Re: git history tracking across renames (and emacs support)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: João Távora <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden,  
> address@hidden
> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2018 10:04:17 +0100
> 
> Now the actual annoyance:
> 
> 1.  save-some-buffers constantly nags me about saving the useless file
>     ChangeLog.  I worked around this with a
>     save-some-buffers-default-predicate, but sometimes I like to work
>     from Emacs -Q (typically after reproducing a bug) and I'm still
>     annoyed there.
> 
> 2.  killing the ChangeLog buffer in other situations (when generally
>     cleaning up my buffer list) also prompts me about saving it;
>     
> 3.  when performing multiple commits to one project on the same day,
>     vc-next-action blindly copies all entries for the day, duplicating
>     entries in my commit message.  So I have to remember to kill the
>     buffer before the first `C-x 4 a' of the commit I'm about to do.
>     Which means I have to find it in my buffer list, and then it asks me
>     if I want to save it ("grrr, no! yes! whatever!").  Alternatively, I
>     can find the buffer and delete its contents, also kind-of
>     impractical.  Alternatively, what I've been doing recently, is to
>     issue the first `C-x 4 a' just to find the dang buffer, then delete
>     everything, then `C-x o', then do that same `C-x 4 a' again.  It
>     works, but feels kinda silly.
> 
> 4.  When I do need, for whatever reason, to manually copy-paste from the
>     ChangeLog buffer, it annoys me that the indentation is not the same.
>     It also annoys me that fontification and fill-paragraph doesn't work
>     in vc-git-log-edit-mode like it does in change-log-mode.  Can it be
>     made to?

You are working too hard, IMO.  I generally write the GNU-style
ChangeLog entries only when I land a feature on the development
branch, I don't write them while working on a feature branch.  On a
feature branch, my log entries are very short and only describe what
milestones were reached and what significant issues fixed.  So the
multiple entries and related problems never happen for me.

As for the rest, if you insist on not having a real file with
ChangeLog entries, then perhaps add-log.el could be extended to be
able to use a buffer name, not just a file name, for where to put the
log messages.  It already allows you to customize the file name; it
could do something similar with a buffer name, and that buffer could
have no file name.  Then a large part of your problems would go away,
AFAIU.  (This will not solve the problem in "emacs -Q", but nothing
like this could ever do that, since it should be obvious that whatever
you code will be an optional feature.)

And having the vc-log buffer under change-log-mode is, of course,
trivial, either with your customizations or by default.

> But perhaps, before spending time on the patch, you or someone else can
> tell me if you use ChangeLog for more projects than Emacs and/or how you
> avoid these annoyances.

I just told you: I have a real ChangeLog file in the repository.  With
some projects, this file is versioned; with others, it is a local
untracked file mentioned in .gitignore.  Emacs belongs to the latter
category.