revised allout.el outliner, with topic encryption - seeking testers

[Ken Manheimer]

i've developed some substantial features and fixes for my emacs
outliner, allout, and would like to get some testing by others before
asking for application of the changes to the distributed version.  the
primary new feature is topic encryption/decryption, with lots of
niceties to help negotiate the hazards of encryption.

about allout - unlike the basic emacs outliner, which provides only
outline navigation, allout provides outline-structured editing
features - topic creation, promotion, demotion, cut and paste across
topic depths, auto-adjusted paragraph flow indent to the topic header,
etc.  it also provides incremental search with dynamic exposure and
re-concealment of concealed text, configurable per-file outline
initial exposure settings, customizable bullet format for, eg,
program-language specific outlining (can you say code folding?), and
much more.

i use allout daily for many things, particularly my daily activity and
notes logs.  i recently added topic (gpg) encryption to make it safe
to securely include, eg, details about password changes, financial
transactions, and other confidential details inline with my activity
notes.

both symmetric and public key-pair gpg modes are supported.  symmetric
is the default encryption mode (and exercised a lot more, so far). 
the appropriate decryption mode is inferred automatically.

optional auto-encryption of pending topics on file save (and autosave)
helps avoid accidentally exposing sensitive information on the file
system.

other features significantly ease everyday use of encryption.  some
help prevent disastrous mistakes like: inadvertently encrypting an
entry with a mistyped key, unintentionally using different symmetric
keys within a single file (using a key verification scheme - redundant
key entry doesn't help avoid the latter), or forgetting which
symmetric key you used in which file (with user-supplied key hints). 
it also uses mailcrypt's key caching mechanism, which automatically
reuses the last provided key until it's unused for some set period of
time (default 1 minute), making it much more convenient to navigate
numerous encrypted entries, or frequent saving during editing of
encrypted entries.

Some requirements to use the encryption features:

  - they depend on both crypt++ and mailcrypt, and specifically on using
    them in gpg (rather than pgp or pgp5) mode.  non-encryption allout
    features will work without them, but the encryption features won't.

  - you must configure gpg to operate in "armored" mode.  eg, include the
    word "armor" in your ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf file.  topic encryption will fail if
    you try to encrypt anything without armoring.

  - allout won't encrypt top-level (level 1) topics.  demote them to level 2
    or more, even if they're (it's) the sole topic in a file.

i'm attaching the new version of allout.el and an omnibus ChangeLog,
including details about the encryption features and some bug fixes and
smaller new features.

feel free to email me directly with feedback.  i'm going to be heading
out of town and will be out of touch for a few weeks, starting this
weekend (aug 20/21), but will be happy to go over feedback before i go
and when i return.

and always, thanks to everyone who helps make emacs the great thing it is.

ken manheimer
address@hidden