GNU bug report logs - #64298
29.0.92; Fixes for several todo-mode bugs

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From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Stephen Berman <stephen.berman <at> gmx.net>
Cc: 64298 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#64298: 29.0.92; Fixes for several todo-mode bugs
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2023 14:37:33 +0300

> From: Stephen Berman <stephen.berman <at> gmx.net>
> Cc: 64298 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2023 12:02:29 +0200
> 
> I cannot guarantee that all possibilities are now accounted for, but
> systematically going through all combinations of commands and the
> conditions under which they are executed would be very tedious and
> time-consuming, and I think it's better to include fixes for the known
> problems in emacs-29 rather than waiting for a possibly more
> comprehensive fix.

OK.

> One of the two cases, that of moving a todo-mode category from one todo
> file to another, also revealed a bad UX effect.  Moving the category
> requires applying `widen' (since todo-mode uses narrowing to show only
> the current category's items), but in the current code the user is
> prompted for the target file after widening, which makes the file's
> internal structure visible, which is ugly and unnecessarily confusing.
> I fixed this with the second attached patch (applied after the first
> one) by narrowing again before the prompt and later widening again to
> delete the content of the moved category.  This is a straightforward and
> no-risk fix, so I hope it's also acceptable for emacs-29.

It looks safe, but it is also not very urgent, since this problem
existed since long ago, right?  So how about doing this on master
instead?

> > The 2nd patch is the scariest.  How grave is it, and if it's grave,
> > how come it was not reported until now?  In general, I'd prefer to
> > have the 2nd patch on master, not on the release branch, at least for
> > now.  (We could consider backporting it after Emacs 29.1 is released.)
> 
> I'm surprised you find this patch scary; what specifically do you think
> is dangerous about it?

The non-trivial dance with regular expressions, of course.

> AFAICT such problems don't lead to data loss and with some effort can be
> repaired, but they shouldn't happen in the first place, and with the
> fix, they don't.  And I don't think the fix can cause any other
> problems, at least I haven't seen any in testing it.
> 
> As for why there has been no previous report of this bug, I guess it's
> due to a combination of involving a relatively seldom needed command,
> having triggering conditions that probably also don't occur very often,
> and above all, there being presumably very few regular users of
> todo-mode.  Admittedly, that combination speaks against the urgency of
> committing the fix to emacs-29, but again, the problem is, if not grave,
> at least very confusing, and AFAICT the fix works and is low-risk.

I'd like to release Emacs 29.1 _soon_.  The only way to ensure this is
not to install on emacs-29 anything that doesn't _have_ to be there.
So please look at this from my vantage point, and try to play "devil's
advocate" against yourself.  Then tell me what you think.

> Finally, after I posted the bug report, I received private email from
> someone requesting a further doc fix: the reference in the Commentary
> section of todo-mode.el to "the Todo mode user manual, which is included
> in the Info documentation" led this person to a futile search for
> information about Todo mode in the Emacs Info manual.  So I would also
> like to install the third attached patch to clarify that it's a separate
> Info manual.

Documentation fixes are always OK on the release branch.

Thanks.

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