Re: Proposal to add Popper to ELPA

[Karthik Chikmagalur]

Thank you for the review, especially for the changes to the defcustoms.
I'm not very familiar with the many options the customization interface
provides.  I have applied all changes except the one in the defcustom
for `popper-reference-buffers' (which see below).

In case you missed it during the review, the package has two files:
`popper.el' and `popper-echo.el'.  (The latter provides `popper-echo-mode',
which adds echo-area display of available popups and allows for quick
selection using a transient keymap.)

> +;; If you are interested in depending on Compat, you could use
> +;; `buffer-match-p' here.
>  (defcustom popper-reference-buffers '("\\*Messages\\*$")
>    "List of buffers to treat as popups.

I would like to avoid depending on Compat for one utility function.

> -  :type '(restricted-sexp :match-alternatives (stringp symbolp functionp 
> consp))
> -  :group 'popper)
> +  :type '(repeat (string :tag "Regular Expression")
> +              (symbol :tag "Major Mode")
> +              (function :tag "Predicate Function")
> +              ;; What is the consp in (restricted-sexp :match-alternatives 
> (stringp symbolp functionp consp))?
> +              ))

The `consp' here is for specifying additional behavior per popup.
Presently this is limited to requesting that (initial) display of the
popup be suppressed, but support for other special behavior could be
provided in the future.  Examples of this are in the README in the
section "Suppressing popups".

An example: `("\\*Compilation\\*" . hide)'

How do you suggest incorporating this into the defcustom?

> Also, it seems adding a .elpaignore file would be nice to remove
> unnecessary files from the tarball:  For now a file just containing
> "images" should suffice.

Done, thank you.

> Also also, by default the README file will be used to generate a package
> description (as seen in C-h P).  I feel that the current file is just a
> tad too long for this indent, and the description in the commentary
> section might be preferable.  Would you be fine with using that instead?

Yes, that should be fine.  The commentary section explains the purpose
of the package and the main functions.

>> What is Popper?
>>
>> Short for "Popup Buffer", 
>
> FWIW I don't think I would have understood this.  Perhaps it is just me,
> but despite fearing a general discussion about package names, do you
> think renaming the package to something like "popup-buffers" would be
> imaginable.  If not, it is fine, just wanted to bring it up /briefly/.

I took my cue for the name `popper' from Emacs' built-in `winner-mode'.
At 16K+ downloads, Popper is a reasonably well known package and I think
renaming it now will create more confusion than clarity.

The byline for the package is "Summon and dismiss buffers as popups",
which shows up in package listings and should help discoverability.

>> There are other features, and a few video demos at the link.
>
> Is the video mirrored on some other platform as well?

It's not.  Do you have a suggestion for where you'd like the videos to
be available?  I can make that happen.

Karthik