Re: efficiently viewing Unix timestamps as dates

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:18:49 -0300 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> 
wrote: 

SM> The issue is to not remove the display property placed on *other*
SM> chunks of text.
>> Hmm, does Emacs need a `font-lock-display' property, to be used iff
>> `display' is not specified?  This seems like a lot of pain that should
>> not be passed to the package authors but handled in the core.

SM> Well, I do think Emacs should make it easier for various packages to
SM> use the same property without stepping on each other's toes, but
SM> right now there isn't any good support for that.  The font-lock-face
SM> thingy is kind of a solution, but I don't think it's very convincing
SM> and would rather not use it for more things.  I've already outlined
SM> the way I think things should work, on emacs-devel a few months ago.

OK.  Would you say this is on the TODO list for Emacs 24.x, 25.x, or
"some day"?

>> Are there packages that set `display' without letting font-lock
>> manage it?

SM> I can think of a good bunch, but they're all special-modes, so not used
SM> on files.

OK, so it's typically not an issue today but could become a problem.

>> My previous question remains: is this serious enough that epoch-view.el
>> should not go in the GNU ELPA until it's fixed, or is it a minor bug I
>> can work on later?

SM> It's not serious, no.  And packages don't need to be flawless in order
SM> to be accepted for GNU ELPA, as should be evident if you look at many of
SM> the packages included in Emacs ;-)

Heh, yes, if my code can make it in, anything goes :)

I'll commit epoch-view.el to the ELPA with a note about clashing
`display' properties as you suggested.  Then I'll work on it sooner or
later depending on how soon you think the multiple property support will
happen.

Thanks for your patience.

Ted