Re: ANNOUNCE: deb-view.el 1.5 - deb file viewer for Emacs
Peter S Galbraith wrote:
Peter - thanks for the feedback!
> > The new deb-find command is cool!
>
> I think it should start off configured with `locate' since I'd expect most
> people to have it. The `find' default started out looking in the wrong
> directory.
I've been using an external script for a couple of years (called
debfind) that ran locate. It wasn't until I made these upgrades to
deb-view that I realized that locate is broken for regular expressions
and that find seems to run just as fast (the first invocation is a bit
slower, but then it's fast once the dir tree is cached). Then I figured
that some number of people have their deb files on CD and that locate
probably wouldn't have the files in this case.
So, I made the default to be the find method. Since it does regexp
(egrep), you can enter things to deb-find like: quake|doom
> > (define-key dired-mode-map "\C-d" 'deb-view-dired-view)
>
> I don't see why you need this. I added ("\\.deb$" . deb-view-mode) to the
> auto-mode-alist as you suggested and deb-view-mode is used when I simply
> visit a file with `f' in dired-mode. The fewer keys to remember, the
> better. Simpler is better.
Before this release, there was no auto-mode-alist support and the dired
keybinding was the shortcut that I used. For a long time I resisted
trying the auto-mode-alist route (and I appologize to the people who
first suggested it). The reason was that I thought performance would be
a problem. It might still be noticeable in very tight memory situations.
The reason is that auto-mode-alist causes the file to be read _before_
deb-view is called. deb-view immediately deletes the buffer and has to
re-read the file by executing the "ar" command. This extra read turns
out not to be noticeable after all (on my p200 anyway) since the deb
file gets cached the first time and subsequent reads are fast.
In the end, if you use deb-find, it executes deb-view on the file, not
find-file, so the auto-mode-alist is bypassed and this performance issue
doesn't even come to play anyway!
I left in the dired binding "just in case" performance became an issue
with auto-mode-alist. I might take it out next time.
> > If you like it, and want it available always, then add this line to your
> > ~/.emacs file (or create ~/.emacs if you don't have one):
> > (load "~/deb-view.el")
>
> Instead you should add a last line to your file: (provide 'deb-view)
> and then we can use the more appropriate form:
>
> (require 'deb-view)
Here I disagree slightly. You've taken these instructions out of
context. The previous line states:
;; If you're not very familiar with emacs customization, try this
simpler
;; approach:
The idea here is a simple way for emacs users incapable of customization
to load deb-view. Using require would require the user to put
deb-view.el into their load-path or modify their load-path. This is
exactly the complication I sought to simplify!
For people who prefer to just always load deb-view on Emacs start-up, I
agree that the provide-require method is better than the load command or
even all the autoload stuff. I like this idea. How about I rearrange the
doc to suggest this next time (but leave in the emacs newbie load
instructions)? And I'll leave in the auto-load as the primary
installation suggestion.
--
...RickM...
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