denote-dired-mode ("fontification") not triggered in subdirectory if subdirectory is symlinked

[julian-hoch]

I am not sure if this is a defect in Denote, or something that is just not possible in Emacs, but if you

• set up multiple subdirectories below your main denote directory
• configure the hook for dired-mode
• enable denote-mode in dired for subdirectories using denote-dired-directories-include-subdirectories

you will get dired mode only for subdirectories that are physical subdirectories, not symlinks. I am wondering if there is a way to make sure dired follows the symlink when determining whether to enable the denote mode.

A workaround is to manually add the symlinked directories to "denote-dired-directories", but obviously this only works if there are few subdirectories (and makes it a bit cumbersome to configure for cases where the same config is used on different computers with a different subfolder structure on the respective denote directory).

[protesilaos]

From: Julian Hoch @.***> Date: Sat, 11 May 2024 10:46:06 -0700

I am not sure if this is a defect in Denote, or something that is just not possible in Emacs, but if you

• set up multiple subdirectories below your main denote directory
• configure the hook for dired-mode
• enable denote-mode in dired for subdirectories using denote-dired-directories-include-subdirectories

Okay, let's try to find out:

• Go to the root of your denote-directory.
• Do M-x eval-expression
• Or type M-: with default key bindings.
• At the eval-expression prompt, write (denote-directory-subdirectories) and hit RET.
• You will get the return value of that function. Does it include the symlinks?

-- Protesilaos Stavrou https://protesilaos.com

[julian-hoch]

Hi Prot! Yeah, the directories are all set up correctly. I suspect that the issue lies here:

;; denote.el - defun denote-dired-mode-in-directories
[...]
             ((or (member (file-truename default-directory) dirs)
[...]

"file-truename" resolves symlinks, so this will compare the directories I configured in my emacs config with the "true" path of the dorectory I am in - which will not resolve to the same path in my case.

In my case, I set up the denote directories as ~/denote/private, ~/denote/customer, which link to ~/git/denote-private-kb and ~/git/denote-customer-kb, just for convenience. So the "member" test will fail if I access them via the symlink (but it works if I dired into the "real" path).

I suspect this could be fixed by also applying file-truename to all the directories in the "dirs" list. Julian

[protesilaos]

Thank you for looking into this!

I suspect this could be fixed by also applying file-truename to all the directories in the "dirs" list.

Maybe we can just remove the file-truename? It has always been there but I am not sure it is necessary.

[julian-hoch]

My understanding is that the advantage of using file-truename is that it does not matter if you use a symlink to look at your files. So if you have your denote directory in one physical location, and then link to it from various other places, I would think people would typically want to enable the dired mode for all of these, I don't see a reason why you would not want that. You could also make it optional - a configuration variable "follow-symlinks" or something (similar in the way ripgrep and other utilities handle it) so that if it is set to

• true: all symlinks to your configured denoted dired directorys are rendered nicely or
• false: only the configured path is considered In my opinion this is the Emacs way - make it configurable and up to the user, but provide a sensible default that works for most (probably 'true' in this case). The one thing that I would not recommend is to leave it as is, since it is simply inconsistent. Since I am new to emacs and elisp I am not super confident I can implement this myself, but if you don't have the time for it I can give it a go.

[protesilaos]

Since I am new to emacs and elisp I am not super confident I can implement this myself, but if you don't have the time for it I can give it a go.

What we can do is introduce a variable like denote-directory-check-path-function. Its default value will be the function we are using right now. Then we arrange to funcall this variable, so users who experience this problem can define the alternative that works for them.