Insert current entry into BBDB - emacs

I've read that "The easiest way to insert an entry for a person into BBDB is to press : (colon) in the Summary buffer when a message from him is the selected one. If the person is in the database already, nothing happens; otherwise, Emacs asks you if you want to insert him into the database."
That does not work for me, I guess because I'm using BBDB 3.
EDIT: ':' runs the command 'bbdb-mua-display-sender'.
Is there a workaround to this?

This is what I use in my .emacs to work with BBDB-3 in Gnus, it will give this functionality to the ; key:
(require 'bbdb-autoloads)
(require 'bbdb)
;; initialization
(bbdb-initialize 'gnus 'message)
(bbdb-mua-auto-update-init 'gnus 'message)
;; size of the bbdb popup
(setq bbdb-pop-up-window-size 0.15)
(setq bbdb-mua-pop-up-window-size 0.15)
;; What do we do when invoking bbdb interactively
(setq bbdb-mua-update-interactive-p '(query . create))
;; Make sure we look at every address in a message and not only the
;; first one
(setq bbdb-message-all-addresses t)
;; use ; on a message to invoke bbdb interactively
(add-hook
'gnus-summary-mode-hook
(lambda ()
(define-key gnus-summary-mode-map (kbd ";") 'bbdb-mua-edit-field)))
I got this information from somewhere on the net, but can't quite locate where just now; maybe this can set you on the correct path?

Related

What's the right name for CTL-]?

From my .emacs:
(defun flip-window () "Flip this window" (interactive)
(switch-to-buffer (other-buffer)))
;; later
(global-set-key [(control ?])] 'flip-window)
It works great, but I have two questions:
is there a built-in function to flip to most recently visited buffer?
While the above works at emacs startup, it causes problems when I'm trying to update settings, there's a parse error caused by the ?]. So is there a better way to express the control-] keystroke?
Answer to the question 2.
You may try the kbd function while setting the key binding.
Like so:
(global-set-key (kbd "C-]") 'flip-window)
And to the question 1: I guess there is no built in function for that. Emacs redux teaches us to implement it like:
(defun er-switch-to-previous-buffer ()
"Switch to previously open buffer. Repeated invocations toggle between the two most recently open buffers."
(interactive)
(switch-to-buffer (other-buffer (current-buffer) 1)))
This is part of Emacs Prelude distro. See https://emacsredux.com/blog/2013/04/28/switch-to-previous-buffer/
As a side note, you can get a description of any key combination in emacs using using the C-h k key combination, which runs the describe-key function. You'll have to read the textual form of your input from the description buffer. If you want to programmatically retrieve a string containing your key combination, you could also run the following Elisp code:
(destructuring-bind ((str . code)) (help--read-key-sequence)
(help-key-description str code))
It will prompt you for input in the minibuffer and return a string, such as e.g. "C-]".

emacs terminal mode: how to copy and paste efficiently

I'm having a hard time making this emacs -nw work effectively under the terminal mode (emacs -nw).
Some setup information:
The working server is connected via SSH, and emacs is running on the server. Usually I'm connecting using SSH and "emacs -nw" to work on my files.
The emacs config is picked up from: https://hugoheden.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/copypaste-with-emacs-in-terminal/
;; make mouse selection to be emacs region marking
(require 'mouse)
(xterm-mouse-mode t)
(defun track-mouse (e))
(setq mouse-sel-mode t)
;; enable clipboard in emacs
(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
;; enable copy/paste between emacs and other apps (terminal version of emacs)
(unless window-system
(when (getenv "DISPLAY")
;; Callback for when user cuts
(defun xsel-cut-function (text &optional push)
;; Insert text to temp-buffer, and "send" content to xsel stdin
(with-temp-buffer
(insert text)
;; I prefer using the "clipboard" selection (the one the
;; typically is used by c-c/c-v) before the primary selection
;; (that uses mouse-select/middle-button-click)
(call-process-region (point-min) (point-max) "xsel" nil 0 nil "--clipboard" "--input")))
;; Call back for when user pastes
(defun xsel-paste-function()
;; Find out what is current selection by xsel. If it is different
;; from the top of the kill-ring (car kill-ring), then return
;; it. Else, nil is returned, so whatever is in the top of the
;; kill-ring will be used.
(let ((xsel-output (shell-command-to-string "xsel --clipboard --output")))
(unless (string= (car kill-ring) xsel-output)
xsel-output )))
;; Attach callbacks to hooks
(setq interprogram-cut-function 'xsel-cut-function)
(setq interprogram-paste-function 'xsel-paste-function)
;; Idea from
;; http://shreevatsa.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/emacs-copypaste-and-x/
;; http://www.mail-archive.com/help-gnu-emacs#gnu.org/msg03577.html
))
The reason to have:
(require 'mouse)
(xterm-mouse-mode t)
(defun track-mouse (e))
(setq mouse-sel-mode t)
is to enable mouse selection over text such that the text region is highlighted just as "C-x SPC" marking the region. Then I can use "M-x w" to copy and "C-x y" to paste text within emacs and between emacs and other apps.
All look perfect except that any operations related to X are REALLY SLOW! My connection to the remote server is smooth -- the latency is usually under 100ms. But to kill one line of text using "C-x k", it takes ~5 seconds! To paste it, it takes another 5 seconds!
When copy/paste is frequent sometimes, this becomes really annoying. I think this is related to the X sever messaging, but not sure if there is good way to fix this.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
This is not an ideal solution per se, but i figured out a way that I feel better than the previous one.
The idea is to get rid of X which causes heavy latency issues, i.e. keep only the following:
;; enable clipboard in emacs
(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
The results are:
copy/paste within Emacs is straightforward and fast.
copy from other apps to Emacs: Ctrl+Shift+v
copy from Emacs to other apps: mouse selection is now on X Selection, so right-click and copy shall copy the text into the Selection. Note that 'M-w" now won't copy anything into Selection or system clipboard.
This is again a compromise rather than a solution, but considering the fact that i copy/paste more often than inter-app operations, this is acceptable at the moment.
Still looking forward to a good solution!
You can accomplish this by using a terminal escape code!
There is a unique category of terminal escape codes called "Operating System Controls" (OSC) and one of these sequences (\033]52) is meant for interacting with the system clipboard. The great thing is that your terminal doesn't care where the code came from so it will work in remote sessions as well.
Most terminal emulators support it (iTerm2, OS X Terminal, and I think all Linux terminals besides GNOME). You can test if your terminal supports this sequence by simply running:
$ printf "\033]52;c;$(printf "Hello, world" | base64)\a"
Then paste from your system clipboard. If it pastes "Hello, world" then your terminal supports it!
I have this function in my init.el so when I call yank-to-clipboard Emacs will yank the value from my kill ring into the system clipboard:
(defun yank-to-clipboard ()
"Use ANSI OSC 52 escape sequence to attempt clipboard copy"
(interactive)
(send-string-to-terminal
(format "\033]52;c;%s\a"
(base64-encode-string
(encode-coding-string
(substring-no-properties
(nth 0 kill-ring)) 'utf-8) t))))
As I type this, I stumbled upon an almost-identical script supported by Chromium community: https://chromium.googlesource.com/apps/libapps/+/master/hterm/etc/osc52.el
For those running Emacs inside Tmux:
Tmux consumes the sequence, so you'll need to pipe the sequence to the Tmux active tty for this to work. I have a solution in my blog post here: https://justinchips.medium.com/have-vim-emacs-tmux-use-system-clipboard-4c9d901eef40
To extend on #justinokamoto's answer for use in tmux, it works great and is truly amazing. I haven't debugged it with e.g. tramp or other fancy emacs settings but to get it to work
Follow https://sunaku.github.io/tmux-yank-osc52.html great instructions, modifying your tmux.conf and ~/bin/yank
Make sure terminal access to your clipboard is enabled on your terminal
Then to pull into emacs you can use a function like:
(Caveat emptor, I am very new to elisp. This writes to a temporary file in /tmp/yank)
(defun custom-terminal-yank (&rest args)
(message "-> CLIP")
;; FOR EVIL MODE: UNCOMMENT SO FIRST YANKS TO KILL RING
;; need to yank first, with all those args
;; ;; https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/19215/how-to-write-a-transparent-pass-through-function-wrapper
;; (interactive (advice-eval-interactive-spec
;; (cadr (interactive-form #'evil-yank))))
;; (apply #'evil-yank args)
;; https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27764059/emacs-terminal-mode-how-to-copy-and-paste-efficiently
;; https://sunaku.github.io/tmux-yank-osc52.html
(f-write-text (nth 0 kill-ring) 'utf-8 "/tmp/yank")
(send-string-to-terminal (shell-command-to-string "~/bin/yank /tmp/yank"))
)
If anyone else uses evil mode as well (just to make things complicated) you can uncomment those lines and use something like
(define-key evil-visual-state-map "Y" 'jonah-terminal-yank)
So that normal "y" is for normal yanking in visual mode, but "Y" is for cross-clipboard yanking

switch buffer settings using python-mode in emacs?

I have been using emacs for a while but not so familiar with lisp programming. Its been just couple of days I started coding Python on emacs. I found python-mode to be quite useful and I want to explore it further. I found a few emacs lips functions on internet, tewaked them a bit to make the interface userfriendly. I am trying to achieve following actions
I usually start emacs with 2 vertical windows, one with python source and other is a shell. I should be able to do following using keyboard bindings
switch between buffers (working)
execute a region (working)
but replaces the source buffer with shell buffer. I want to execute selected region in original shell buffer.
execute a line (working)
but same issue as above. when i pres say , the line should be executed in python shell without replacing any buffers. so copy the line, switch to python shell, execute line, switch back to python source buffer.
I am not able to achieve switching action above. Following is my code from my init.el file
(defun goto-python-shell ()
"Go to the python command window (start it if needed)"
(interactive)
(setq current-python-script-buffer (current-buffer))
(if (boundp 'current-python-shell-buffer)
(switch-to-buffer-other-window current-python-shell-buffer)
(py-shell))
(end-of-buffer)
)
(defun goto-python-source ()
"switch back to source window"
(interactive)
(setq current-python-shell-buffer (current-buffer))
(switch-to-buffer-other-window current-python-script-buffer)
)
(defun py-execute-statement-and-step ()
"select a statement, submit as a region and then step forward"
(interactive)
(beginning-of-line 1)
(let ((beg (point)))
(py-next-statement 1)
; if last statement.
(if (= (point) beg) (end-of-buffer ))
; (switch-to-buffer-other-window current-python-shell-buffer)
(py-execute-region beg (point))
(switch-to-buffer-other-window current-python-script-buffer)
)
)
; some key bindings
(define-key python-mode-map (quote [f9]) 'py-execute-statement-and-step)
;(define-key python-mode-map (quote [f10]) `py-execute-region)
;py-shell-switch-buffers-on-execute
(define-key python-mode-map (quote [f10]) `py-shell-switch-buffers-on-execute)
(define-key python-mode-map (quote [f11]) `py-execute-buffer)
(define-key python-mode-map (quote [f12]) `goto-python-shell)
(define-key py-shell-map (quote [f12]) `goto-python-source)
Please advice.
Also since i am new to python-mode, can someone share nice initializations for using python-mode similar to above?
thanks much for your help.
Regards,
AJ
You should take a look at the first answer to this question and customize the py-shell-switch-buffers-on-execute variable.
This way you won't need all your custom functions to make python-mode work like you want (i.e. keeping the source buffer active)
I think that you are trying to reinvent what is available in Emacs 24 (at least with evaluation stuff). Try Emacs 24. When you are editing a Python source code, you can press C-c C-c to evaluate a buffer and press C-c C-r to evaluate a region. You don't have to explicitly start a Python shell.
I don't think that there is a direct support for evaluate a line and step. You can achieve it by the keystrokes C-SPC C-n C-c C-r. Your focus will remain in the source code and there is no need to switch explicitly between the source code and the shell.
FWIW, I have been using Emacs 24 for a reasonable amount of time on a daily basis and I haven't encountered any stability issues.
following changes are working like a charm. f9 does line by line execute and f10 does region based execution. curser remains in the script window after i disabled py-shell-switch-buffers-on-execute.
(defun py-execute-statement-and-step ()
"select a statement, submit as a region and then step forward"
(interactive)
(beginning-of-line 1)
(let ((beg (point)))
(py-next-statement 1)
; if last statement.
(if (= (point) beg) (end-of-buffer ))
(py-execute-region beg (point))
(next-line)
)
)
(custom-set-variables
'(py-shell-switch-buffers-on-execute nil))
(define-key python-mode-map (quote [f9]) 'py-execute-statement-and-step)
(define-key python-mode-map (quote [f10]) `py-execute-region)

Refactoring in Emacs

I am working on splitting code into smaller files and refactoring it a bit. Consider the following code below as the section I want to extract:
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
'("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/") t)
(package-initialize)
(when (not package-archive-contents)
(package-refresh-contents))
(defvar my-packages '(org magit)
"A list of packages to ensure are installed at launch.")
(dolist (p my-packages)
(when (not (package-installed-p p))
(package-install p)))
I want to take the section above and replace it with something like (require `file-name)
Then take the text replaced and place that in a new file in the current directory named file-name.el
And then add a line to the top of the file (provides `file-name)
It would be great if I could hit a keychord and then type a name and have this happen. If there is an easy way to do this then I would love to hear possible solutions.
Edit:
I'm starting a bounty because I think this applies to more types of code than Lisp and I would like to have something a little more general that I can expand upon.
I have considered yasnippet but I don't think it's powerful enough to perform the task at hand. Basically the ideal workflow would be marking the lines to be extracted, replacing that with an appropriate require or include directive and sending the text off to it's own file. Ideally one command and something that is aware of the type of file being edited or at least the major mode so the behavior can be customized, again yasnippet is good at performing different tasks when editing in different major modes however I would have no idea how to make that work or evaluate the possibility of making it work.
Let me know if you need any more information.
A general solution to this type of problem are keyboard macros (not to be confused with (Emacs) LISP macros). Basically Emacs allows you to record a sequence of keystrokes and "play them back" afterwards. This can be a very handy tool in situations where writing custom LISP code seems overkill.
For instance you could create the following keyboard macro (type the key combinations on the left hand side, the right hand side shows explanations for each key stroke):
C-x ( ; start recording a keyboard macro
C-x h ; mark whole buffer
C-w ; kill region
(require 'file-name) ; insert a require statement into the buffer
C-x C-s ; save buffer
C-x C-f ; find file
file-name.el <RET> ; specify the name of the file
M-< ; move to the beginning of the buffer
C-u C-y ; insert the previously killed text, leaving point where it is
(provide 'file-name) <RET> <RET> ; insert a provide statement into the buffer
C-x ) ; stop recording the keyboard macro
Now you can re-play that macro in some other buffer by typing C-x e, or save it for later use. You can also bind a macro to a shortcut just like a function.
However, there is one weakness with this approach: you want to be able to actually specify the file-name, and not just use the string "file-name" every time. That is a bit difficult - by default, keyboard macros provide no general facility for querying the user (except the very minimal C-x q, as documented here).
The Emacs Wiki has some work-arounds for that, however, instead of prompting the user in the minibuffer, it can sometimes be sufficient to start the macro by killing the current line and saving its text to a register.
C-x (
C-e C-<SPC> C-a ; mark current line
C-x r s T ; copy line to register T
C-k C-k ; kill current line
... ; actual macro
C-x )
Now when you want to use your macro, you would first write the desired file-name in an otherwise empty line, and then do C-x e in that line. Whenever the value of the file-name is needed in the macro you can retrieve it from the register T:
C-x r i T ; insert file-name into buffer
For instance, for the provide statement in the above macro, you could write: (provide ' C-x r i T ). Note that this technique (inserting) also works in the minibuffer, and of course you could save multiple lines to different registers.
May sound complicated, but is actually quite easy in practice.
Slightly tested:
(defun extract-to-package (name start end)
(interactive (list (read-string "Package name to create: ")
(region-beginning) (region-end)))
(let ((snip (buffer-substring start end)))
(delete-region start end)
(insert (format "(require '%s)\n" name))
(with-current-buffer (find-file-noselect (concat name ".el"))
(insert snip)
(insert (format "(provide '%s)\n" name))
(save-buffer))))
For a such thing I use the following snippet (with yasnippet):
;; `(buffer-name)`
;; Copyright (C) `(format-time-string "%Y")` name
;; Author: name <email>
;; This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or
;; modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
;; published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of
;; the License, or (at your option) any later version.
;; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
;; GNU General Public License for more details.
;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
;; along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
$0
(provide '`(subseq (buffer-name) 0 (- (length (buffer-name)) 3))`)
1st create the file C-xC-ffile-name.elRET
then insert the snippet with C-c&C-s
and add any piece of code you wish.
I've also the following hook:
(add-hook 'after-save-hook 'autocompile)
(defun autocompile ()
"Byte compile an elisp."
(interactive)
(require 'bytecomp)
(let ((filename (buffer-file-name)))
(if (string-match "\\.el$" filename)
(byte-compile-file filename))))
to produce an .elc whenever I save a .el.
(defun region-to-file+require (beg end file append)
"Move region text to FILE, and replace it with `(require 'FEATURE)'.
You are prompted for FILE, the name of an Emacs-Lisp file. If FILE
does not yet exist then it is created.
With a prefix argument, the region text is appended to existing FILE.
FEATURE is the relative name of FILE, minus the extension `.el'."
(interactive "#*r\nG\nP")
(when (string= (expand-file-name (buffer-file-name)) (expand-file-name file))
(error "Same file as current"))
(unless (string-match-p ".+[.]el$" file)
(error "File extension must be `.el' (Emacs-Lisp file)"))
(unless (or (region-active-p)
(y-or-n-p "Region is not active. Use it anyway? "))
(error "OK, canceled"))
(unless (> (region-end) (region-beginning)) (error "Region is empty"))
(unless (or (not append)
(and (file-exists-p file) (file-readable-p file))
(y-or-n-p (format "File `%s' does not exist. Create it? " file)))
(error "OK, canceled"))
(write-region beg end file append nil nil (not append))
(delete-region beg end)
(let ((feature (and (string-match "\\(.+\\)[.]el$" file)
(match-string 1 file))))
(when feature
(insert (format "(require '%s)\n" feature)))))

How do I make Emacs start without so much fanfare?

Every time I start Emacs I see a page of help text and a bunch of messages suggesting that I try the tutorial. How do I stop this from happening?
Emacs has a couple of variables which inhibit these actions. If you edit your emacs control file (.emacs) and insert the following:
;; inhibit-startup-echo-area-message MUST be set to a hardcoded
;; string of your login name
(setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message "USERNAME")
(setq inhibit-startup-message t)
that should solve your problem. They basically set the inhibit parameters to true to prevent the behavior you want to get rid of.
Put the following in your .emacs:
(setq inhibit-startup-message t)
(setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message t)
You can customize message in minibuffer therefore remove fanfare:
;; Hide advertisement from minibuffer
(defun display-startup-echo-area-message ()
(message ""))
Put the following in your personal init file (ususally ~/.emacs.el):
(setq inhibit-startup-message t)
(Or (setq inhibit-startup-screen t) in with older Emacs versions.)
You can also turn off the message "For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a." in the echo with the variable inhibit-startup-echo-area-message, but it is not enough to set it to t; you must set it to your username. See the documentation for inhibit-startup-echo-area-message.
If your init file is byte-compiled, use the following form instead:
(eval '(setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message "YOUR-USER-NAME"))
Add the below to your init file
(setq inhibit-startup-message t
inhibit-startup-echo-area-message t)