Re: Automatic Suggestion of Packages

[Philip Kaludercic]

Visuwesh <visuweshm@gmail.com> writes:

> [வியாழன் நவம்பர் 07, 2024] Philip Kaludercic wrote:
>
>>> Can we have an user option to both `message' the user and have a button
>>> in the mode-line?  I usually don't notice changes in the mode-line
>>> often, but notice messages in the echo-area.  Just having `message'
>>> would lose the convenient mode-line button to auto-install the suggested
>>> package.
>>
>> We can do that, it might be worth discussing if the user option should
>> be re-designed.  The current styles of presenting suggestions are:
>>
>> 1. A button in the mode-line (default)
>> 2. A message with a hint to use `package-autosuggest' (which I think is
>>    convenient enough)
>> 3. A `yes-or-no-p'-prompt to install a package (either every time a
>>    suggestion is available or only once per package)
>>
>> I don't know if the last one makes sense to have, as it is pretty
>> aggressive.
>
> Indeed, I agree that it feels very un-Emacsy to be up in the face like
> that.
>
>> Perhaps it makes sense to always present a message if the minor mode
>> is enabled, and add a separate option to enable the mode-line button?
>
> I would be happy with this (though I would turn the mode-line button on
> by default).

The issue with enable-by-default in the current implementation is that
we would have to load package.el by default, which is currently avoided
to reduce the startup time (see `package-enable-at-startup').

We could extract the autosuggest logic into a separate file and suggest
loading that by default.

We could also consider not using the mode line, but the menu bar to hint
at package suggestions, but that might be easy to miss especially if a
lot of people advise disabling the menu bar.

Visuwesh <visuweshm@gmail.com> writes:

> [வெள்ளி நவம்பர் 08, 2024] Visuwesh wrote:
>
>> [வியாழன் நவம்பர் 07, 2024] Philip Kaludercic wrote:
>>
>>>> Can we have an user option to both `message' the user and have a button
>>>> in the mode-line?  I usually don't notice changes in the mode-line
>>>> often, but notice messages in the echo-area.  Just having `message'
>>>> would lose the convenient mode-line button to auto-install the suggested
>>>> package.
>>>
>>> We can do that, it might be worth discussing if the user option should
>>> be re-designed.  The current styles of presenting suggestions are:
>>>
>>> 1. A button in the mode-line (default)
>>> 2. A message with a hint to use `package-autosuggest' (which I think is
>>>    convenient enough)
>>> 3. A `yes-or-no-p'-prompt to install a package (either every time a
>>>    suggestion is available or only once per package)
>>>
>>> I don't know if the last one makes sense to have, as it is pretty
>>> aggressive.
>>
>> Indeed, I agree that it feels very un-Emacsy to be up in the face like
>> that.
>>
>>> Perhaps it makes sense to always present a message if the minor mode
>>> is enabled, and add a separate option to enable the mode-line button?
>>
>> I would be happy with this (though I would turn the mode-line button on
>> by default).
>
> BTW, I looked at the code to see what it does when there's multiple
> packages suggested for a single (e.g., racket: racket-mode and
> geiser-racket).  It seems to install and enable only the first
> suggestion: should we instead prompt the user about it?  But asking the
> user would defeat the purpose of the feature, which helps in assisting
> her in setting up her environment for her work.

No the current implementation would just install everything.  Neither of
the two solutions are really ideal.  Perhaps we need to pop up a buffer
with clickable elements to present the package suggestions and propose
installing one of them?

-- 
        Philip Kaludercic on siskin