rlazo's blog

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

This tip comes form the gnus mailing list from almost two years ago. I re-discover it today because, after writing a long email for a mailing list, I needed to change my original reply to a wide reply.

This is as easy as this:

Keybinding: `C-c C-f w'

Description: Insert `To' and `Cc' headers as if you were doing a wide reply even if the message was not made for a wide reply first.

The link for the original message is here

Well, long time without a single release... What happen with the release candidate? or even with my pretty schedule for the 0.2 version? Keep reading :)

After re-reading the book "Producing Open Source Software", I got from Google last year, I realized that I was introducing too few new features for a new release. My original plan was to introduce a new feature per release... but that's not all that funny :). So I created a branch on the git repository to start to work on a real feature: the plugin system

What's new then? the plugin system basically is done, the notification is now a plugin (so if you don't like the pop-ups, is now easier than ever to disable them), a real logging system has been implemented (using python standard-library facilities) and a few other little things.

What's the catch? Well, the code is still alpha, but I decided to push my branch to the public repository for anybody to see it. I'm thinking in using threads for the plugins, so a bad plugin doesn't kill everybody. The documentation is missing, the Makefile doesn't work with this version at all, and there are some rough edges.

If you want to take a look at the branch, here is the link.

This is an off-topic post. I don't like to do OT, but this is the first and last post from my brand new math category to be posted also as an Emacs entry. A little bit of math doesn't hurt.

Have you ever wonder why does really mean the e constant? You know, besides the number 2.7182828? Well, I've found the best explanation here.

I've always loved math. Don't get me wrong, I'm pursuing a Computer Science BA degree, but there are some fundamental math concepts that I don't fully understand altought I use them. I used to be more insistent but I've somewhat lost that interest over the years. To try to revert this I'm starting this new "math" category on my blog.