I've had good luck with @shadow; I tell the version control system to
ignore .leo_shadow directories and the .leo file, and the rest of the
project participants are none the wiser. I imagine there are cases
where this wouldn't work, but it hasn't yet been an insurmountable
nuisance.
- Stephen
On May 8, 4:58 pm, "Edward K. Ream" <[email protected]> wrote:
> In this thread I'm going to do some blue-sky thinking. Ville's remark
> about plugins having a shorter life than stand-alone apps like Leo
> might be said to cast a pall over this entire discussion, but what the
> heck: I've had some new ideas today that I'd like to share. Besides,
> if the plugins I am about to discuss were nifty enough perhaps they
> might become official parts of their respective editors. We can
> dream, at least.
>
> This afternoon I started wondering whether Leo's sentinel problems
> might possibly have some as-yet-undreamed-of solution. In frustration
> I fell back on the last resort: magic. I asked myself whether any
> kind of magic might come to mind that could make sentinels
> unnecessary.
>
> The short answer is no :-) We could imagine some faux-cute hacks that
> might render sentinels unnecessary for programs, but the idea
> collapses as soon as one considers that Leo outlines can contain any
> kind of data. Really and truly, sentinels are essential.
>
> The thought then came to mind that the real problem with sentinels is
> that they are visible. So can we imagine another kind of magic, say a
> vim plugin that hides Leo sentinels from those that don't want
> anything to do with Leo. This plugin would have two modes. In
> "Leonine" mode it would present thin external files as outlines. (The
> plugin might even show .leo files). In "plain" mode it would show
> thin external files as flat files.
>
> Here are the new thoughts:
>
> 1. It would be relatively simple to prototype (in Leo itself) code
> that would hide sentinels from the user but would *maintain* those
> sentinels (in the hidden background) so that they would be written
> when the user saves the file. The general principles for this approach
> are:
>
> A. The plugin would never insert or change sentinels and,
> B. The plugin would delete sentinels only in matching pairs.
>
> Given these principles, the task of updating and deleting sentinels as
> the user inserts and deletes characters is relatively
> straightforward. I'll omit the details because the question of
> whether such a plugin ultimately makes sense is still unanswered.
>
> 2. If we allow the possibility that an environment will contain
> (mostly hidden) sentinels, we will likely see a cascade of (benign?)
> side effects. For example, we would probably want a Leonine diff that
> would present differences to bzr/git/whatever that ignore (proper)
> diffs involving sentinels. If the algorithm in part 1 works properly,
> all diffs will indeed be proper: we will never delete just one of a
> pair of sentinels.
>
> Objections
>
> There are several possible objections to such a scheme:
>
> 1. Some people will object to Leo sentinels no matter how well hidden
> they are. Management could lesson "dissent" by requiring everybody to
> install the Leo plugin (and diff), giving each programmer the option
> of running the plugin in Leonine or plain mode.
>
> 2. As a practical matter, the changes to the overall tool chain might
> simply be too difficult for me to do or for others to install.
>
> Both objections seem real enough. In the final analysis, though,
> whether they are fatal depends on whether people really want the
> plugin. It's hard to know beforehand.
>
> Your comments please.
>
> Edward
>
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