define package list via M-x customize interface

[aspiers]

The manual recommends achieving a distributed setup via:

     (setq my-packages
           (append
            '(cssh el-get switch-window vkill google-maps nxhtml xcscope yasnippet)
            (mapcar 'el-get-source-name el-get-sources)))

     (el-get 'sync my-packages)

However, it would be very nice if el-get defaulted to obtaining the package list from an el-get-packages custom variable, since then it would be customisable via the standard M-x customize UI, which is preferable to elisp-averse users (and even some elisp lovers, like myself ;-)

[aspiers]

P.S. I forgot to say, thanks for el-get - it totally ROCKS!!

[dimitri]

Well that's the advanced setup for manually syncing in between several machines. For the simple use case, you don't have to maintain any list of packages, just (el-get 'sync) and it will know how to sync any package that you did install before.

[aspiers]

Sure, I'm specifically talking about the advanced setup. Of all the people who want to keep their package list in sync across several machines, I doubt I'm the only one who would like to be able to maintain the list via the customize UI. This should be a very simple patch. Maybe I can do it if you are unlikely to find time.

[dimitri]

Oh, you want to use the customize UI for maintaining that part... well, yes I would accept a patch, as I avoid that UI I won't be working on it. The main difficulty of the patch will be not to change the current behavior for people who are not using the custom UI. In particular you will need to stay away from existing variables.