I have a number of splits open, looking at various buffers. But when I for example check the help on a function it will replace one of the splits with the help buffer. Once I'm done reading the help I have to go back to the correct buffer manually which is a pain. How do I get Emacs to be nicer to my buffers?
Update: Help will let you press q to go back to the previous buffer. But causing the Emacs backtrace to pop up also steals one of my buffer windows and it doesn't have a q.
Update: Backtrace DOES have q to go back. My original question still remains: how do I ask Emacs not to steal one of my splits?
Adding the line(push "*Help*" special-display-buffer-names) to the init file should make subsequent invocations of the help buffer to appear in its own frame(what the desktop usually calls "window"), and leave the original frame with its configuration alone.
See Special Buffer Frames.
You could also use winner-mode. It came up on planet.emacsen.org a while back.
Winner Mode is a global minor mode. When activated, it allows to “undo” (and “redo”) changes in the window configuration with the key commands ‘C-c left’ and ‘C-c right’.
That way you can undo any changes to your splits immediately after they happen.
I hope this will help you :
C-x 0 to remove the current window
C-x 1 to keep only the current window
you can use windmove by adding the following line in your .emacs :
(windmove-default-keybindings)
Then, you can move the point between windows using S-right S-left S-up and S-down
There are lots of ways to store and restore emacs windows, see emacswiki.org on the subject.
What I do is just go to that changed buffer, C-x k it, and the current buffer in that window will be the previous buffer.
It may be possible to define advice for the help that saves the current window and buffer state and restores it with a simple keybind. But this is outside my basic elisp knowledge.
Related
I have two frames of the same Emacs instance (got them by C-x 5 2) and a file opened in one of these frames. Then I try to show this file in a buffer in another frame (by C-x b) and nothing happens.
Actually, I think it shows this file in a buffer in the first frame, but this is not what I want it to do. I want it to show this buffer in both frames.
When there is only one frame and some windows in it, opening one buffer in different windows is no problem. I want the same behaviour but with several frames.
Most likely you are using iswitch, as what you describe is its default behavior.
You can change it by doing M-x customize-variable RET iswitchb-default-method. probably you want to choose option samewindow
The ido equivalent variable , in case you are using it, is ido-default-buffer-method (ido defaults to raise-frame, that does not match with your observed behavior).
You may find if you are using one or the other using the way #Olaf describes.
Maybe, you have C-x b redefined. I have the same behaviour with iswitch-buffer. But when I enter M-x switch-to-buffer, it shows the buffer in the second window.
You can find out, which command is executed with C-h c C-x b.
I was wondering how people manage with the useless messages etc emacs buffers generated randomly, for example after my completions, I get an completions buffer and it upsets me it create a buffer I have to traverse to get to the next buffer. Anyone have a solution to this?
The title is rather vague. There are lots of Q&As on the general subject of "buffer management" in Emacs. Here's one which includes links to several others (see "Linked" in the right-hand sidebar):
How can I more easily switch between buffers in Emacs?
For your specific question, I suggest using the excellent winner-mode. Just add (winner-mode 1) to your .emacs file (or type M-x winner-mode RET to try it out).
Once enabled, you can call winner-undo with C-c<left> (repeatedly, if necessary) to step backwards through all the previous window configurations.
Thus, when a window pops up and you no longer want it, you type C-c<left> and you're immediately back to how things were before.
C-c<right> calls winner-redo which restores the configuration you started with (i.e. it doesn't step through the configurations like the undo command).
Also note that many types of buffer can be buried with q or deleted with z.
I've been using emacs for all of my text editing needs for the past three years now. When I'm in a single file, working on code or whatnot, I'm fairly efficient. With two files, I can "C-x b RET" between them and I do fine. However, whenever I need to be working on more than two files at a time, I tend to get lost.
Here are some of the problems that I'd like to work on:
I forget what some of my buffers are called, but I don't understand why C-x C-b splits my window into two buffers and exits the mini buffer. Sure I can switch buffers and choose a buffer to visit, but this feels unintuitive, and leaves me with two buffers open.
When I visit a directory rather than a file, I have a convenient list of all of the files and directories. I usually want to do one of two things with this: 1) Open a single file and never see this buffer again OR 2) Open a bunch of files and never see this buffer again. I don't really know how to do this, as moving the point to a file and hitting return doesn't do either of these things.
I know that my buffers aren't like tabs, but I have an inclination to want to scroll through them to find what I want. I don't know of any key-bindings for this, but I'd like it to be M-n / M-p or the like. Then again, this may be a horribly inefficient way to switch buffers.
When I open interactive help of any kind (for example in ESS), I have a habit of switching back to the buffer I was working in and using C-x 1 to get back to a single buffer. When I do this, however, the help buffer hangs around in my buffer list, further confusing me. I know I can switch to that buffer, kill it, switch back, and then go back to a single buffer, but this seems wrong.
The way I've dealt with this so far involves using a tiling window manager and a few emacs windows in different work-spaces, rather than actually learn the best way to manage a number of files in emacs. I don't necessarily want to change emacs to better fit my needs (although I am open to that if it fits in with what I'm about to say), instead, I'd like to grok the thought process behind handling files/buffers the way that emacs does, and how I can be more efficient with it.
Any answer that would help me understand the correct way, or a more efficient way to manage my buffers or files would be greatly appreciated.
Bind C-x C-b to ibuffer. This is a better buffer listing facility with many advanced features, and its default behaviour is to replace the current buffer with the buffer listing, and then bury the listing when you select a buffer (leaving you with the newly-selected buffer in place of the original one).
You can simply use C-x b to enter your selection in the mini-buffer, of course; however the tab-completion (which is needed to make this a viable option, IMO) does open a new window temporarily, at which point I think you might as well familiarise yourself with something with more features.
Use a instead of RET when selecting from dired. This kills the dired buffer instead of leaving it behind. C-h m in any buffer will show you the help for its major mode (followed by help for the minor modes), and you can read about all the available dired key bindings there.
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/TabBarMode ? (edit: I prefer Rémi's answer for this one, but TabBarMode would give you the visual tab element if you were particularly keen on that.)
q is bound to a 'quit' function in a great many major modes. Generally it buries the buffer rather than killing it, but I certainly find that fine.
To elaborate a little on #1, ibuffer has lots of nice features, and M-x customize-group ibuffer RET will give you some idea of how you can customise it to your liking.
Furthermore, you can filter the buffer list by many criteria (again, use C-h m to see its help page), and then generate a 'group' definition from the current filters, and save your custom filters and groups for future usage.
For example:
/ f ^/var/www/ RET: filter buffer list to show only filenames starting with /var/www/.
/ s Web filters RET: name and save active filter set to your init file.
/ g Web development RET: create a named group from the active filters.
/ S My groups RET: name and save group definitions to your init file.
/ r Web filters RET: invoke the "Web filters" filters.
/ R My groups RET: invoke the "My groups" groups.
RET on a group name to collapse or expand it.
C-k and C-y to kill and yank groups, to re-arrange them.
C-h m for more information...
This way you can have a single Emacs instance running, and create filters and groups for different types of task, and easily switch between them.
I think you will really enjoy Ido for dealing with multiple buffers who's names you can't exactly remember. When you type C-x b it shows a list of open buffers in most used order. As you type some of the characters in a buffer name the list is filtered. The characters you type don't have to be at the begging of the name or contiguous. Using C-f, C-b or left/right arrow keys cycles through the buffer choices.
Also see Smex for Ido like functionality for M-x
Closing windows is done with C-x 0. Intentionally splitting the window is done with C-x 2 for horizontal, C-x 3 for vertical. I love this feature, since it allows me to have test and production code visible at the same time. C-x o takes me to the other window.
I use C-x right (or C-x C-right) and C-x left (or C-x C-right) to go to the next and previous buffer. I don't mind anymore off the few buffer that lay around in Emacs but you could use k in the buffer list to kill the buffer you don't use anymore.
You can also try Iswitchb mode which provides auto-completion for buffer names when you switch buffers via C-x b.
To activate:
M-x iswitchb-mode
Or add to your .emacs file:
(iswitchb-mode)
It is similar to Ido mode for buffer switching but a bit more lightweight.
Also, if you want a more customizable listing of your buffers then use M-x bs-show as an alternative to C-x C-b. In that buffer type ? to get a list of actions you can perform.
I think the number one most useful extension for flipping through buffers is Anything. It lets you start typing part of a buffer (or file!) name and it will figure out what you want. I've rebound C-x b to anything-for-buffers. It makes life so much better.
As always, there are many ways to help you with this; it depends a bit on personal preference what works best, here are some links with explanations:
ibuffer; which is an updated buffer menu (C-x C-b)
ido, which let's you have more powerful autocompletion to switch through buffers. It's a kind-of 'better iswitchb'.
These two are enough for me; but you may also be interested in the tabbar-mode, which gives you rudimentary tabs (like firefox has them).
In vim, visual block can be recall by 'gv' command so that multiple commands can be applied easily. (such as, comment out, then indent, then do_something_fun).
In Emacs, how can this be achieved?
[C-xC-x] only works when current cursor position stays where previous block ended.
If previous block was changed, the closest is to go through 'point-to-register' and 'jump-to-register'.
Just I am curious if there is an Emacs built-in command making this in one shot.
If Transient Mark mode is off, the region is always active. If it's on (which it sounds like is your situation), you can set mark-even-if-inactive to non-nil to allow region commands to work while the region isn't highlighted.
However, note you also can cycle back through previous mark positions using C-u C-SPC -- this will pop the mark ring. Once you're back to where you want to be, C-x C-x will rehighlight the region you want. (It may take a little bit of playing with this feature to get a feel for it, but it's why I can't switch away from Emacs now.)
If I understand correctly what you are asking for, then you don't need to do anything. When you select a region in emacs, it stays selected until you select a new one. So you could select the region and then perform as many actions as you want.
Sounds like you're looking for the secondary selection, which stays put even as the region might change. (It stays put until you move it.)
See:
the Emacs manual, node Secondary Selection
Emacs wiki page Secondary Selection
library second-sel.el:
Also narrow-to-region (CTRL-x n n ) applies every command from then on just to that region- you can't hurt the rest of the buffer, it doesn't even show. After done editing , widen (CTRL-x n w )to get back the whole buffer.
CMM
If you use evil-mode, just press gv like in vim.
Since the answers here and for other similar SO questions didn't help for me (CUA-mode, Emacs 24, not only indent-rigidly), I continued searching and finally found a reselect-last-region defined in this collection of custom function (starting line 670). That worked like a charm for me - and hopefully does for others still arriving here.
It often occurs that a file buffer is modified (duh!). Before exiting, emacs asks whether to save the changes. Now it would be interesting to know what actually changed. Is there a way to find out?
As of Emacs 22.1 (at least), 'save-buffers-kill-emacs (the default binding for C-x C-c) prompts you for each unsaved buffer that has a file. Type a d when prompted to save and see the diff.
From the help documentation:
Save some modified file-visiting buffers. Asks user about each one.
You can answer `y' to save, `n' not to save, `C-r' to look at the
buffer in question with `view-buffer' before deciding or `d' to
view the differences using `diff-buffer-with-file'.
If you look at the prompt, it should say something like:
Save file /path/to/file.txt? (y, n, !, ., q, C-r, d, or C-h)
Typing C-h gives you a little more verbose description (but d is what you are asking for):
Type SPC or `y' to save the current buffer;
DEL or `n' to skip the current buffer;
RET or `q' to give up on the save (skip all remaining buffers);
C-g to quit (cancel the whole command);
! to save all remaining buffers;
C-r to view this buffer;
d to view changes in this buffer;
or . (period) to save the current buffer and exit.
I use diff-buffer-with-file, and select the file that the buffer came from (which is the default anyway for the command... just hit enter).
You can also use highlight-changes-mode, though this won't track changes until you turn it on, so not so useful if you want to see what changed when you're closing a file that has not been in this mode :-)
You can have highlight-changes-mode enabled. It will display all changes in red. However it won't show you whitespace changes and will mark removals only with an red _. See also http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TrackChanges.
I found this post about tracking changes by djcb most helpful regarding tracking changes in Emacs. The trick is to add the following to your .emacs:
;; higlight changes in documents
(global-highlight-changes-mode t)
(setq highlight-changes-visibility-initial-state nil); initially hide
and then toggle highlight-changes-visible-mode when you want to see what has changed.
In this case I type undo to see the last change (usually some stray character which got typed in the wrong window, since I save early and often).
It would be nice if there were some other indication of the current changes, e.g. in the border like quick diff in Eclipse text editors.
I use goto-chg for things like that. It's not perfect, but it always is enough to jog my memory about what change I made and promptly forgot about.