Re: Time for an EMACS shell-mode upgrade

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> On Sat Oct 27, Glew, writes:

> I have, for the last 15 years, used a modification of one of the
> original GNU EMACS shell.el shell-mode packages.  Its main advantage
> was that it tracked directory changes much better than standard
> shell.el.  All of my directory changing commands would print the new
> directory; my shell mode would recognize the new directory when it
> printed.

Have you looked at dirtrack.el?  It's part of the standard
distribution, and may do all that you need.

> Alternatively: I just noticed eshell.el, the shell written inside
> EMACS, on the EMACS 21* CVS/web site. This looks good - the *right*
> *thing* *to* *do*. Although eshell.el does not have cdpath now, I'd
> gladly write it.

Indeed, I would be glad to help implement CDPATH.  It should be
trivial.  It would be a small addition to em-dirs, I think.

> Q: has anyone reading this far used eshell?  How good is it?

I've been using it as my main shell for about two years now.  But my
feedback is likely biased. :)

> Q: does eshell run on the old version of EMACS, 20.7, which is in
> Intel's standard distribution /usr/intel/00r1?
>       Is it an older version of eshell.el, or the latest?

It will run on 20.4 or later.

John