Emacs helm: How to auto-recenter after jump? - emacs

I would like to recenter current line after jumping by using helm-semantic-or-imenu or helm-org-in-buffer-headings, i.e., just like helm-swoop. Is it possible?

I don't use helm, but I do this for isearch. Figure out which function actually jumps to a line (maybe the called function, e.g. helm-semantic-or-imenu, maybe some internal helper function as is the case for isearch), then add the following advice to it.
(defun recenter-no-redraw (&optional arg)
"Like `recenter', but no redrawing."
(interactive "P")
(let ((recenter-redisplay nil))
(recenter arg)))
(advice-add 'isearch-search
:after
(lambda (&rest args)
"Recenter"
(when isearch-success
(recenter-no-redraw))))
I can't remember why I defined a non-redrawing version of recenter (I've had it like that for years). It should work with plain recenter also.

Related

How to rewrite a native defun in Emacs?

Premises:
My Emacs has a small bug (cannot go up from inside of "") in one of its original defun (up-list). This defun is vital to one of my frequently used command (backward-up-list) which is bound to C-M-u.
Therefore, I wanted to achieve below objectives:
Write a NEW defun named my-up-list which has the bug fix;
RE-write the native defun backward-up-list to call the above new defun (instead of the native buggy up-list). (By RE-writing under the same defun name, I intend to preserve its original convenient key bindings.)
By following the Emacs Tutorial Here, I implemented it as below:
I wrote a new defun my-up-list inside .emacs file; (see code in the end)
I rewrote the defun backward-up-list under a the same name inside .emacs file; (see code in the end).
However, when wI tested it out by trying it in "|" (| is the cursor position), I encounter below error:
backward-up-list: Wrong number of arguments: (lambda nil (interactive) (let ((s (syntax-ppss))) (if (nth 3 s) (progn (goto-char (nth 8 s))))) (condition-case nil (progn (up-list)) (error nil))), 1 [2 times]
Question:
Is it the correct way to re-write a native defun just by putting the
new implementation with the same name in .emacs file?
What may went wrong in my code?
Reference:
(The my-up-list is from here)
;; I only changed "up-list" to "my-up-list" -modeller
(defun backward-up-list (&optional arg)
"Move backward out of one level of parentheses.
With ARG, do this that many times.
A negative argument means move forward but still to a less deep spot.
This command assumes point is not in a string or comment."
(interactive "^p")
(my-up-list (- (or arg 1))))
;; copied from solution to another question - modeller
(defun my-up-list ()
(interactive)
(let ((s (syntax-ppss)))
(when (nth 3 s)
(goto-char (nth 8 s))))
(ignore-errors (up-list)))
I guess your my-up-list function needs to accept the same arguments as the original up-list, and call up-list with them?
The simplest way to do this is with the "advice" system. This provides some simple ways to wrap and extend existing functions. There's a whole section in the elisp manual explaining how to do it.

How can I jump to a definition without being queried in Emacs?

I have a problem when using Etags in Emacs. Everytime I tap \M+. to jump to a difinition point, a query is always popping up, like:
Find tag (default function_name):
And I have to tap 'Enter' to make sure of it.
But in most cases, I find I can choose the default one. So is there any method with which I can surpress this message?
I found the reason is because:
(defun find-tag (tagname &optional next-p regexp-p)
(interactive (find-tag-interactive "Find tag: "))
...
)
Why do I have to choose a tag? Why can not the default one just be the word under the point? Can I just remove this line? (interactive), or is there a good solution?
Going shortly through a couple of defuns in the etags sources via Emacs's awesome C-h f, one can find that the default tag to search is determined via a function named find-tag-default.
This means you could just define the following function:
(defun find-tag-under-point ()
(interactive)
(find-tag (find-tag-default)))
Then you can bind this to whatever key you want via define-key or global-set-key or local-set-key.
(The interactive form is always necessary if you want a function to be a "command" which can be called with M-x or bound to a key.)
You can write your own functionality over the find-tag (or any interactive function likewise)
(defun find-tag-under-point (&optional arg)
(interactive "P")
(cond ((eq arg 9)
(let ((current-prefix-arg nil))
(call-interactively 'find-tag)))
(arg
(call-interactively 'find-tag))
(t
(find-tag (find-tag-default)))))
(global-set-key (kbd "M-.") 'find-tag-under-point)
Then hotkey C-9M-. calls find-tag (old function) as usual, but the behaviour of find-tag-under-point (new-function) by default is what you want.

Duplicating a line in emacs with Ace-Jump

I'm fairly new to elisp, but one thing that I really want to figure out is either how to wait for ace-jump to end before executing instructions or how get a position from ace-jump instead of moving my cursor. My goal is to be able to select a line with ace-jump, copy it, then paste it right above my current line. I started by first trying to go to a line with ace-jump then duplicate it in place, but that hasn't worked. Here is what I have for that:
(defun ace-jump-yank-line-above ()
(interactive)
(ace-jump-line-mode)
(kill-ring-save (line-beginning-position) (line-beginning-position 2) )
(yank)
)
But this gives me strange behavior
You can have a look at the source of my project lispy.el.
It's got several functions that use ace-jump-mode and do something after.
For instance lispy-ace-symbol will ace-jump to symbol and mark it.
Here's the implementation detail - the key is setting ace-jump-mode-hook:
(defun lispy--ace-do (x bnd &optional filter func no-narrow)
"Use `ace-jump-do' to X within BND when FILTER return t.
When FUNC is not nil, call it after a successful move.
When NO-NARROW is not nil, don't narrow to BND."
(require 'ace-jump-mode)
(lispy--recenter-bounds bnd)
(unless no-narrow
(narrow-to-region (car bnd) (cdr bnd)))
(when func
(setq ace-jump-mode-end-hook
(list `(lambda()
(setq ace-jump-mode-end-hook)
(,func)))))
(let ((ace-jump-mode-scope 'window)
(ace-jump-search-filter filter))
(ace-jump-do x))
(widen))
I use something similar to ace-jump rather than ace-jump itself, but something like this should work (can't be sure about the call to ace-jump-line-mode):
(defun ace-jump-yank-line-above ()
(interactive)
(let ((loc (point-at-bol))
(line nil))
(save-excursion
(ace-jump-line-mode)
(setq line (buffer-substring-no-properties
(point-at-bol) (point-at-eol)))
(goto-char (1- loc))
(if (bobp)
(insert (concat line "\n"))
(insert (concat "\n" line))))))
Okay, none of these worked for me, but I used these answers to create a script that works. Here is the code that I used:
;; The base function for the line-based ones
(defun ace-jump-end-do (dfunc afunc)
;; Save where to return to as a marker
(setq ace-jump-do-retpos (make-marker))
(set-marker ace-jump-do-retpos (point))
;; Add our during function to the hook
(setq ace-jump-mode-end-hook
(list `(lambda()
(progn
(setq ace-jump-mode-end-hook)
(,dfunc)
(goto-char ace-jump-do-retpos)
(set-marker ace-jump-do-retpos nil)
(,afunc)
))))
(ace-jump-line-mode)
)
;; Copy the line above the current line
(defun ace-jump-yank-line-above ()
(interactive)
(ace-jump-end-do
;; At the line
(lambda ()
;; Store the line in a variable
(setq line (buffer-substring-no-properties (point-at-bol) (point-at-eol)))
)
;; Upon returning
(lambda ()
(save-excursion
(goto-char (point-at-bol))
(insert (concat line "\n"))
)
(when (bolp) (goto-char (point-at-bol 2)))
)))
Unfortunately, this resets the end hook of ace-jump every time it's called. It works for me though since I don't have anything else hooked to it. If I run into issues, I'll need to figure something else out.
ace-jump-mode is really silly... calling it just goes into some useless minor-mode where you pick the hints, but it is non-blocking: any code afterwards is executed immediately.
There is so much potential for this kind of interaction and ace-jump-mode completely wastes it away with crazy implementation. It also doesn't work at all with save-excursion and you wound need to hack around that with various hooks and state-saving variables.
I've written a new package addressing all these issues, you can find it at https://github.com/Fuco1/better-jump Hopefully people will pick it up, but it serves me well at least. Took me about 2 hours to write the basic working prototype and it already covers all the functionality of packages like ace-link, ace-window and ace-whatever-else-you-can-find (also ace-jump, obviously :))

Copy Character Down in Emacs

I wrote an interactive function which inserts the "character above the point" in to the current line. For instance, given a line containing "12345" followed by a line "abcdef" and the point sitting at the letter "c", copy-down would make the second line become "ab3cdef". copy-down again would make the second line become "ab34cdef".
My function fails (using GNU Emacs 23.3.1 under windows 7) the second time I invoke it by inserting the text from the first invocation and not advancing properly. If I put any emacs "manipulations" in-between invocations, it works fine. (For instance if I do a copy-down, "left arrow", "right arrow", copy-down it works fine for both invocations.)
Here's my function:
(defun copy-down ()
"Grab the character in the line above and insert at the current location."
(interactive)
(let ((beg (progn (previous-line 1) (point)))
(end (progn (forward-char) (point))))
(backward-char)
(next-line 1)
(insert-buffer-substring (current-buffer) beg end)))
If it matters, I usually tie my function to a key: (global-set-key [f5] 'copy-down)
PS. I got used to using this capability in the editor I used before switching to emacs many years ago and I miss it in GNU Emacs. :-(
What you have works just fine for me. That said, previous-line has interaction with other settings (specifically goal-column) and generally shouldn't be used when writing elisp. Instead you should use (forward-line -1). But, of course, your code relies on the goal-column... You can test this by running Emacs without your other configurations, ala emacs -q.
Here's a slightly different version of your code that doesn't rely on goal-column:
(defun copy-down ()
"Grab the character in the line above and insert at the current location."
(interactive)
(let* ((col (current-column))
(to-insert (save-excursion
(forward-line -1)
(move-to-column col)
(buffer-substring-no-properties (point) (1+ (point))))))
(insert to-insert)))
If the problem isn't with using previous-line, then I don't imagine my code would make much of a difference.
Another option you have is to try running it in the debugger to see where your code breaks down. Move the point inside the defun for copy-down and type M-x edebug-defun, and the next time you run it you'll be able to step through the code. Docs for edebug can be found here.
You need to use let* instead of let. The former allows you to use earlier values in later forms in the same statement.
BTW, that's an unconventional way to write elisp, you might want to look at some other code samples.
EDIT:
Hey, someone completely rearranged your function! It might work now.
Try
(defun copy-down (arg)
(interactive "p")
(let ((p (+ (current-column) (point-at-bol 0))))
(insert-buffer-substring (current-buffer) p (+ p arg))))
which has the additional functionality of taking a prefix argument to copy n (default to 1) characters down.

Suppress emacs auto-fill in a selected region

I use emacs to edit everything. On some of my LateX documents I would like to automatically disable auto-fill mode when I am editing tables and code. Basically, I'd like to have two tags, like:
%%% BEGIN NO FILL
%%% END NO FILL
and nothing between them will be autofilled.
Can anybody think of a way to do this? I would need to figure out whether or not the cursor is inside the region and then have to toggle the mode, and would need to do that every time the cursor moved. Or is there a better way to do it?
If you are using AUCTeX (you should be) then you may want to check out LaTeX-indent-environment-list. Adding an environment to this variable will make it so that (among other things) M-q doesn't refill the paragraph. Unfortunately it doesn't seem work for auto-fill-mode. The following largely untested code added to LaTeX-mode-hook might do what you want.
(setq auto-fill-function
(lambda ()
(unless (> (save-excursion (or (search-backward "%%% BEGIN NO FILL" (point-min) t) 0))
(save-excursion (or (search-backward "%%% END NO FILL" (point-min) t) 0)))
(do-auto-fill))))
It's very stupid and inefficient, but seems to be fast enough on my machine. It doesn't allow nesting, and requires that you manually mark up all sections that you don't want filled. What I am thinking of adding to my .emacs (until I read your question I didn't realize how much this bugged me) is below which keys off of the current environment so there is no need for special markup (though it only looks at the innermost environment (I'm not sure how much of a problem that will cause in practice)). Combining the two is left as an exercise to the interested reader.
;; You can use the following to unset the variables and play around with them
;; (makunbound 'auto-fill-ignore-environments)
;; (makunbound 'auto-fill-ignore-environments-regexp)
(defcustom auto-fill-ignore-environments
(mapcar 'car LaTeX-indent-environment-list)
"List of environments for which `auto-fill-mode' should be
disabled. Used to generate `auto-fill-ignore-environments-regexp'."
:type '(sexp)
)
(defcustom auto-fill-ignore-environments-regexp
(regexp-opt auto-fill-ignore-environments)
"Regexp matching LaTeX environments for which `auto-fill-mode'
should be disabled. If not set, automatically generated from
`auto-fill-ignore-environments'"
:type '(string)
:set-after '(auto-fill-ignore-environments)
)
(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook
(lambda ()
(setq auto-fill-function
(lambda ()
(unless (string-match auto-fill-ignore-environments-regexp
(LaTeX-current-environment))
(do-auto-fill))))))
I have never used defcustom before so I'm sure that part could be improved quite a bit.
Got it. Check this out:
(defun in-no-auto-fill-region ()
(> (save-excursion (or (search-backward "%%% BEGIN NO FILL" (point-min) t) 0))
(save-excursion (or (search-backward "%%% END NO FILL" (point-min) t) 0))
))
(defun previous-line-checking-auto-fill (arg)
(interactive "P")
(previous-line arg)
(if (in-no-auto-fill-region)
(turn-off-auto-fill)
(turn-on-auto-fill)))
(defun next-line-checking-auto-fill (arg)
(interactive "P")
(next-line arg)
(if (in-no-auto-fill-region)
(turn-off-auto-fill)
(turn-on-auto-fill)))
(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook
'(lambda nil
(local-set-key "C-p" 'previous-line-checking-auto-fill)
(local-set-key "C-n" 'next-line-checking-auto-fill)
(auto-fill-mode 1)
))
Alternately, you can turn off auto-fill-mode and use M-q to format paragraphs. I don't love auto-fill's jumpiness so I use this in every mode.
If you want to go the route of advising/redefining all the movement functions, this should help:
(defmacro movement-advice (func)
`(defadvice ,func (after ; run this after the original function is done (and point has moved)
;; Give it a unique name
,(intern (concat (symbol-name func) "-auto-fill-auto-off"))
;; Hopefully this satisfies the arguments of any function we can throw at it
(&rest args)
;; turn it on
activate
)
"Turn auto-fill-mode on or off automatically."
(auto-fill-mode (not (in-no-auto-fill-region)))))
(dolist (func '(next-line
previous-line
forward-paragraph
backward-paragraph
mouse-drag-region
;; Whatever you use
))
(eval `(movement-advice ,func)))