Re: Improving browsing and discoverability in the Packages Menu

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Alexis <address@hidden> writes:

> Artur Malabarba <address@hidden> writes:
>
>>> Maybe just expand the canonical list of curated keywords, then let
>>> package authors add their own on top of that?
>>
>> This by itself will take a very long time, if ever, to have any
>> effect. It would have to be coupled with something else.  For
>> instance, there could be a compiler warning if the package has
>> unknown keywords. This wouldn't prevent the keyword from working,
>> but it would inform the developer to either change the keyword or
>> ask us to add it in.  Is that too much?
>
> Hmm .... i'm not sure how practical that last bit is. For example:
> should "vcard" be added as an 'official' keyword? (i currently include
> it in the list of keywords for `org-vcard', the other two being
> "outline" and "org".) Should i instead replace the "vcard" keyword
> with "contacts", given that people could plausibly find `org-vcard'
> via searching package names instead of keywords for the term 'vcard',
> but currently wouldn't find it were they thinking in terms of
> "contacts management"? Who would be the person or people making the
> decision on whether a keyword should be added, modified or removed?
> Might such a process result in emacs-devel being flooded with
> interminable ontological bikeshedding?

The danger is great. I don't have a wonderful solution, either, but I'm
seeing a vague vision of some sort of a two-tiered system: the first a
limited list of curated categories set by someone in a position of
authority, and another free-for-all keyword mashup. In your example,
you'd categorize your package as "contacts" under tier one, and put
"vcard" and "org" and whatever else in tier two. Package filtering would
happen on both tiers, perhaps with completion only for the first tier.

I can imagine two different package headers: Category and Keywords,
corresponding to the two tiers. I can also imagine tier one coming from
Keywords, and tier two coming from searching the Commentary section.

That's all I've got.

Eric