell-dirtrack-mode: t
  rcirc-track-minor-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent messages:
scroll-up-command: End of buffer [8 times]
nil
scroll-down-command: Beginning of buffer [14 times]
nil
Mark set
nil
Mark set
scroll-down-command: Beginning of buffer
nil [2 times]
Mark set
scroll-up-command: End of buffer [11 times]

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow mail-extr emacsbug sendmail debug mm-archive message idna rfc822
mml mml-sec mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader mm-decode mm-bodies
mm-encode mail-utils gnutls network-stream starttls url-http mail-parse
rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums url-gw url-cache url-auth url
url-proxy url-privacy url-expand url-methods url-history url-cookie
url-domsuf url-util mailcap url-handlers url-parse auth-source eieio
byte-opt bytecomp byte-compile cl-extra cconv eieio-core mm-util
mail-prsvr password-cache url-vars circe advice help-fns diff-mode
lui-irc-colors irc make-tls-process tls lcs lui-format lui tracking
shorten rx paren flyspell ispell circe-compat sort lisp-mnt finder-inf
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multi-isearch browse-url org-clock calc-map calc-stat calc-vec calc-misc
calc-arith calc-ext calc-menu calc-aent calc calc-loaddefs calc-macs
thingatpt tabify org-table mule-util cal-move parse-time help-mode
org-rmail org-mhe org-irc org-info org-gnus gnus-util org-docview
doc-view jka-compr image-mode dired cl-loaddefs cl-lib org-bibtex bibtex
org-bbdb org-w3m epa-file epa derived epg package epg-config ox-latex
ox-icalendar ox-html ox-ascii ox-publish ox org-element org org-macro
org-footnote org-pcomplete org-list org-faces org-entities noutline
outline easy-mmode org-version ob-sh shell pcomplete ob ob-tangle ob-ref
ob-lob ob-table ob-exp org-src ob-keys ob-comint comint ansi-color
ob-core ob-eval org-compat org-macs org-loaddefs find-func cal-menu
easymenu calendar cal-loaddefs format-spec rcirc ring cus-start cus-load
time-date tooltip electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type
mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
tabulated-list newcomment lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar
rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax
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czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook
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format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable
backquote make-network-process dbusbind gfilenotify dynamic-setting
system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x
multi-tty emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 889379 73802)
 (symbols 48 40921 0)
 (miscs 40 705 1622)
 (strings 32 115723 41943)
 (string-bytes 1 3066503)
 (vectors 16 41923)
 (vector-slots 8 1473961 117316)
 (floats 8 176 1168)
 (intervals 56 96548 1318)
 (buffers 960 31)
 (heap 1024 75331 9314))

-- 
Website: http://www.fturco.net/
GPG key: 6712 2364 B2FE 30E1 4791 EB82 7BB1 1F53 29DE CD34

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