GitHub + MELPA + Worg

1. Create your Emacs package,
2. Register to GitHub (it is free),
3. Put your package under version control on GitHub,
4. Make it compliant with ELPA,
5. Submit your package to MELPA through a "pull request",
6. Type M-x package-list-packages and try installing your own package,
7. Ask for commit rights on Worg,
8. Document your package on Worg,
9. Announce its availability on the mailing list,
10. Your package starts its life with possible contributions from others.

You may change the ordering of items. For instance, putting 9. on position 1. is done quite often, and it could save you a few iterations.

Well, you know, you write a bunch of Emacs-lisp files, and possibly other kinds of files. I will take my own example: I wrote orgtbl-ascii-plot.el.

Go to https://github.com/, choose a user name, a password, and create an account. Go for a free, publicly visible account. I choosed tbanel, so I was given this url: https://github.com/tbanel

Under a single account, you can create as many GIT repositories as you want.

Go ahead, create one using the drop down menu under the "+" sign at the upper right side of the screen. Play a little bit. No worries, you can delete it.

There are many ways to do that. My advice is to let GitHub create a skeletton.

1. Create a repository (drop down menu under the "+" sign at the upper right side of the screen).
2. Choose the GPL V3 license for your package (or any other license). GitHub creates the license file for you.

3. Clone the repository to your local drive. In my case I did that:

   git clone https://github.com/tbanel/orgtblasciiplot.git
   

   This will create a directory with the name of your repository, ready to accept GIT commands. You will mainly develop in this local directory.

4. Copy the files of your package in this directory. For me it was something like:

   cp orgtbl-ascii-plot.el orgtblasciiplot/
   

5. Add your files to GIT. I typed:

   git add orgtbl-ascii-plot.el
   git commit
   

6. Synchronize your local drive with GitHub servers.

   git push
   

   This will "push" changes in your local drive to GitHub.

7. On the GitHub web interface, click on README.md and the Edit button. Explain what your package do. Play with the markup facility, use the Preview button. When done, commit.

Now you have two repositories, one on your local drive, and one on GitHub. You may change either, as you want, maintaining both in sync with the commands:

git push
git pull

You need to tag your elisp file in a way that ELPA can leverage automatically. A simple way to do that is to create an empty orgtbl-ascii-plot.el file under Emacs (replace with the actual name of your package). If auto-insert-mode is enabled, a template is inserted.

Then go to the Emacs info page for details: elisp#Packaging

Submissions to MELPA work this way:

1. Fork the MELPA project under GitHub. Login to your GitHub account, go to https://github.com/milkypostman/melpa, click on the Fork button. This will add a "copy" of the MELPA repository into your account. This copy is yours, you can do whaterver you want with it, it does not interfer with the original one.

2. Clone it to your local drive.

   git clone https://github.com/tbanel/melpa
   

   (do not forget to change tbanel to your actual GitHub account)

3. Change it as explained in the README.md of https://github.com/milkypostman/melpa under the "Contributing New Recipes" section. Basically, this involves writting a new file:

   recipes/orgtbl-ascii-plot
   

   (change the name of the file according to the name of your package). Mine looks like this:

   (orgtbl-ascii-plot :fetcher github :repo "tbanel/orgtblasciiplot")
   

4. Commit:

   cd melpa
   git add recipes/orgtbl-ascii-plot
   git commit
   

5. Check that your package builds and installs properly

   make recipes/orgtbl-ascii-plot
   emacs & M-x package-install-file recipes/orgtbl-ascii-plot
   

   Be sure to read detailed instruction in https://github.com/milkypostman/melpa, section "Testing"

6. Send a "pull request" to the MELPA maintainer team. Eventually they will pull your changes out of your copy of melpa.

   • Go to https://github.com/tbanel/melpa (change path to your fork of Melpa),
   • click on "Pull Request"
   • click on "New pull request"
   • fill in the comment section with relevant information. For me this was:

   _ I would like to submit orgtbl-ascii-plot package to Melpa. > orgtbl-ascii-plot adds plotting capabilities to Org-mode tables, all in Emacs without external dependencies. > full documentation here: https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/orgtbl-ascii-plot.html > GitHub home here: https://github.com/tbanel/orgtblasciiplot > I am the author and maintainer.

   This is my first contribution to Melpa. I may miss something, so please tell me, I will fix it.

   Regards _

7. Answer queries from the MELPA team. They are very friendly. They do a good job at ensuring that your package is fully compliant with the ELPA process. They may also check additional details, like possible redundancy with another package, or simpler lisp style.

A few hours after your "pull request" has been accepted, il will show up in the list of packages. Under Emacs type:

M-x package-list-packages

Install your own package. Wooow !

https://orgmode.org/worg is the community web site for documentation.

The site is maintained under… GIT.

The site is authored using… Emacs + Org-mode.

An org-mode page committed to the Worg GIT repository gets translated into Html, and is visible a few seconds latter.

Ask for commit-right on Worg. Instructions are here: https://orgmode.org/worg/worg-about.html

This involves creating an SSH key, and cloning the GIT repository.

Create a file to document your package. I wrote this one:

worg/org-contrib/orgtbl-ascii-plot.org

which is translated on the web site here: https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/orgtbl-ascii-plot.html

Commit and push it. I did that:

git add org-contrib/orgtbl-ascii-plot.org
git commit
git push

There is a mailing list dedicated to Org-mode. Look here: https://orgmode.org/worg/org-mailing-list.html https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Use it to announce your package. You will receive good feedbacks. It is even advisable to announce it before going all the path down to the publication.