I'm frustrated with the default behavior of autocomplete overriding key bindings used by yasnippets.
Is there a way to set a precedence so that tab will try to expand a snippet before trying to autocomplete the word?
Quick disclosure: I'm using evil-mode.
If they're both minor modes, then precedence is determined by the order of elements in minor-mode-map-alist which, unless explicitly manipulated, is simply determined by the order in which the libraries were loaded.
Ensure that autocomplete is loaded before yasnippet, and yasnippet's minor mode map would have precedence.
You could also use eval-after-load to adjust minor-mode-map-alist after loading autocomplete, to check for a yasnippet entry, and re-order the list if necessary.
(autocomplete may use other methods, though. A temporary overriding keymap would still have precedence over the minor mode maps, for instance.)
Related
How do I directly navigate to a function definition in a given file in Slime/Emacs using keyboard shortcuts? I know about M-. but that is not I want. I am already in the file and know the function name. Search by text won't directly take me to the function definition as it will take me to call sites of that function as well.
For those of you who also know Eclipse, I am looking for the equivalent of using Ctrl-O to open the outline view and then as I type the method name, it will filter(elide) to the function I want, I then just press enter and it takes me there.
If there is an alternative that you use, I would be happy to try that too.
It sounds like you're looking for M-x imenu. It doesn't have a keyboard shortcut by default; I like to bind it to s-i:
(global-set-key [(super ?i)] 'imenu)
As #legoscia said, Imenu is the answer. As additional info I'll mention how Icicles can enhance your use of Imenu.
The obvious enhancement is better completion (substring, regexp,...), including narrowing choices with multiple patterns.
Unobvious is the Icicles multi-commands that are specialized for Imenu navigation, giving you, in effect, an Imenu browser. This is described here.
There are different commands to navigate to/among different kinds of Emacs Lisp definitions: commands, non-command functions, faces, keymaps of different kinds, user options, and other variables.
While navigating, you can sort the candidates that match your input, and cycle among any subset of them in the sort order.
There are "full" versions of the commands, which provide as candidates not just what matches the Imenu regexps (e.g. (defun foobar () and your current input, but the complete definitions (e.g., full function definition).
These navigation commands are also for searching. In particular, the "full" versions provide the full definitions that match your current minibuffer input as candidates. As you change your input incrementally, the full definitions are searched, narrowing the choices. You can then navigate among any of those.
You can also do it with lispy.
It's a mixture of Paredit, vi and IDE features for Elisp, Clojure,
Common Lisp and Scheme.
The feature that you want is provided by lispy-goto, bound to
g. It uses CEDET to parse the whole source directory,
allowing you to jump to a tag in all files in current directory.
There's also lispy-goto-local bound to G, that
looks for tags in just the current file.
helm completion is used for both commands so it's really fast.
Have a look at
Navigating a directory of Common Lisp code with lispy.el
for a screencast.
You can see that it's much more advanced than imenu:
it recognizes tag types such as in-package, defparameter,
defconstant, defclass etc. This can also be extended to arbitrary
tags, such as SLIME's define-pattern-substitution.
Also, lispy uses SLIME to provide inline arguments (alternative to eldoc) and
eval bindings.
In Emacs everything is about hotkeys. Everybody who creates new shortcuts knows the problem:
Which hotkeys should be used?
Which hotkeys are used by the most popular Emacs extensions (org-mode...) and should be avoided?
Are there reserved hotkeys for "users" that will never be used by extensions?
Which hotkeys should be avoided, if the code should be public? (Some keys like right/left Win are sometimes missing on keyboards, M-TAB will be catched by the windowmanager)
Is there a list of all reserved hotkeys?
Sticking to the reserved C-c <letter> sequences is as close as you'll get to guaranteeing that you won't conflict with any other code (although it's still just a convention; sometimes you'll see people making code available that uses one of those sequences, but you can report those cases as bugs to the author).
I would suggest using some of the C-c <letter> sequences as prefix bindings for grouping related functionality together. For instance, you might use C-c w <key> as the pattern for window-related functionality. That gives you a dramatically larger number of reserved bindings, probably with better mnemonic properties, and of course the subsequent <key> can be anything at all, not just a letter.
That also lets you use C-c <letter> C-h to list everything you've bound under that prefix, which can be convenient.
The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference manual has a detailed page on key binding conventions:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Key-Binding-Conventions.html
The keys C-c <letter> are reserved for the users, so packages should normally not use them (note that "letter" is really a letter of the alphabet, not "any key" or "any character"). But most users just use which ever key they like and when that binding conflicts with some package, they handle the conflict in an ad-hoc way (either by using another key, or by specifically overriding the package's binding).
automate key-binding checks evaluating forms like
(key-binding [(control c) (delete)])
Is it possible to override/catch all keydown and keyup events during a minor mode?
I would like to do such a thing for several reasons, but mainly to try an alternative input method which I have not found any reasonable way of doing, in which key combinations would produce input, but in which it would be bothersome to re-press keys (it would be simpler to just hold them down if they are used in several combinations in a row).
If your minor mode is at the top of the list of all active minor-modes, its keymap will be queried before all other modes are queried (unless some even higher precedence cases fall into place, cf. "Searching Keymaps" in the Emacs Lisp documentation).
This means that you can at least handle all key events before other modes do, by binding them in your modes' keymap. You can also define a "catch all" key binding that matches every key event that is not otherwise bound in your map:
(define-key my-minor-mode-map [t] 'my-catch-all-command)
However, this will not help you getting information about key releases. Perhaps you'll find it worthwhile checking out Key chord mode for that.
in gedit it's possible to define so-called "snippets" for simpler input.
For example, there is a snippet while. This means: If you type while -> (-> stands for tab key). And gedit automatically converts it to the following (including correct indentation):
while (condition){
}
In vim (in conjunction with latex-suite) I saw the following: If you type (, vim inserts just a (. If you type ( a second time, vim automatically converts it to \left( \right).
I found abbrev-mode but this mode doesn't place the cursor properly (i.e. between parentheses or inside the while loop).
I managed to create custom emacs keybindings/macros that do just the same (without having to press the tab key), so I know it's possible.
However, is there already and package where you can define such "snippets" without much effort? Or are there even any serious reasons not to use such things?
See yasnippet. It provides snippets for most major languages, and it is easy to add new ones or modify the old ones.
Yes, yasnippet is probably the way to go. But make sure you learn the major mode you're using for your editing - when writing in LaTeX, learn auctex. Major modes can contain functionality that makes some snippets pointless, and do the same thing even better. So instead of using a begin/end-snippet in a LaTeX buffer, try C-c C-e in auctex. Etc :)
Don't forget abbrev-mode.
Is there an Emacs minor-mode (or piece of elisp code) that lets you selectively hide/show environments while in LaTeX mode? For instance, I would like to move to the beginning of a long \begin{figure} block, hit a keystroke, and have the contents of that figure environment hidden from view. Similarly with \begin{proof} and so on, and ideally even with \subsections.
Is this possible? I just tried hs-minor-mode, allout-mode, and outline-minor-mode, but most of them don't recognize LaTeX's environments, e.g. hs-minor-mode fails with "scan error: unbalanced parentheses". I would prefer not to have to enter explicit folding marks like {{{ as in folding-mode.
[Ideally it would be great if the folding were persistent, but I see that that question doesn't have an accepted answer yet.]
AUCTeX does folding: http://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/manual/auctex.html#Folding
A popular complaint about markup languages like TeX and LaTeX is that there is too much clutter in the source text and that one cannot focus well on the content. There are macros where you are only interested in the content they are enclosing, like font specifiers where the content might already be fontified in a special way by font locking. Or macros the content of which you only want to see when actually editing it, like footnotes or citations. Similarly you might find certain environments or comments distracting when trying to concentrate on the body of your document.
With AUCTeX’s folding functionality you can collapse those items and replace them by a fixed string, the content of one of their arguments, or a mixture of both. If you want to make the original text visible again in order to view or edit it, move point sideways onto the placeholder (also called display string) or left-click with the mouse pointer on it. (The latter is currently only supported on Emacs.) The macro or environment will unfold automatically, stay open as long as point is inside of it and collapse again once you move point out of it. (Note that folding of environments currently does not work in every AUCTeX mode.)
In order to use this feature, you have to activate TeX-fold-mode which will activate the auto-reveal feature and the necessary commands to hide and show macros and environments. You can activate the mode in a certain buffer by typing the command M-x TeX-fold-mode RET or using the keyboard shortcut C-c C-o C-f. If you want to use it every time you edit a LaTeX document, add it to a hook:
(add-hook 'LaTeX-mode-hook (lambda ()
(TeX-fold-mode 1)))
If it should be activated in all AUCTeX modes, use TeX-mode-hook instead of LaTeX-mode-hook.
Once the mode is active there are several commands available to hide and show macros, environments and comments...