Re: efficiently viewing Unix timestamps as dates

[Stefan Monnier]

SM> The issue is to not remove the display property placed on *other*
SM> chunks of text.
>>> The package only applies the display property to text it matches.
SM> Yes, but you do want to remove that property at some point.
> Why remove it?  Do you mean when the package is turned off, or at some
> point in the redisplay process?

I mean when the text gets modified so it doesn't represent a timestamp
any more.  [ When the user turns off the mode would be good as
well, tho I didn't pay any attention to this case.  ]

> Hmm, does Emacs need a `font-lock-display' property, to be used iff
> `display' is not specified?  This seems like a lot of pain that should
> not be passed to the package authors but handled in the core.

Well, I do think Emacs should make it easier for various packages to use
the same property without stepping on each other's toes, but right now
there isn't any good support for that.  The font-lock-face thingy is
kind of a solution, but I don't think it's very convincing and would
rather not use it for more things.
I've already outlined the way I think things should work, on emacs-devel
a few months ago.

> Are there packages that set `display' without letting font-lock
> manage it?

I can think of a good bunch, but they're all special-modes, so not used
on files.

> My previous question remains: is this serious enough that epoch-view.el
> should not go in the GNU ELPA until it's fixed, or is it a minor bug I
> can work on later?

It's not serious, no.  And packages don't need to be flawless in order
to be accepted for GNU ELPA, as should be evident if you look at many of
the packages included in Emacs ;-)


        Stefan