GNU ELPA - blist

blist

Description
Display bookmarks in an ibuffer way
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blist-0.3.tar (.sig), 2024-Mar-31, 1.12 MiB
Maintainer
Durand <durand@jsdurand.xyz>
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Website
https://gitlab.com/mmemmew/blist
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blist

To install this package from Emacs, use package-install or list-packages.

Full description

1. About

The built-in library "bookmark" is useful for storing information that can be retrieved later. But I find the built-in mechanism to display the list of bookmarks not so satisfactory, so I wrote this little package to display the list of bookmarks in an Ibuffer way.

2. Dependency

This package is driven by another package: ilist. So make sure to install that before using this package. In fact, the package "ilist" was written as an abstraction of the mechanisms of this package.

3. Usage

After installing, one can call the function blist-list-bookmarks to display the list of bookmarks. Of course, one can bind a key to that function for easier invocations.

3.1. Screenshot

A picture says more about the package than a thousand words. Below is how the list of bookmarks looks like on my end:

3.2. Example configuration

Some examples of configurations are included so that it is easier to begin configuring the package.

3.2.1. Example of manual grouping
(setq blist-filter-groups
      (list
       (cons "Eshell" #'blist-eshell-p)
       (cons "ELisp" #'blist-elisp-p)
       (cons "PDF" #'blist-pdf-p)
       (cons "Info" #'blist-info-p)
       (cons "Default" #'blist-default-p)))

;; Whether one wants to use the header line or not
(setq blist-use-header-p nil)

;; Just use manual filter groups for this example
(setq blist-filter-features (list 'manual))

;; Eshell and Default are defined in the package by default

(blist-define-criterion "elisp" "ELisp"
  (string-match-p
   "\\.el$"
   (bookmark-get-filename bookmark)))

(blist-define-criterion "pdf" "PDF"
  (eq (bookmark-get-handler bookmark)
      #'pdf-view-bookmark-jump))

(blist-define-criterion "info" "Info"
  (eq (bookmark-get-handler bookmark)
      #'Info-bookmark-jump))
3.2.2. Example of automatic grouping
(setq blist-filter-features (list 'auto))

;; Either this
(setq blist-automatic-filter-groups
      #'ilist-automatic-group-blist-default)

;; Or this
(setq blist-automatic-filter-groups
      #'ilist-automatic-group-blist-type-only)

;; Or define ones own grouping function
3.2.3. Example of combining the two groupings
;; The order matters not.
(setq blist-filter-features (list 'manual 'auto))

;; We can use manual groups to place certain important categories of
;; bookmarks at the top of the list.
;;
;; Make sure not to include a default group, otherwise tha automatic
;; grouping functions would have no chance of being run.
(setq blist-filter-groups
      (list
       (cons "Eshell" #'blist-eshell-p)
       (cons "ELisp" #'blist-elisp-p)
       (cons "PDF" #'blist-pdf-p)
       (cons "Info" #'blist-info-p)))

;; Either this
(setq blist-automatic-filter-groups
      #'ilist-automatic-group-blist-default)

;; Or this
(setq blist-automatic-filter-groups
      #'ilist-automatic-group-blist-type-only)

;; Or define ones own grouping function

See the following subsections for more details.

3.3. Header

Some users prefer to display the names of columns in the header line. It has the advantage that it will always be visible, even though the user scrolls the buffer. This package has an option blist-use-header-p for this purpose. If that customizable variable is non-nil, then blist will display the names of columns in the header line.

3.4. Columns

As one can see, the display has two columns: a name column and a location column. The name column shows the names of the bookmarks, while the location column shows the locations, which are either the filename or the location attributes of the bookmarks.

The variable blist-display-location-p controls whether to display the locations or not. Also, one can toggle the display of the locations interactively by blist-toggle-location.

The variable blist-maximal-name-len determines the maximal length of the name column. And the variable blist-elide-string determines how to elide the name, when it gets too long.

If one feels like so, then one can play with the function blist-name-column to control the name column.

3.5. Groups

An important feature of this package is the filter groups. They are criteria that group bookmarks together under various sections. So one can find all bookmarks of, say, "Eshell buffers" in one section.

There are two types of filter groups: the fixed filter groups and the automatic filter groups.

3.5.1. Fixed filter groups

The groups are stored in the variable blist-filter-groups. One can add or remove filter groups to that variable. That variable is a list of filter groups, while each filter group is a cons cell of the form (NAME . FUN), where NAME is a string which will be displayed as the section header, and FUN is a function that accepts a bookmark as its argument, and returns non-nil when and only when that bookmark belongs to the group.

Since defining the group functions might be tedious, the package also provides a convenient macro blist-define-criterion for the users to define filter groups easily. See the documentation string of that macro for details.

Also, the order of the filter groups matters: the filter groups that occur earlier on the list have higher priority. So if an item belongs to multiple groups, it will be classified under the group that is the earliest on the list.

Note that the default filter group, which always returns t for every bookmark, is not needed. If a bookmark does not belong to any filter group, it will be grouped into a default group, whose name is given by blist-filter-default-label.

Note that this is a feature of "blist", and not of "ilist": you can display a list without default groups.

3.5.2. Automatic filter groups

An automatic filter group is a function that can give labels to elements in a list. These labels will be used to group elements automatically: the elements with the same label will be grouped together. Besides, an automatic filter group is also responsible for sorting group labels, and for giving a default label, if no default labels are specified.

To be precise, an automatic filter group is a function with the signature: (ELEMENT &optional TYPE). The optional argument TYPE says what the caller wants from the function:

  • nil: If it is omitted or nil, the function should just return the label for ELEMENT.
  • default: If it is the symbol default, the function should return a default label.
  • sorter: If it is the symbol sorter, the function should return a function with two arguments, X and Y. This returned function should return a non-nil value if and only if group X should be placed earlier than group Y.

The automatic filter group to use is stored in the variable blist-automatic-filter-groups. Its default value is blist-automatic-filter-groups-default.

If you want to define your own automatic filter group, then the macro ilist-define-automatic-group, or ilist-dag, defined in "ilist", might come in handy. The default automatic filter group is defined by that macro, for your information.

3.5.3. Two default automatic groups

There are two pre-defined automatic groups in the package: the default one and the type-only one.

  1. Default group

    In Emacs 29 or later, if a bookmark handler function symbol has a property called bookmark-handler-type, it will be recognized as the type of the bookmark, which can be retrieved by the function bookmark-type-from-full-record.

    The default group will use the type of a bookmark as the group header, if the type is available, otherwise it falls back to use file name extensions.

  2. Type-only group

    This automatic group only uses the type of a bookmark as the group header. If the type is not available, it always uses the default group.

3.5.4. Combine fixed and automatic filter groups

What if one wants to use both the fixed filter groups and the automatic filter group to group elements? Then one can set the variable blist-filter-features. This variable should be a list of featuers to use. Currently there are two features: manual and auto. If one adds manual to the list of features, then the fixed filter groups will be used; if one adds auto to the list of features, then the automatic filter groups will be used.

Further, if one adds both manual and auto to the list of features, then both filter groups will be used. The elements will first go through the fixed filter groups to see if it belongs to some fixed filter group. If an element belongs to none of the fixed filter groups, then the automatic filter group will be used to find the label for the element. If a poor element is given no labels, then the default label blist-filter-default-label will be used.

Wait, one asks, what if the list contains no features? Don't worry, it is not the end of blist. In this case all elements will be considered as belonging to the default group blist-filter-default-label.

3.6. Calling convention(s)

For the ease and brevity of writing, let's establish a convention for describing the interactive arguments of functions.

In this document, the phrase "XYZ-convention" should be understood as a specification of how the arguments to a function are supposed to be obtained when called interactively. Here the letters "XYZ" have special meanings:

Note: It is implied that the bookmarks in the folded groups are not operated upon by user commands.

  • "M": marked bookmarks
  • "R": the bookmarks in the region, if the region is active
  • "G": the bookmarks of a group, if the point is at the heading of that group
  • "0": the 0-th bookmark, that is, the bookmark at point, if any
  • "C": use completing-read to let the user choose a bookmark
  • "P": the ARG next bookmarks, where ARG is the prefix argument

3.7. Navigations

The following is a list of default key-bindings to navigate in the list of bookmarks. Except for the two jump commands, they all follow the P-convention.

  • n, p: go to next/previous line. Whether it treats the top of the buffer as identified with the bottom of the buffer is controlled by the variable blist-movement-cycle.
  • N, P: go to next/previous line that is not a group heading.
  • M-n, M-p: go to next/previous group heading.
  • j, M-g: jump to a bookmark, using the C-convention
  • J, M-j, M-G: jump to a group heading, using the C-convention
  • M-{ and ): go to the previous marked bookmark.
  • ) and M-}: go to the next marked bookmark.

3.8. Marking

The following is a list of default key-bindings to mark bookmarks and to operate on the bookmarks.

Unless stated otherwise, they all follow the P-convention.

  • m: Mark the bookmark with the default mark (blist-default-mark) and advance.
  • d, k: Mark for deletion and advance.
  • C-d: Mark for deletion and go backwards.
  • x: Delete all bookmarks that are marked for deletion.
  • D: Delete the bookmark immediately (the MRG0-convention).
  • u: Unmark the bookmark and advance.
  • DEL: Unmark the bookmark and go backwards.
  • U: Unmark all bookmarks.
  • M-DEL, * *: prompt for a mark and unmark all boomarks that are marked with the entered mark (using read-char).
  • % n: Mark bookmarks whose name matches a regular expression.
  • % l: Mark bookmarks whose location matches a regular expression.
  • * c: Change the marks from OLD to NEW (using read-char)
  • t: Toggle marks: an item is going to be marked if and only if it is currently not marked.

3.9. Jump to bookmarks

The following lists the default key-bindings for jumping to, or opening bookmarks. Except for v, they operate on the bookmark (or group) at point.

  • RET: Either open the bookmark in this window or toggle the group at point.
  • o: Open the bookmark in another window.
  • v: Select the bookmarks (the MG0-convention). How multiple bookmarks are opened is controlled by the variable blist-select-manner. See its documentation for details.

3.10. Annotations

The following lists the default key-bindings for operating on the annotations of bookmarks.

  • a: View the annotations of bookmarks (the MGC-convention).
  • A: View the annotations of all bookmarks.
  • e: edit the annotation of the bookmark at point. If called with universal-argument, prompt for the bookmark to edit with completion.

3.11. Others

  • R: Relocate the bookmark.
  • r: Rename the bookmark.
  • l: Load bookmarks from a file, and prepend these bookmarks to the front of the bookmarks list.
  • S-RET: Toggle all other groups than the group at which the cursor sits. This creates a kind of narrowing effect, and is fun to apply on different groups successively.

Some functions are too minor to record here. Use describe-mode in the list of bookmarks to see all available key-bindings.

Old versions

blist-0.2.tar.lz2022-Sep-01 766 KiB
blist-0.1.tar.lz2021-Dec-29 773 KiB