Re: [Erc-discuss] Buglet w.r.t. connection tracking and Emacs 21

[Jeremy Maitin-Shepard]

Thomas Schwinge <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello!
> From #erc on freenode.net:

> | <tschwinge> When using the git version of erc with an Emacs 21 installation,
> |   I manually have to set `erc-track-position-in-mode-line' to
> | <tschwinge> ``t'' to get tracking to work.  Is this a known problem?
> | <hober> That makes sense. I don't think `mode-line-modes' worked the same
> |   way, or even existed, in Emacs 21.
> | <hober> Please send an email to the ERC list about this; hopefully someone
> |   will get to it soon.

The issue you are having is due to a patch I wrote that went in a few
weeks ago.  See this message I sent to the list regarding the issue:

- Adding a supported value for `erc-track-position-in-mode-line' that
  specifies that the tracking information should not be added to the
  mode line at all.  The value of nil is used to indicate that the
  information should not be added at all to the mode line.  The one
  issue is that the existing behavior was for all values (including nil)
  of `erc-track-position-in-mode-line' other than `before-modes' or
  `after-modes' to indicate that the information should be added "After
  all other information"; this behavior is now selected only by the
  value `t'.  Furthermore, the customize specifications used `nil' as
  the value for the "After all other information" option.  Thus, this
  patch results in a change of behavior for users that selected the
  "After all other information" using customize, or manually set the
  variable to nil.  In theory, though, since the documentation for the
  variable states that any value other than `after-modes' or
  `before-modes' specifies the "After all other information" option, any
  additional option added for this variable would be potentially
  backwards incompatible, and using t for "After all other information"
  and nil for "Don't add to mode line at all" makes a lot more sense
  that the reverse association.  It doesn't really matter to me what is
  chosen in the end, though.

It seems that you must have used customize or otherwise manually set the
value to something other than t, before-modes, or after-modes, for which
this change is backwards-incompatible.

Note that this issue does not affect new users, and hopefully does not
affect too many existing users, and should not require very much work to
resolve (just changing the value in the configuration from nil to t).

If you think this option should be supported differently for better
backwards compatibility, I'm certainly open to such a change if you
suggest an alternative.

-- 
Jeremy Maitin-Shepard