I've implemented a few new things on lib.rs recently! New features page It lists all cargo features that a crate supports. It includes comments from Cargo.toml, neatly formatted as markdown, so you can learn what the features do. Since comments on features are rare, I also search crate's source code for uses of cfg(feature = "…") to give a hint what functions or types are affected by the feature. Cargo has this quirk that all optional dependencies implicitly create features, unless you use a ...
  • @[email protected]English
    2•1 year ago

    Its too bad they closed sourced the site. I really like the way it makes exploring crates easy, but after major devs having their crates removed Im very hesistant to use it.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      The drama sucks, agreed. But crates.io is lightyears behind in design, search and features.

      For example: Lib.rs has the first thing I want to know (when was the last release, is this still developed?) right at the top. For crates.io that is hidden near the bottom, especially on mobile.

      Also: Lib.rs has search that actually works and finds relevant things, I cannot say that for crates.io.

      I would love for crates.io to take (some) inspiration from lib.rs.

      Finally: I share the lib.rs author’s opinion on cryptocurrency, though I don’t agree with his extreme measures. (If it was me I would put a note in neutral tone that crypto is problematic for the environment on the relevant categories and crates, with some links to more into, then leave it at that.) So using lib.rs despite the drama doesn’t bother me that much.

  • @Anders429English
    1•1 year ago

    Hey, maybe this will actually lead to standardization of feature documentation? It’s been in terrible shape for years. The fact that optional dependencies and features have been treated nearly the same by cargo, but treated differently by crates.io, makes it useless for discovering features for crates. Up until now, my go-to method is to examine the Cargo.toml file directly, and if I can’t figure out what a feature does there I look directly at the source code.