[Erc-discuss] FOR-RELEASE items

[Michael Olson]

Here are our current release-critical items for ERC 5.2 and Emacs 22.
Some of them are in need of discussion.

  * 5.3 release (future)

  ** Source

  *** Make erc-backend not need to (require) any other part of ERC.
  This will hopefully increase the chance that it will be useful for
  other IRC clients, like Circe.

I bumped this to 5.3 for several reasons.

 1. Circe is working on their own irclib file, IIRC, so it's not as
    important to make erc-backend.el standalone -- better would
    be to merge code into their irclib file, depending on how far
    along it is.  If you're reading the list, forcer, you're welcome
    to comment here.

 2. If it ain't broke (just before a release, at least), don't fix it.
    There are a few compiler warnings that it would be nice to get rid
    of, though it will take some thinking to figure out how best to
    place the offending functions into various files.

  * 5.2 release

  ** Documentation

  *** Items with "@c PRE5_2" won't block the 5.1 release, but may
  block the release of 5.2.

I might try to start on this next week, depending on how things go.

  ** Source

  *** Add binding for S-TAB (backtab) that moves backwards by link.

Taking a look at this tonight.

  *** Merge filename changes from the 5.2 release branch into the
  erc--main--0 branch.

Taking a look at this tonight.  I've (until the last 2-3 commits)
caught up the 5.2 release branch to the changes in main.  I just need
to merge the other way now and do a manual diff -ur as a sanity check.

  * Emacs 22 release

  ** Source

  *** Change keybinding definitions for `erc-track-switch-buffer'.
  `C-c C-SPC' / `C-c C-@' is set as a global keybinding and is known
  to conflict with rcirc, for example.  Would setting
  `erc-track-mode-map' work?  Otherwise we could encourage people to
  use something like `C-c e SPC' or `C-c c'.

I really don't want to change that keybinding -- it's comfortable, and
rather famous in terms of features that attract people to Emacs-based
IRC clients.  Better perhaps would be to have a compatibility function
that would get activated whenever either erc.el or rcirc.el was
loaded, and choose between them depending on which has an open
connection.  If both have open connections, prompt for which client to
connect to.  This function would be bound to C-c C-SPC in Emacs 22,
but not in the standalone ERC releases.

  *** Make a tarball with the modules that weren't included with
  Emacs 22 that can be downloaded from GNU's ftp server.

I'm having a hard time trying to think of a good naming scheme for
this.  "erc-extras-5.2" might make people think they need it even
though they have the ERC 5.2 release, while "erc-emacs22-extras-5.2"
is a bit long and still might confuse people who have both ERC 5.2
standalone and Emacs 22.  Ideas?

-- 
Michael Olson -- FSF Associate Member #652 -- http://www.mwolson.org/
Interests: Lisp, text markup, protocols -- Jabber: mwolson_at_hcoop.net
  /` |\ | | | Projects: Emacs, Muse, ERC, EMMS, Planner, ErBot, DVC
 |_] | \| |_| Reclaim your digital rights by eliminating DRM.
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