Bowmansarrow

Another month has passed. I've tried to get as much done as I can think of in order to move to a “beta” release (if you want to call it that). So, as I'm running out of things I think are critical to get done, I'm now announcing the move to a “beta” release!

To get here the following updates have been made:

• Module consolidation for several similar modules.
• Archival (soon to be deleted) of several modules replaced by the above effort.
• Support built in package.el as the primary package management solution. Before, we included code to support both package.el and straight.el, that code has been removed, but there are some general instructions on using packagers other than package.el with Crafted Emacs.
• Separate package lists from package configuration.
  • Using modules with the suffix packages simply adds “bundles” of packages to the list of selected packages. Doing so allow use of the built-in package-install-selected-packages function to install everything needed at once. Packages already installed are skipped without additional checks and is generally faster and easier to use. N.B. these are not required if the user installs their Emacs packages from external tools, for example guix or nix or other operating system package managers.
  • Using modules with the suffix config assumes packages have been installed and provides configuration for them. There are checks to make sure those packages are installed and enabled by the package system before configuring them.
• Rewrite the README.org file, consolidate some parts to make it more concise. The intention is people will actually read the README file rather than skip it due to how long it is.
• Provide a “Getting Started” guide and link to it from the README.org as well as in the generated info file included with Crafted Emacs.
• Change the approach to configuration to push customized values to the default Emacs custom-set-variables section of the custom-file. This enables the user to decouple from Crafted Emacs and (mostly) not lose any configuration.
• Simplified both early-init.el and init.el. Now these files are in the users control and we only provide examples of their use rather than providing the implementation.
• Crafted Emacs no longer stores configuration in it's own folder. This was problematic for several reasons, as different packages dropped files or folders in the user-emacs-directory and we had to detect those and move them to the CRAFTED_EMACS_HOME. That effort was incomplete so files were scattered across the two directories leaving a confusing mess. Everything now is in the user-emacs-directory and the user has control over moving them to XDG locations if they choose, or possibly using something like a no-littering approach.

This is a very divergent approach compared to what Crafted Emacs has been so far. I'll be writing a transition guide for existing Crafted Emacs users. Those who wish to try it are encouraged to send feedback via issues on the project GitHub site.

Tags: #emacs