bug#61712: 30.0.50; Want way to generate VC log for arbitrary list of files

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>
> Cc: Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name>,  61712@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2023 19:59:05 +0200
> 
> > How could you know, when this important feature was almost completely
> > undocumented?  Apart of a single NEWS entry, which is also quite
> > misleading in what it does NOT say, there was no mention of this
> > anywhere in our manuals, until now.
> 
> Adding text for such a minor feature as using Dired for VC commands
> to the top node "Version Control" makes it too long.

It isn't a minor feature, IMO.  It enables a lot of workflows that
previously were hard or impossible.  The first example is the question
which started this discussion.

> Even a major feature of using VC Directory Mode is described
> much later in the manual.  So better would be to explain Dired support
> somewhere near the node "VC Directory Mode".

I could argue that the possibility of using VC features from Dired is
maybe even more important than vc-dir.

Anyway, the VC chapter needs to be rewritten, I know it for a long
time now.  But I don't have time for that, not now anyway.  I just
spent half of my day chasing all the rabbit holes in VC and fixing the
doc strings that I found unclear or inaccurate, and their manual
descriptions that were either incomplete or outdated.  I cannot afford
spending more time on this, sorry.  Unless someone steps forward and
does the job, we'll have to live with what we have now, which IMNSHO
is not too bad.

> > Btw, shouldn't we show the VC information in the mode line of a Dired
> > buffer that displays a directory under VCS?  Since all VC commands now
> > work in such a buffer, this is very similar to showing a file under
> > VCS, so the omission doesn't sound right to me.
> 
> I never noticed this omission, but adding the same mode-line string
> as in regular file buffers makes sense.

Patches to that effect are welcome.  Without that, the text I wrote
about VC being enabled automatically in Dired buffers might sound
misleading to someone.

Thanks.