Better manage Zim modules and prompts allowing the project to grow in an organized way

[ericbn]

I believe Oh My Zsh and even Prezto failed to grow in an organized fashion mainly because they lack incorporating some kind of plugin system that would allow people to contribute with external modules and keep the core clean and simple.

I suggest we take this step with Zim (and make it awesome)!

My suggestion would go in the line of:

• Creating a zim GitHub organization, having the Zim core be zim/zim, and other Zim modules be like zim/xyz.

• Keeping into the Zim core only what we would agree are the basic modules.

• Allowing users to configure external prompts as easily as having this in .zimrc:

  zprompt_theme='subnixr/minimal'
  

• Allowing users to declare external modules also as easily as (two last ones):

  zmodules=(directory environment git history input utility meta custom \
            syntax-highlighting history-substring-search prompt completion \
            zim/pacman foo/bar)
  

Maybe we can incorporate an external existing plugin system into the Zim core to accomplish this, or we can implement our own system (which I think would be the more flexible way to go).

The plugin system would have at least functions like:

• install to install new declared modules
• update to update all existing modules
• clean/cleanup to remove unused modules that are still installed

In case we use an internal plugin system, that could be managed by zmanage, which we already have. (Side suggestion: wouldn't it be cooler to rename zmanage to zim?)

Maybe the zim organization could be the default for external modules, so if the user declares simply pacman inside zmodules and there's no such module, the plugin system would try to check for a zim/pacman repo to install from there.

I would not bother making the plugin system capable of importing Oh My Zsh or Prezto modules.

My suggestion of the basic modules for the Zim code are:

• All those importing the Zsh ones: completion, history-substring-search, syntax-highlighting
• All the ones configuring the sane Zsh defaults for all/most OSs: directory, environment, history, input, spectrum(?), ssh (only not useful for Mac OS X), utility
• The zsh core ones: debug and meta
• git, as git is needed to install and keep Zim and external modules updated
• prompt with a small selection of internal prompts (we have eriner, gitster, magicmace, steeef; there's already a newer fork of minimal as reported in Minimal theme is deprecated #78 and we could check if that is the case with any of the others)

I'd suggest archive(?), fasd and pacman go as external modules inside the zim organization.

This would instantly make users use whatever external prompt they want, without thinking about creating a "Add xyz external prompt" pull request. Other module requests like #33 (virtualenv) or #82 (a module for prompts showing git info) would become candidates for external modules, and we even could decide whether we choose to adopt the module inside the zim organization or suggest the contributor to keep it as a personal project inside its own GitHub user account.

Thoughts?

[Eriner]

I've only read the first line of your proposal; this is something I realized quickly after starting. It would be ideal if all the modules had their own repository, and zim/zim would be strictly the "loader" and associated tasks. I'll read the rest of your proposal and respond at some point this weekend. This would be a fairly large undertaking and would require a fair amount of code refactoring, so I see this as a good long-term goal.

[Plloi]

To maintain theme I propose callnowia or cbp (conveyor belt planet) as names for a utility for managing modules.

EDIT: Or possibly Vort.

[Eriner]

To follow this up, I have created an organization and will start to populate that sometime next week. In the meantime, any suggestions or discussion around this topic belongs here.

@ericbn:

Side suggestion: wouldn't it be cooler to rename zmanage to zim?

No, I don't want to clobber the zim-wiki binary name.

In terms of the module organization, all of the current modules would get their own repositories within the organization; zim itself will be only the loader (basically init.zsh, save some helper scripts). This will make module management much easier, and will allow me to designate users as maintainers of specific modules. For example, I don't own a Mac, so if we wanted a Mac-specific module, I wouldn't be maintaining that.

@Plloi:

To maintain theme I propose callnowia or cbp (conveyor belt planet) as names for a utility for managing modules.
oh come now, if we need a meta tool to fit the theme, it's GIR (or possibly SIR).

Also, I will likely be making the move from submodules to subtrees in terms of zim-core management.

[ericbn]

@Eriner, cool! I'd be happy to help coding whatever is needed.

[Eriner]

Thanks @ericbn, I (and I'm sure many other users) appreciate that, as well as the work you've done already! :) 👍

[Plloi]

Not sure i would trust GIR with something so important. Plus there is fun to be have with callnowia and cbp...

callnowia (order|return) for install/uninstall

or a megadoomer easter egg for cbp ...Megadoomer!

[ericbn]

Just googled those names you guys are mentioning and found this series I've never heard of (maybe because I don't watch Nickelodeon)... Is "Zim" really inspired in this series, and you seriously plan naming things after this?

[Plloi]

Well the graphic in the readme is Zim's(or at least an Irken) head, inspiration acheived!

As for naming everything else well that's up to @Eriner, but it would make me happy because I love this show

[Eriner]

I am going to migrate this issue to the new issue tracker, so follow the reference below if you're looking for the current discussion.

[Eriner]

This issue was moved to zimframework/zim#2