Re: gnus-registry flags API

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:43:46 -0600 Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> wrote: 

TZ> I couldn't figure out the text properties, or how to update the summary
TZ> line as soon as a flag is set.  For now I've comitted a function
TZ> gnus-registry-user-format-function-M that shows the flags (unsorted, in
TZ> the order they were set).  But the user has to exit the group and
TZ> re-enter it to see the new flags.  I'll take a look again but if someone
TZ> knows how to do it, please let me know to save me all the work.

I still haven't done text properties, but the rest is working now.  See
gnus-registry-user-format-function-M and gnus-registry-install-shortcuts
for the details.

TZ> Also the string-building construct in that function
...
TZ> 	(setq out (format "%s%s"
TZ> 			  out
TZ> 			  (if c
TZ> 			      (char-to-string c)
TZ> 			    "")))))
...
TZ> is ugly.  How would I do the same with mapcar?  I couldn't find a nice
TZ> way to eliminate nil entries (when the flag has no :char property) from
TZ> the resulting list I would pass to concat; concat would get a list like
TZ> (?l ?i nil) and fail.

I figured it out, you just do (concat list1 nil list2) and it does the
right thing.  I didn't read the docs carefully.

TZ> The functions are dynamically generated from the gnus-registry-marks
TZ> list, but I couldn't figure out how to generate the gnus-define-keys
TZ> call (as I mention in the comments).  Also it seems that each call will
TZ> reset previously defined shortcuts.  If anyone knows, please tell me
TZ> using function-name and shortcut.

I figured this out, and gnus-registry-install-shortcuts will DTRT for
keyboard shortcuts.  The menus are hard-coded in gnus-sum.el and I
didn't think it was useful to generate them dynamically.

TZ> Where should the menu shortcuts live?

I put them under Gnus->Registry Marks to be near the other mark
operations.

Remaining:

- call (gnus-registry-install-p) in Gnus startup

- make gnus-registry-install-p call Customize if appropriate, I'm not
  sure

- text properties and images for each flag

It's finally coming together, so please test the functionality and let
me know what you think.

Thanks
Ted