I recently learned that some former MELPA libraries are now available only from the EmacsWiki.
Let aside security implications,
Is there an equivalent of M-x package-list-packages for those libraries?
Is there an equivalent of (use-package foo), which I could put in my init file?
Any best practice suggested to deal with EmacsWiki libraries?
Is there an equivalent of
M-x package-list-packagesfor those libraries?
The el-get package manager supports installation from the EmacsWiki; after doing M-x el-get-emacswiki-build-local-recipes, M-x el-get-list-packages will show packages from EmacsWiki as well.
Is there an equivalent of
(use-package foo), which I could put in my init file?
(el-get-bundle foo) would be approximately equivalent.
(use-package el-get :config (el-get-emacswiki-build-local-recipes)) (el-get-bundle dired+). However, el-get-bundle raises an error, when generating autoloads and byte-compiling the autoload file, because dired-omit-files is void. A hack would be to (setq dired-omit-files nil), but clearly there should be a proper way.
el-get-bundle (because it's a macro), you can't start using it in the same statement that you load it. Maybe try (el-get nil 'dired+) instead. And el-get-emacswiki-build-local-recipes takes a long time, you probably don't want to run it every time you startup.
(el-get-emacswiki-build-local-recipes), use-package :config is clever enough to run it only the first time. Still (el-get nil 'dired+) gives error in process sentinel: Symbol’s value as variable is void: dired-omit-files. The mentioned variable is part part of dired (not dired+), which is not loaded by el-get. Byte-compiling dired+ works, so the problem is in the way el-get installs dired+.
dired+ misusing ;;;###autoload. You can work around it with (add-to-list 'el-get-sources '(:name dired+ :autoloads nil)) before the (el-get nil 'dired+) call, or using el-get-bundle: (el-get-bundle dired+ :autoloads nil).
No. As far as I know, there is no equivalent of package-list-packages or use-package for libraries uploaded to the Emacs Wiki Elisp Area. In general, you download the file(s) for a library to a local directory that is in your load-path, and then require the library feature name or main-file name (e.g. (require 'isearch+).
Questions about things such as best practice are off-topic on emacs.SE, as they are generally primarily opinion-based or too broad. Questions here should be specific and call for specific answers.
Anyone can upload code to Emacs Wiki. As a result, the code there is variable in what it does, how it does it, and perhaps how well it does it. As is true in general elsewhere, it's a good idea to take a look at code you download before using it, and preferably take a look at any associated doc there may be for it.
load-path, and then require-ing those libraries. Doing that, I think you will encounter no such problem.