Re: defcustom :version

[Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>]

[Wondering if we should take ding@gnus.org off of the cc list...]

Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu> wrote:

> Richard Stallman wrote:
> 
>    I don't follow the scenario you describe, but don't bother explaining
>    it.  Reduction down to 2635 lines is not enough reduction to make the
>    situation much better.  We need stronger measures.  We need to give
>    this some structure.
> 
>    Here's an idea.  customize-changed could work like customize-browse,
>    except that it would show only the groups that cover settings which
>    have changed meanings.
> 
>    What do you think?
> 
> That would obviously not reduce the total number of listed options.

I don't think that was the point. If we couldn't reduce the number of
items, the point was to display them differently.

>                                                               It would
> not help somebody wanting to take a look at all of them (quite to the
> contrary).

I think it would, with a "Expand All" button. The user could then close
off sub-trees they knew they were not interested in, which you can't do
in the existing buffer. Or vice versa--the user could start collapsed
and expand sub-trees they were interested in. It occurred to me that
we'd need an Expand Entire Sub-Tree button too.

>             And with the current one-buffer layout, at least they are
> listed alphabetically and one can use C-s.

I rarely know the name of the variable before I know about it ;-).

>                                             It would also not do
> anything about the problem that the command may take a very long time
> on slow machines (it could actually make it worse).

A legitimate concern, but I think the inverse will be true.
Instrumenting the customize-change function, I see that it takes than a
second to gather the options (on my machine), but over 30 seconds to
render them. customize-browse is pretty much instantaneous on my
machine, and would only be slowed by about a second (per above) to
gather the options. Even expanding the entire customize-browse tree
should be faster since it doesn't do as much rendering. But the
advantage of the tree control is that you don't have to pay that price
unless you want to.

p.s. Shouldn't customize-changed-options-previous-release be 21.4, not
21.1?

-- 
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and MH-E. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.