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boxy-2.0.0 is now available in GNU ELPA. This version contains a small new feature but most importantly the underlying data structure of a box was changed from an eieio object to a cl defstruct. Eieio objects are much heavier than structs, which are usually just well-defined vectors. In principle the performance should be improved, but I haven't really done any benchmarking unfortunately.

All of my boxy packages have been updated to use the new data structure and will start to be published to ELPA and https://packages.amygrinn.com soon!

The new feature is the ability to specify a buffer which boxy will use to draw a diagram.

This release was difficult for me in a lot of ways. This package was initially written during a very rough period in my life. I've been writing boxy packages ever since, but the underlying library has required some TLC for quite a while. In fact, it was the second package I ever developed for Emacs, the first being a silly package named eventuel. I was also intimidated by the complexity. The library is massive and pretty much every algorithm is recursive. I seriously questioned if I could still comprehend it all.

All in all, this update took me a little more than a day, much less time than I was expecting. I helpfully left myself plenty of documentation and my naming conventions were easy to memorize. Getting the refactor to a working state was an amazing feeling. What had become a black box to me, mysteriously spitting out boxy diagrams, is now a living codebase that I can fully envision again.