rlazo's blog

As a side note, I finally got a (paid) hosting for myself with my own domain (rlazo.org), so soon I'll be migrating my blog plus other content there. Currently there's nothing to see, but in a few weeks I hope to have everything set.

Sometimes I need to insert into a buffer a path (e.g. /home/user/.emacs) and I want to use emacs' excellent completion capabilities. It turns out to be pretty easy to implement this function in elisp. Here is the snippet:

(defun insert-path ()
  "Inserts a path into the buffer with completion"
  (interactive)
  (insert (expand-file-name (read-file-name "Path: "))))

As always, any comments on the code above are more than welcome :)

Another way of doing it suggested by Peter Mielke is:

(defun insert-path (file)
 "insert file"
 (interactive "FPath: ")
 (insert (expand-file-name file)))

I think this is a better option because uses interactive built-in support for file input rather than using the read-file-name function. Thank you for the tip Peter

On emacs.help a very interesting thread about you, your fingers and emacs is taking place. Is no secret that emacs extensive use of "key combos" is both a blessing and a curse. While they make almost every feature of emacs a few keystrokes away, they can also put your fingers and wrist under continus stress

Between the suggestions to improve the situation are: swap caps lock and control, swap alt and ctrl, change your keyboard layout to dvorak, etc.

Here is the link to the gmane archive of the thread with more links and more comments.

Don't forget that emacs.help is a public mailing list where you can take part :). Go ahead and subscribe.

June 17th

UPDATE:For this code to work you need to include the mm-url library. The code is now fixed

If so, here's a little snippet I wrote for emacs to have all this power just one keystroke away

(require 'mm-url)
(defun google-define-word-or-phrase (query)
  (interactive "sInsert word or phrase to search: ")
  (let* ((url (concat "http://www.google.com.pe/search?hl=en&q=define%3A" 
		      (replace-regexp-in-string " " "+" query)))
	 (definition
	   (save-excursion
	     (with-temp-buffer
	       (mm-url-insert url)
	       (goto-char (point-min))
	       (if (search-forward "No definitions found of " nil t)
		   "No definitions found"
		 (buffer-substring (search-forward "<li>") (- (search-forward "<") 1)))))))
    (message "%s: %s" query definition)))

(global-set-key [f5] 'google-define-word-or-phrase)

This uses google's define: operator to look up for a word or phrase. Copy & Paste this code into your .emacs and with pressinf F5 you will be prompted for your query. Have fun

If you have any comments on the code they will be more than welcome :)

Just as a site note, I found it while looking how to set WindowsKey(Super)-tab as a keybinding for lisp-complete-symbol

(define-key lisp-mode-map [s-tab] 'lisp-complete-symbol)

Really easy :)

You will need:

• dired-x.el

The question

Is there some keybinding or command in Dired that open in background all marked files?

The solution

First, mark all the files you will want to open and then use 'C-u F'

Here is the link of the thread