Is it possible to let Emacs have the cursor be moved off-screen, like most GUI text editors work? This is one of the biggest things that bothers me when I use Emacs over any GUI editor. When I scroll down, the cursor is "pushed forward" by the top of the buffer.
I had previously thought that this was completely impossible, because this is hard-wired into the architecture of Emacs, but then I saw multiple-cursors, which does exactly this for the secondary cursors (assuming you prevent the scrolling functions from acting on the secondary cursors). Is it maybe possible to use multiple-cursors to have the main cursor in some hidden buffer, and the effective cursor being what I actually edit with? Or maybe some other clever trick? Or maybe my Googling has failed me and this is really already possible without any magic?
There is a new package available on GNU ELPA called scroll-restore that attempts to remedy this problem. So far, I have encountered a few bugs, but the package seems to work as-advertised for the most part.
You can test it out by installing it with
M-x package-install RET scroll-restore RET
After the package is installed, you can enable the minor mode with
M-x scroll-restore-mode
Personally, I am binding it to the Scroll Lock key because it seems so incredibly apropos! This is what I am adding to my init file:
(require 'scroll-restore)
(scroll-restore-mode 1)
;; Allow scroll-restore to modify the cursor face
(setq scroll-restore-handle-cursor t)
;; Make the cursor invisible while POINT is off-screen
(setq scroll-restore-cursor-type nil)
;; Jump back to the original cursor position after scrolling
(setq scroll-restore-jump-back t)
;; Toggle scroll-restore-mode with the Scroll Lock key
(global-set-key (kbd "<Scroll_Lock>") 'scroll-restore-mode)
This is a direct copy of an answer posted here: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/2273/93
Strictly, speaking you can't move the cursor offscreen, because the underlying C code won't let you do it.
This said, I suspect that your problem can be fixed. Basically, there are 2 aspects:
you don't like the way things look when "the cursor is pushed forward". You could work around that by (temporarily) making the cursor invisible.
you want to "jump back" to the pre-scrolling position as soon as you issue a non-scrolling command. There's probably some package out there that does it for you, but you can do it yourself with some pre-command-hook hacking.
BTW, I'd welcome patches in Emacs which provide some of that functionality. I hate the "auto jump-back" behavior of other editors, but it would be good to record the "pre-scroll" position and then offer a way to jump back to it.
Judging by the context and description of your problem, it looks like you want to browse the buffer while preserving your place of editing. There are at least two tricks for that purpose: marks/registers and splitting in two windows.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/3777598/308668 describes the Emacs' registers that act like Vim's marks. You can check in your place in the file with keying C-x r SPC a (a being a letter of your choice) and you can always come back with C-x r j a.
Some sort of automation is achieved by an external script (goto-last-change.el), described here: https://superuser.com/a/184402/49046.
Alternatively, split the window in two with C-x 2. The newly split windows both show the same location and you can use the other to explore. C-x 0 closes a window when you're done.
Related
I am currently trying to learn Emacs more in depth so that I can do more with my Emacs than just simple editing stuff...
I am making good progress and at the moment I am trying to configure the 'sr-speedbar' module to my liking, but some details I can't figure out myself:
Say that I've 2 open buffer windows A and B plus the speedbar window. If I open a file by pressing Enter in the speedbar window, then the new file always get opened in the same buffer window B (which I opened last). Can I somehow specify that the new content should be opened in buffer window A?
Currently the speedbar window refreshes itself automatically to the new location whenever I open a new file using 'C-x C-f'. This is actually pretty useful, but sometimes I don't want this when I am quickly trying things out in a tmp file. And the refresh also "destroys" my "tree-view" of the speedbar, where I expanded the directory contents rather than opening them directly. The question is, how can I suppress this "refreshing behaviour"? Can I somehow disable the automatic mode and trigger it manually if I need it?
And do you guys have more useful tips regarding speedbar navigation? How does a Emacs guru use speedbar or are there better alternatives?
Thx in advance for your help!
You can turn off the auto-refresh in your init file like this -
(require 'sr-speedbar)
(setq sr-speedbar-auto-refresh nil)
and/or turn it on and off later with the function sr-speedbar-refresh-toggle.
The defaults it (and speedbar) comes with are a bit odd though - it also doesn't show files that it doesn't recognize, uses images for buttons, and is set on the right side - so you can set these if you'd like -
(setq speedbar-show-unknown-files t) ; show all files
(setq speedbar-use-images nil) ; use text for buttons
(setq sr-speedbar-right-side nil) ; put on left side
I do use sr-speedbar for projects that have enough of a directory structure - otherwise I use the usual switch-to-buffer (C-x b), ibuffer (C-x C-b), and dired (C-x d), and another function that switches to the previous buffer. Also bound to single keys because they get used so much.
But... I'm still learning Emacs - I haven't tried helm, projectile, or project-explorer yet - they look interesting also.
I am learning org mode, and just found out about sparse trees (C-c / t and its kin). How can I go back to the original, unsparse, view of my org document?
I found out by trial and error that TAB-cycling the top node works, is there a better way?
C-c C-c should clear out the sparse-tree hiding and highlighting, but as far as I know, you can't just go back to the "last view" you had of it. If you want to go back to the full-view, use Shift-Tab to cycle all entries.
So, it's now 2018 and (AFAIK) this feature still doesn't exist.
The best workaround I've found so far, is to create an indirect buffer (C-x 4 c) and then run org-sparse-tree in there. The original window remains unaffected, so you keep your view, and changes to the indirect buffer will update the original buffer (and vice-versa). When you're done, you just close the indirect buffer.
I usually just run the org-mode command which seems to get me back to square one.
Ben K. was on the right track. Indirect buffers are one of emacs' most powerful features.
This function does what I would have expected org-show-todo-tree to do: create a new buffer showing undone TODO items, don't screw up my org file's tree state, and clear the unnecessary occur highlighting.
(defun org-todo-buffer ()
"Create new indirect buffer with sparse tree of undone TODO items"
(interactive)
(clone-indirect-buffer "*org TODO undone*" t)
(org-show-todo-tree nil) ; mimics interactive usage
(org-remove-occur-highlights)
)
In this new buffer you can change TODO item states which are reflected in your org file, and you can simply kill the indirect buffer when you are done with it.
Coming to this very late, I noticed that selecting all tags then un-highlighting/un-narrowing seems to do the right thing.
C-c \ *
C-c C-c
TAB-cycling anywhere only hides the entries highlighted by org-sparse-tree.
To remove the overlays, you need to actually edit the buffer.
As you said, you can there by visibility cycling with S-TAB, but I personally don't like visibility cycling because I'm never sure where I am in the cycle.
So I just created this simple org-agenda-custom-command that shows everything without highlighting. Just add it to your .emacs file.
(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
; ... other commands
`(("z" "All" occur-tree "."
((org-show-entry-below t)
(org-highlight-sparse-tree-matches nil)))))
There probably is a better way to do this, and the beauty of SO is someone will tell us :).
What I usually do to work around this is to use C-x C-v RET (find-alternate-file) or M-x revert-buffer. This works only if you don't have unsaved edits.
I found that the (setq org-agenda-custom-commands.. answer works the best for me.
Use with (sorry, it wasn't obvious to me):
C-c a z
I've recently started using emacs and I'm enjoying using it for the most part. The only thing I'm not enjoying, is switching between buffers. I often have a few buffers open and I've grown tired of using C-x b and C-x C-b, are there any packages that make switching between buffers easier? I've looked into emacs wiki on switching buffers and I'd appreciate insight/feedback on what are are using/enjoying. Thanks.
UPDATE: iswitchb-mode is obsolete in Emacs >= 24.4, replaced by ido.
All of the features of iswitchdb are now provided by ido. Ross provided a link to the documentation in his answer. You can activate with the following in your .emacs (or use the customization interface as Ross suggests):
(require 'ido)
(ido-mode 'buffers) ;; only use this line to turn off ido for file names!
(setq ido-ignore-buffers '("^ " "*Completions*" "*Shell Command Output*"
"*Messages*" "Async Shell Command"))
By default, ido provides completions for buffer names and file names. If you only want to replace the features of iswitchb, the second line turns off this feature for file names. ido will ignore any buffers that match the regexps listed in ido-ignore-buffers.
The behaviour described below for iswitchb-mode applies equally to ido for switching buffers.
iswitchb-mode (Emacs < 24.4)
iswitchb-mode replaces the default C-x b behaviour with a very intuitive buffer-switching-with-completion system. There are more sophisticated options, but I've never needed more than this.
After you hit C-x b, you are presented with a list of all buffers. Start typing the name of the buffer you want (or part of its name), and the list is narrowed until only one buffer matches. You don't need to complete the name, though, as soon as the buffer you want is highlighted hitting enter will move you to it. You can also use C-s and C-r to move through the list in order.
You can turn it on by default with this in your .emacs:
(iswitchb-mode 1)
You can also tell it to ignore certain buffers that you never (or very rarely) need to switch to:
(setq iswitchb-buffer-ignore '("^ " "*Completions*" "*Shell Command Output*"
"*Messages*" "Async Shell Command"))
You can use C-x <right> (next-buffer) and C-x <left> (previous-buffer) to cycle around in the buffer ring. You could bind S-<right> and S-<left> to these functions. (S is the "super-key" or windows-key). This way you can save some keystrokes.
Moreover, note that C-x b has a default entry, i.e. it displays a standard value (most of the time this is the previously viewed buffer), so that you don't always need to enter the buffer name explicitly.
Another nice trick is to open separate windows using C-x 2 and C-x 3. This displays several buffers simultaneously. Then you can bind C-<tab> to other-window and get something similar to tabbed browsing.
M-x customize-group ido then set Ido Mode to Turn on both buffer and file and set Ido Everywhere to on. Then click the Save for future sessions button at the top and enjoy ido magic for both files and buffers. Read the docs to get a sense of how to use ido.
Also, take a look at smex.
ido-mode provides an efficient way to switch buffers.
ibuffer is best for managing all opened buffers.
anything is good for selecting an interested thing from different
sources. (for eg: a single key can be used to switch to another
buffer or to open recently closed file or to open a file residing
in the same directory or ... anything you want ... )
If you've looked at the Emacs Wiki, you probably have all this information already, but here are a few other relevant Q&As:
Emacs: help me understand file/buffer management
Buffer switching in Emacs
How to invoke the buffer list in Emacs
My toolkit consists of ibuffer, windmove+framemove, winner-mode, and a custom binding to make C-xleft/right and C-cleft/right less of a hassle to use.
I have mapped the "ยง"-key to 'buffer-list and I find it to be very efficient.
I've started using anything for a couple of days and I'm really liking it: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Anything .
Emacs-fu has an good intro to anything: http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2011/09/finding-just-about-anything.html
My favourite function for this is helm-mini which is part of helm.
As other helm functions, it allows incremental narrowing of the selection. It also searches your recently visited buffers, which is a really nice way to re-open a buffer. Helm can be a little surprising at first and as a new Emacs user, I found it visually overwhelming and I preferred ido or ibuffer which have been suggested in other replies. But now I absolutely love it and use it all the time for countless things.
Something that I realized by accident and that can be useful:
mouse-buffer-menu is by default bound to <C-mouse-1> (Control key + mouse left click) and opens a popup with a list of the current buffers.
I personally keep all lines under 80 characters, but I also work on projects in teams where other programmers don't care about line length.
I love using whitespace-mode, but the long line visualization is really annoying when I'm working on projects where I shouldn't interfere with the long lines. It seems like it should be easy to turn off the long line visualization---I hit m-x global-whitespace-toggle-options l, and then can hit m-x global-whitespace-toggel-options ? to confirm that the "long-line visualization" is turned off. But long lines are still highlighted. I kill buffers and reload them, and highlighting is still there. I'm definitely using global, not local, whitespace-mode.
Why can't I turn off the long line visualization?
The last time I customized whitespace-mode, I noticed that my changes to the settings didn't have any effect in buffers that already existed; try recreating the buffer, or leaving and reentering whitespace-mode. In case you don't already know, you can use M-x customize-group whitespace to turn off that particular option entirely, rather than doing it manually.
Edit: Specifically you want to customize the whitespace-style variable. This lets you turn on and off individual styles. In this case you should turn off the ones labelled "(Face) Lines" and "(Face) Lines, only overlong part". The former changes the face of the whole line when it is overly long, while the latter only changes the face of the part that extends past the threshold.
(Other options in this group define the faces that whitespace-mode will use to highlight the styles you've turned on, the regexes it uses to identify certain situations, etc, but usually you only care about whitespace-style).
Set whitespace-line-column to a higher value (default is 80), so the highlighting of long lines doesn't kick in:
(setq whitespace-line-column 250)
I'm assuming that you already have whitespace-mode activated somewhere in your init.el or similar. If so, you can adapt duma's comment above, and either
Edit the elisp that sets whitespace-style to remove lines-tail. E.g., Emacs Prelude sets
(setq whitespace-style '(face tabs empty trailing lines-tail))
Simply change that to
(setq whitespace-style '(face tabs empty trailing))
If you don't want to directly edit that elisp, but rather override it later with your own code, do something like
(setq whitespace-style (delete 'lines-tail whitespace-style))
Unfortunately, if running Prelude with auto-loaded buffers (using something like Emacs Desktop), the initial setting will take precedence: for each buffer on which you want to see whitespace-style displayed as directed, you must [1]
kill the buffer
re-open the buffer
[1]: Note to OP: if there's another way to reload a buffer, please edit or comment this answer. I was hoping to find something like M-x reload-buffer but am not seeing anything like that with C-h a buffer.
Notepad++ has a convenient feature: if you select a word in your text (not necessarily a keyword), the word is highlighted throughout the text. Can this be done in Emacs as well? And if so, how?
It doesn't necessarily have to work exactly like Notepad++ (i.e., via selection); ideally, I would like to set up a key binding that causes all occurrences of the word under cursor to be highlighted.
It would be great if the highlights were permanent, i.e., moving point away from a highlighted word should not cause the highlight to be removed.
Also, it would be useful if there was a solution that made it possible to navigate between highlights (using custom key bindings).
The hi-lock suggestions are good. I think it's easier to use the M-x versions, though:
M-x highlight-regexp RET <REGEXP>
M-x highlight-phrase RET <REGEXP>
highlight-phrase is just a bit of sugar around highlight-regexp that ignores case and translates a space in the regex to match arbitrary whitespace. Handy.
Maybe highlight-symbol.el at http://nschum.de/src/emacs/highlight-symbol/ is what you are looking for:
Type C-s, then type the current word or type C-w. As a bonus, you can now hit C-s again to search for the word.
This is called incremental search.
What I use is idle-highlight
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/IdleHighlight
M-x idle-highlight sets an idle timer that highlights all occurences in the buffer of the word under the point.
To enable it for all programming modes, in ~/.emacs.d/init.el:
;; highlight words
(add-hook 'prog-mode-hook (lambda () (idle-highlight-mode t)))
Light-symbol will highlight whatever symbol point is over.
Alternately, you can use occur, which lists all lines matching a regexp. It's useful to quickly see all functions in a class.
Nobody mentioned symbol-overlay mode. It's basically a better rewrite of highlight-symbol-mode. "Better" as in, lacks bugs of original highlight-symbol (such as, temporary highlight getting stuck, or the temporary highlight disappearing for moving inside the highlighted word; or not being able to highlight symbols like *), better integrated, and maintained. See "Advantages" paragraph of its README.
You can install it as usual, with M-xpackage-install (make sure to update package list beforehand with package-list-packages). For reference, at the bottom I attached code I use to enable the mode and disable a few of the more advanced features which you may or may not want.
Notepad++ has a convenient feature: if you select a word in your text (not necessarily a keyword), the word is highlighted throughout the text. Can this be done in Emacs as well? And if so, how?
Once you enable overlay-symbol, occurrences on the screen will be shown for every word that you put cursor upon after a timeout (timeout by default is 0.5s, can be configured with symbol-overlay-idle-time variable). If a word don't get highlighted, this means there's just one match on the screen (the one you put cursor upon), hence there's no need to highlight it.
It would be great if the highlights were permanent, i.e., moving point away from a highlighted word should not cause the highlight to be removed.
To highlight the word under cursor permanently there's a function symbol-overlay-put. To unhighlight call it once again.
In my config example it's bound to Logo+` key.
(require 'symbol-overlay)
(defun enable-symbol-overlay-mode ()
(unless (or (minibufferp)
(derived-mode-p 'magit-mode)
(derived-mode-p 'xref--xref-buffer-mode))
(symbol-overlay-mode t)))
(define-global-minor-mode global-symbol-overlay-mode ;; name of the new global mode
symbol-overlay-mode ;; name of the minor mode
enable-symbol-overlay-mode)
(global-symbol-overlay-mode) ;; enable it
(global-set-key (kbd "s-`") 'symbol-overlay-put)
(setq symbol-overlay-ignore-functions nil) ;; don't ignore keywords in various languages
(setq symbol-overlay-map (make-sparse-keymap)) ;; disable special cmds on overlays
This may not be as nice as what you were hoping but if you put
(global-hi-lock-mode 1)
in your .emacs file then you can type C-x w h REGEX <RET> <RET> to highlight all occurances of REGEX, and C-x w r REGEX <RET> to unhighlight them again. Again, not as elegant as you'd probably like, but it'll work.
Try http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/msearch.el
All occurences of the text selected with the cursor are highlighted.
You have to drag over the string which you want to highlight. That enables you to easily change the selection without changing the highlight.
If you want to preserve the highlighting of a string you can freeze it.
You can enslave a buffer to another buffer. Text selected in the master buffer will also be highlighted in the slave buffer. That is useful for comparing buffers.
It is also useful for taking notes in one buffer while you investigate the text in another one. You can have a collection of keywords in the notes buffer. Drag over such a keyword and its occurences in the investigated text will be highlighted.
I am using this stuff for years now. I added the freezing quite recently. So, maybe something is broken. If this is the case leave me a note on http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/msearch or here.
Check Interactive Highlighting
Should be:
C-x w h word <RET> <RET>
Try iedit. It highlights the word at point and lets you edit all occurrences of it easily. With an additional keystroke (C-'), it hides all the lines without that word in it. Very handy!
Commands in library highlight.el
let you (un)highlight text matching a regexp (in this case a symbol), using overlays or text properties. You can cycle among the occurrences. Highlighting can be temporary or persistent. (more info).
This maybe won't highlight but will search for a word without you needing to type it...
when you've reached the word you wanted to search, C-S, then read the full word with C-W then you can C-S and it will search for it. In my Emacs it also highlights all instances in the document.
This package available in Melpa works, you can customize the highlight style as well.
https://github.com/ignacy/idle-highlight-in-visible-buffers-mode