[bug#53797] gnu: Add emacs-app-launcher.

  ---
 gnu/packages/emacs-xyz.scm | 27 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+)
  

Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
> +       "app-launcher defines the app-launcher-run-app command which uses Emacs
> +standard completion feature to select an application installed on your machine
> +and launch it.")

What does ‘launching’ mean here?  Is ‘launching an application’
functionally the same as running it (with 'fork'+'exec' or 'system' or
whatever)?  Does it have extra bells and whistles?

It's a super vague word, e.g. when Xiden has been announced on guix-
devel, one of the words that kept being repeated was 'launcher', but it
wasn't defined anywhere in its practically empty manual. (Nowadays
there's actually a manual and it does define launchers, but it didn't
use to.) 

Greetings,
Maxime.
  

Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
> +  (let ((commit "80a9ed37892ee6e21fe44487ed11f66a15e3f440")
> +        (revision "1")
> +        (version "0.1"))

It's the first version in Guix, so revision should be "0."
Also, version "0.1" seems to be incorrect here, since there
aren't any releases at all.  So I'd start at "0.0".

I could be wrong, but I don't think that the auto-updater
(guix refresh -u) understands let-bound versions (let-bound commits and
revisions are ok though), and you're only using the 'version' variable
in a single place, so I'd move it to the 'version' field of the package
record.

Greetings,
Maxime.
  

Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
> +       "Use Emacs an app launcher")

Seems ingrammatical, "Use Emacs as an app launcher" would be better
though still rather vague.

Greetings,
Maxime.
  

Maxime Devos schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 13:12 [+0100]:
> It's the first version in Guix, so revision should be "0."
> Also, version "0.1" seems to be incorrect here, since there
> aren't any releases at all.  So I'd start at "0.0".

Nevermind, I now see 'app-launcher.el' says Version: 0.1.
  

Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
> +(define-public emacs-app-launcher

app-launcher.el has (require 'xdg) (require 'cl-seq),
are these built-in to Emacs or do they need to be added to propagated-
inputs?

Greetings,
Maxime.
  

Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
> +(define-public emacs-app-launcher

app-launcher.el says it includes code from the Counsel package by Oleh
Krehel and the counsel source files have "Copyright (C) YEARS Foo"
lines, but app-launcher.el doesn't have those.

IIRC, the GPL has a clause that says you need to preserve copyright
lines, so this looks like a violation of the license to me.  Can they
be re-added upstream?

Greetings,
Maxime.
  

On 2022-02-05 13:05, Maxime Devos wrote:

> Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
>> +       "app-launcher defines the app-launcher-run-app command which uses Emacs
>> +standard completion feature to select an application installed on your machine
>> +and launch it.")
>
> What does ‘launching’ mean here?  Is ‘launching an application’
> functionally the same as running it (with 'fork'+'exec' or 'system' or
> whatever)?  Does it have extra bells and whistles?
>
> It's a super vague word, e.g. when Xiden has been announced on guix-
> devel, one of the words that kept being repeated was 'launcher', but it
> wasn't defined anywhere in its practically empty manual. (Nowadays
> there's actually a manual and it does define launchers, but it didn't
> use to.) 
>
> Greetings,
> Maxime.

Hello. I don't know if that's what you wanted to hear but technically,
the script is a big wrapper around
`call-process-shell-command'. `app-launcher--action-function' can be set
to whatever function to execute on the selected candidate, by default
this is set to `app-launcher--action-function-default' which ultimately
runs `call-process-shell-command'. See:
https://github.com/SebastienWae/app-launcher/blob/main/app-launcher.el#L167

Is this enough information?
  

On 2022-02-05 13:13, Maxime Devos wrote:

> Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
>> +       "Use Emacs an app launcher")
>
> Seems ingrammatical, "Use Emacs as an app launcher" would be better
> though still rather vague.
>
> Greetings,
> Maxime.
>

This is indeed a mistake. But please, if you have a better
synopsis/description in mind - share it. I'm always bad at these
things. Especially since the package itself doesn't provide a whole lot
of documentation since it's so simple.
  

On 2022-02-05 13:16, Maxime Devos wrote:

> Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
>> +(define-public emacs-app-launcher
>
> app-launcher.el has (require 'xdg) (require 'cl-seq),
> are these built-in to Emacs or do they need to be added to propagated-
> inputs?
>
> Greetings,
> Maxime.
>

I think they are built into emacs. I had no trouble with the package
definition.
  

On 2022-02-05 13:20, Maxime Devos wrote:

> Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
>> +(define-public emacs-app-launcher
>
> app-launcher.el says it includes code from the Counsel package by Oleh
> Krehel and the counsel source files have "Copyright (C) YEARS Foo"
> lines, but app-launcher.el doesn't have those.
>
> IIRC, the GPL has a clause that says you need to preserve copyright
> lines, so this looks like a violation of the license to me.  Can they
> be re-added upstream?
>
> Greetings,
> Maxime.

I don't know if that's a violation sorry. Regarding adding it
upstream. I don't think so. At least judging by the activity of the
maintainer. See here:
https://github.com/SebastienWae/app-launcher/issues

There are open issues starting a year ago and the author hasn't replied
to any of them. But I could try my luck and contact them to add the
copyright notices.
  

Demis Balbach schreef op zo 06-02-2022 om 11:58 [+0100]:
> > Demis Balbach schreef op za 05-02-2022 om 12:20 [+0100]:
> > > +       "Use Emacs an app launcher")
> > 
> > Seems ingrammatical, "Use Emacs as an app launcher" would be better
> > though still rather vague.
> > 
> > Greetings,
> > Maxime.
> > 
> 
> This is indeed a mistake. But please, if you have a better
> synopsis/description in mind - share it. I'm always bad at these
> things. Especially since the package itself doesn't provide a whole
> lot
> of documentation since it's so simple.

I'm also bad at descriptions and synopses.  How about

(synopsis "Start applications from Emacs")
(description "This package allows starting applications from within
Emacs with the @lisp{app-launcher-run-app} command.  It supports
autocompletion.  It cannot be used to start arbitrary software; it
assumes that the application has a .desktop file.  This is the case
for most, but certainly not all, graphical software.")

?

‘Application’ in the synopsis is not really specific, but the
description explains what counts as ‘application’ to emacs-app-
launcher.

Greetings,
Maxime
  

Demis Balbach schreef op zo 06-02-2022 om 11:59 [+0100]:
> I think they are built into emacs. I had no trouble with the package
> definition.

OK.
  

Demis Balbach schreef op zo 06-02-2022 om 12:01 [+0100]:
> I don't know if that's a violation sorry. Regarding adding it
> upstream. I don't think so. At least judging by the activity of the
> maintainer. See here:
> https://github.com/SebastienWae/app-launcher/issues
> 
> There are open issues starting a year ago and the author hasn't
> replied
> to any of them. But I could try my luck and contact them to add the
> copyright notices.

IANAL but it's such a minor and technical violation (the app-
launcher.el even acknowledges Oleh Krehel, it just didn't say
Copyright YEAR Oleh Krehel (or Copyright YEAR FSF, since it looks
like Counsel has some copyright assignement to the FSF going on))
that I would consider making a token effort to correct it upstream
sufficient.

If not, it could be patched (with an origin snippet or a patch)
in Guix.

Greetings,
Maxime.
  

On 2022-02-05, Demis Balbach wrote:
> +(define-public emacs-app-launcher

This was added in commit:

90174c77cf59fd9681eb7442a92015cd61c8495d gnu: Add emacs-app-launcher.

Marking as done.

live well,
  vagrant