>>>>> "RF" == Robert Fenk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
RF> On Monday, August 6 2001 10:15:30, Colin Rafferty wrote: [...]
>> I hate changing names just for the sake of changing names.
RF> Well me too, but they are not just changed for the sake of
RF> changing names, but also for minor functionality changes and
RF> better naming.
There are minor functionality changes, that may or may not warrent
a name change, but 'better naming' _is_ just changing names for the
sake of changing names.
>> > Your are right, bbdb-one-line-display-* is much better than >
>> *elided*, at least in my eyes.
>>
>> This I might agree with, since the t/list seems like its being
>> overloaded a little too much. However, having two different
>> variables makes the interactive weird. Namely, the variable with
>> the list of fields is unused if we are in single-line mode.
RF> I do not really get the point, what variable are you speaking of?
RF> And what do you mean by "makes the interactive weird"?
You are splitting a specific piece of functionality that used to
exist in one variable across several variables. This means that when
you change one of them you must also generally change the other one
for things to still make sense. I actually suspect that the best
solution here is going to be to make the display functionality more of
an a-list type thing:
'(bbdb-display-list
'((net . all) ;; Show in all views
(phone . all)
(address . multi-line) ;; show in mult-line and full views
(attribution . one-line-only) ;; Only show in one-line
(pilot-id . full ) ;; Only show in 'full' view.
(timestamp . nil) ;; Don't even show this in 'full' mode.
(t . multi-line)) ;; 't is fallback case...
This would let everything be specified in one var, you could use
the list order to specify display order (although that isn't
technically correct for a lisp a-list - order shouldn't matter). I
didn't put it up there but you could have like multi-line-only or
one-line-only, or you could make the cdr a list of modes to show it
in...
>> All in all, I like the idea of having one variables.
RF> And I like to be able configuring one-line and multi-line layout
RF> separately.
These aren't nessisarily conflicting desires, the above lets you
configure the list of fields for each display seperately, it might
also be nice to allow the cdr to be a function in which case you call
it with the record and display mode and the function returns the
string to be displayed , t (show the regular field), or 'nil skip the
field. I might do this to shorten addresses for people in my company
for example.
>> > bbdb-one-line-display-fields (bbdb-elided-display-fields) list of
>> > fields which should be displayed in one-line display
>> If I add a new field interactively, I now need to add that field to
>> this variable. This is like something that I will not remember.
RF> Yes you have to add it by hand.
IMHO this is _really_ _really_ bad! In general it is much better
to show everything, and let people select what they don't want than to
start off showing nothing and force people to add stuff if they want
to see it (since usually they won't know what they are missing).
I would support a mechanism for people to explictily say, don't
show anything unless I say so (such as putting '(t . nil) in the
a-list), but the default should be to show everything, and have people
take action to hide items they aren't interested in.
>> In general, using -elided- style is easier, since if I see
>> something that I don't want to, I can just add it to my list.
>> However, I would never know that I am not seeing something that I
>> would like to.
RF> Somehow you misunderstood something, since my docs were
RF> missleading, maybe it becomes cleared here by:
RF> bbdb-multi-line-display-fields-order (bbdb-display-fields-order)
RF> list of fields that should be displayed first in multi-line
RF> display.
He is talking about 'bbdb-elided-display', I think you were
confused by this earilier with 'bbdb-pop-up-elided-display':
Documentation:
*Display BBDB records in full or in brief.
Set this to T to make the `bbdb-display-records' commands default to
displaying one line per record instead of a full listing. Set this to a
list of some of the symbols '(address phone net notes) to select those
fields to be left out of the listing (you can't leave out the name field).
>>
>> See `make-obsolete-variable'.
RF> And howlong do one retains this before removing the variable
RF> finally?
Probably until it bit-rots (ie it starts breaking things and no
one is willing to contribute patches, or it gets in the way of another
larger patch).
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