bug#6799: 24.0.50; Please add dired-details.el to Emacs [patch]

[Drew Adams]

ping.

Still hoping, after all these years...

The replies from Emacs Dev have varied from gee-we-don't-know-how-to-find-Rob
(even though he has replied to this bug list and his email address works) to
gee-we-don't-know-whether-he-has-signed-papers (even though he has replied here
indicating that he has).

What's the problem?

(Again, this is for Emacs, not for me.  I am content with loading
dired-details(+).el for my own use.  But it's a shame that Emacs users do not
have this great feature as part of Emacs.)


> From: rob.giardina@gmail.com [mailto:rob.giardina@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 8:47 AM
> 
> Thanks for remembering this patch Drew. I did work with RMS a long way
> back but it fell by the wayside in the last phases.
> 
> The patch is just elisp and doc, no C. The changes are pretty simple
> and contain all the community enhancements added later
> (dired-details+).
> 
> Basically, it adds some bindings to a few functions that will loop
> over the dired file listing lines to add invisibile overlays to the
> messiest parts of the lines. Pretty self-contained.
> 
> It would have to be re-tested at this point. I've attached the old
> ones if it will help decide if you want the feature. I can test some
> fresh patches on HEAD in the next few weeks when my biz/personal life
> calms a bit.
> 
> Regards,
> Rob
> 
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Drew Adams 
> <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
> >
> > As I have said several times now, ask Rob Giardina.  He 
> > made a whole set of changes to various Emacs files,
> > including perhaps C code.  I am not aware of
> > what changes he made.
> >
> > Rob has sent mail as recently as 2011/11/29 to 
> > emacs-orgmode@gnu.org.  His address for that was
> > rob@giardina.us.  (No, I do not subscribe to that mailing
> > list.  But I know how to use Google.)  Please contact Rob.
> >
> > > > Please contact Rob Giardina.  I believe that he patched 
> > > > the existing
> > > > Dired code (and some C code? and some other Lisp code?), doing
> > > > everything that was needed.
> > >
> > > If you want this code included in Emacs, please assemble 
> > > the patch and post it here.
> >
> > It is not a question of "if I want".  It was decided by RMS 
> > that this should be included in Emacs.  Long, long ago.
> > Rob did the work required for this to
> > happen, but no one ever committed it, AFAIK.
> >
> > What I use, personally, is dired-details.el plus 
> > dired-details+.el, and they
> > suffice.  But Rob went to the trouble of patching Emacs in 
> > various places,
> > integrating the features cleanly at a more basic level etc.
> >
> > I have no idea what Rob's changes were, but if you search 
> > the mailing list
> > perhaps you can find references to them.  Rob refers to a 
> > patch for 2005-07-07
> > CVS, here:
> > http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/74172
> >
> > Here is the last mail from Rob on the subject, AFAIK:
> > http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-07/msg00215.html
> >
> > Here is my last mail on the subject, with relevant links:
> >
> > > From: Drew Adams Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 7:34 AM
> > > > I discovered dired-details and dired-details+ and found 
> > > > them useful.
> > > > Could they be added to emacs?
> > > >
> > > > http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/DiredDetails
> > >
> > > They were supposed to be added. Rob Giardina submitted an
> > > Emacs 23 patch two years ago that integrates the functionality
> > > of both in a better way even than the separate libraries
> > > dired-details[+].el.
> > >
> > > I don't think any reason was ever given for why the patch
> > > wasn't incorporated (committed). RMS asked for comment on
> > > the merged code, but no one ever answered his request
> > > (on emacs-devel, at least). The last time I ping'ed the
> > > list about this was 2008-07 - I never got an answer either.
> > >
> > > Last ping:
> > > 
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2008-07/msg01152.html
> > >
> > > Rob's change log and RMS's call for comment:
> > > 
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-07/msg01187.html
> > >
> > > Original thread:
> > > 
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-07/msg00226.html