[Aquamacs-devel] html-helper-mode won't indent

[siemsen at ucar.edu]

On Sep 30, 2009, at 12:49 PM, David Reitter wrote:

> On Sep 28, 2009, at 11:33 AM, Pete Siemsen wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sep 28, 2009, at 6:27 AM, David Reitter wrote:
>>
>>> On Sep 28, 2009, at 7:42 AM, Pete Siemsen wrote:
>>>> 1. The html-helper-mode that comes with Aquamacs is version 1.5.   
>>>> Version 2.19 is available.  Version 1.5 has a much smaller set of  
>>>> commands, so at first glance you might conclude that html-helper- 
>>>> mode isn't much better than html-mode.
>>>
>>> Are you sure?  The 1.5 is based on an automatic CVS versioning  
>>> mechanism.   Doesn't reflect reality.
>>
>>> If you look at the authors list, you might infer that we're  
>>> actually using a much more advanced version of html-helper-mode,  
>>> which is based on Nelson Minar's original mode.
>>>
>>> http://www.nongnu.org/baol-hth/index.html
>>
>> Ok, I'm confused :-)  Here are the versions that I now know about:
>>
>> 1.
>> The one that comes with Aquamacs.
>> It's in /Applications/Aquamacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/ 
>> edit-modes/html-helper-mode.el.
>> It's html-helper-mode-version variable says "1.5".
>> It's 94203 bytes.
>> When you do help-mode, it displays a very short list of commands -  
>> about 35.
>> This one has a comment that says you modified it for Aquamacs in  
>> 2008.
>
> ... and the version control change log says that is the latest  
> available version from their CVS.  This is dated May 16, and it is  
> still here:
>
> http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/baol-hth/html-helper-mode.el?revision=3.10&root=baol-hth&view=markup
>
> It has a few fixes on top of that that I think I wrote, as in the  
> change log and in the comment.

Ok, thanks.  My quest for the latest html-helper-mode is almost  
complete.  Here's the reasons for my confusion, in the hope that  
others may avoid this in the future...

When the Aquamacs html-helper-mode didn't behave as I expected, I did  
describe-mode.  It showed a list of only 32 key bindings.  I assumed  
it was old.  I grep`d the .el file for "version" and found the html- 
helper-mode-version variable set to "1.5".  I Google'd for html-helper- 
mode and found Nelson Minar's old site.  The beta version there had  
html-helper-mode-version set to "2.19".  I loaded it and did describe- 
mode, and found many more key bindings.  I thought "This makes sense -  
version 1.5 is ancient, and version 2.19 has more key bindings".  Dead  
wrong, but sensible.

Then you told me about the baol-hth website, which has versions of  
html-helper-mode newer than Nelson's.  I went to the site's "download  
area".  It has misleading file names, but I finally got "3.0.4kilo",  
after some confusion with "3.0.4jolly".  I loaded "3.0.4kilo", and  
describe-mode showed even more key bindings.  I thought I was making  
progress.

Then you supplied the link above, to the CVS tree at the baol-hth  
website. It has an even newer version - "3.10".  It would be nice if  
that version were available in the website's "download" area.

With some help from you, I've learned that the version distributed  
with Aquamacs is really 3.10 from the baol-hth website, but with some  
modifications.  One modification was changing the version number from  
3.10 to 1.5.  I think this is confusing at best.  I suggest that the  
version should be "3.10 with Aquamacs mods" or even "3.11".

The other modifications have to do with whether it's a major mode or a  
minor mode.  I don't understand them, but I do know that they "break"  
describe-mode.  In the unmodified 3.10, describe-mode lists 176 key  
bindings.  In the version that comes with Aquamacs, it lists 32.  The  
unlisted keys work, they just aren't listed by describe-mode.

Something about the mods made to version 3.10 to produce the Aquamacs  
version has broken describe-mode.

-- Pete


>> 3.
>> The one I just downloaded from http://www.nongnu.org/baol-hth/
>> It's html-helper-mode-version variable says "3.0.4jolly".
>> It's 97505 bytes.
>> When you do help-mode, it displays the longest list of commands -  
>> about 134.
>>
>> Please forgive my confusion :-)
>
> Why jolly, and not kilo, which they have available there as well?
> Kilo is dated May 16, 2004.
>
> The two don't seem to differ in terms of commands, but the CVS based  
> version seems to be more modern (and has dropped support for Emacs  
> 18).

In their "downloads" directory, I assumed the one labelled "beta" was  
the latest, but it's actually a copy of jolly.  I should've looked at  
the dates instead of the file names, and I would've gotten "kilo".   
But even that is wrong, as described above.

>>> Writing a little Lisp function to indent a single line would be  
>>> the cleanest approach.
>>
>> I'm interested.  Should I start with version #3, or does it need  
>> some Aquamacs-specific
>> mods first?
>
> I'd say start with version #1, the one included in Aquamacs. It's  
> where the original authors apparently gave up.

Ok, but can you help fix html-helper-mode-version and describe-mode?

-- Pete