magit with modeline status dot

Question

I am using magit (2.2.2) with emacs 25. magit is very good BUT I want the status dot in the modeline (like psvn does).

I try to use https://github.com/tsgates/git-emacs/blob/master/git-modeline.el with this configuration:

  (autoload 'git--update-all-state-marks "git-modeline" nil t)
  (add-hook 'find-file-hook 'git-status-in-modeline)
  (defun git-status-in-modeline ()
    (if (and vc-mode (string-match "^ Git" (substring-no-properties vc-mode)))
        (git--update-all-state-marks)))

When I open a file (under git) it doesn't work but if I do (revert-buffer) it works. Why the second time but not the first ? Any Idea to progress ?

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

The code git-status-in-modeline assumes vc has already been activated in the buffer it is working in. The issue was that the function was added to the start of find-file-hook, as such it was run before vc-find-file-hook (function which sets up vc-mode for a file) had any chance of setting up vc-mode in the file. Appending git-status-in-modeline (so that it runs after vc-find-file-hook) solves the problem

(add-hook 'find-file-hook 'git-status-in-modeline t)

Answer 2

I can imagine two ways this could be implemented. (1) Process each buffer individually - get the state of the file, then update the mode-line. (2) Compile a list of buffers and their files, get the status of the files, loop over the buffers to update their mode-lines.

A quick look at the source indicates that this snippet does the latter. And the public function seems to be git--update-all-state-marks, even though its name indicates otherwise (it uses the "private" prefix git--).

So you have this function to a hook which is run once "when something changed in the repository", not to a hook which is run once per file/buffer.

In the case of Magit magit-pre-refresh-hook should work. It is run after Magit did run a command and right before it refreshes the current Magit buffer. If the Magit command was invoked from a file-visiting buffer, then it is not run (but now that I think about it, I might change that). In any case you can always refresh the status dots by explicitly triggering an update by pressing g in any Magit buffer.

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You might want to encourage the author to cleanup the code and to release this as a proper package in its own right. With documentation and everything.