Re: [PATCH] Keep network security info buffers after use

[Karl Fogel]

On 24 Dec 2023, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
> > My use case is that I want to make sure that a certificate is
> > valid before accepting it.  This inevitably means some manual
> > inspection.
>
> That is already supported: you type 'd' at the prompt, and then
> you are presented with a buffer with the details, and can page
> through it with several keys.
>
> > Personally, I'd probably prefer entering a recursive edit,
> > inspect it, and hit ´C-M-c' to go back.  But to be honest, I
> > only realized that `recursive-edit' works there from reading
> > this thread.  If I didn't realize that, maybe other people
> > won't find it either.
> >
> > Perhaps we could simply do more to make `recursive-edit'
> > discoverable here?
>
> There's no need to do that, since inspection is already
> supported, see above.  If that is not enough, please tell why.

The reason 'd' is not enough is that the process of inspecting the 
cert may involve (in my case, always involves) running more Emacs 
commands, usually from the buffer containing the cert info.

For example: grabbing the cert info into the isearch search ring, 
then switching to another buffer (perhaps via `find-file') that 
contains pre-recorded known-good cert info, and quickly searching 
for the same cert info to see if there's a match.

But that's just one way.  For certain certs, I have other, 
more-automated Emacs-based infrastructure for checking them.  When 
it comes to certs, I don't want to rely on quick human-eye 
comparisons.  I want to use the full power of Emacs.  But the 
current functionality from typing 'd' does not give me that.  (The 
recursive edit does, and now I know about it, but it's hard to 
discover and thus not of practical use to most users right now -- 
as Stefan pointed out, he only learned it from this thread.)

And even if one *were* relying purely on a human-eye comparison, 
the tool in which one would be likely to call up the known-good 
fingerprint, etc, for checking would be Emacs... which 'd' doesn't 
allow.  It just shows you the received cert info in a window, 
while leaving you trapped in the r-m-c modal prompt.

It's not really very useful.

> Using recursive-edit might be a general thing to solve such
> situations, but nsm was coded to provide the inspection as a
> built-in feature, while recursive-edit is an advanced feature
> not known to many users, and not possible from the minibuffer in
> many cases (since enable-recursive-minibuffers is nil by
> default).

"The inspection" can be an arbitrarily complex process, during 
which the user should have all the usual power of Emacs available.

Best regards,
-Karl