Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Weiwei]

Hi guys,

I'm a Emacs newbie, just jumped into it from Vim. I'm using AUCTeX to
write LaTeX files. In Vim, it has a very nice feature -- placeholder.
For example, you have the following skeleton in inserting figures:

\begin{figure}[H]
  \centering
  \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
  \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
  \caption{}
  \label{fig:}
\end{figure}

Now your cursor is in the third line between the first square brackets
[], after you type something, you want to jump to the brackets at the
end of the same line {}, and so forth. Vim LaTeX suite has this
function with a single key-stroke. In AUCTeX, I didn't find such one,
or maybe I missed it. Could anybody kindly point it to me if it
exists?

Now lets look at this feature a little bit further. Can we have (Or do
we already have) a universal place-holder in Emacs? For example, we
have a block of text/program as this:

foofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
foo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoo
foofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo

The <> indicates a place-holder in which you want to jump quickly. The
function I proposed is to find next <>, and then delete the left "<"
and right ">", and leave cursor there.

I'm not sure if any similar functions are already there. I think it
should be easy with regular expressions. Simply I'm not a regexp guy.
What do you guys think? And anybody want to have a try? Thanks!


Weiwei

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Weiwei wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm a Emacs newbie, just jumped into it from Vim. I'm using AUCTeX to
> write LaTeX files. In Vim, it has a very nice feature -- placeholder.
> For example, you have the following skeleton in inserting figures:
> 
> \begin{figure}[H]
>   \centering
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \caption{}
>   \label{fig:}
> \end{figure}
> 
> Now your cursor is in the third line between the first square brackets
> [], after you type something, you want to jump to the brackets at the
> end of the same line {}, and so forth. Vim LaTeX suite has this
> function with a single key-stroke. In AUCTeX, I didn't find such one,
> or maybe I missed it. Could anybody kindly point it to me if it
> exists?
> 
> Now lets look at this feature a little bit further. Can we have (Or do
> we already have) a universal place-holder in Emacs? For example, we
> have a block of text/program as this:
> 
> foofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
> foo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoo
> foofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
> 
> The <> indicates a place-holder in which you want to jump quickly. The
> function I proposed is to find next <>, and then delete the left "<"
> and right ">", and leave cursor there.
> 
> I'm not sure if any similar functions are already there. I think it
> should be easy with regular expressions. Simply I'm not a regexp guy.
> What do you guys think? And anybody want to have a try? Thanks!

Hi Weiwei

Maybe this page is will help

  http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/CategoryTemplates

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[harven]

Weiwei <shuww1980@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm a Emacs newbie, just jumped into it from Vim. I'm using AUCTeX to
> write LaTeX files. In Vim, it has a very nice feature -- placeholder.
> For example, you have the following skeleton in inserting figures:

My first guess was doing a macro.
F3 C-M-s \[\]\|{} RET C-b F4
Unfortunatly it fails on your first example at some point
for some strange reason. So here is the lisp code to put in your .emacs:

(defun jump-next-bracket-pair ()
"jump inside the next [] or {}"
 (interactive)
 (when (re-search-forward "\\[\\]\\|{}" nil t)
 (backward-char)))

(add-hook 'TeX-mode-hook (lambda ()
   (define-key TeX-mode-map (kbd "<f4>") 'jump-next-bracket-pair))

This binds the command to the F4 key in tex editing modes only.
Cheers.

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Weiwei]

This small code does exactly what I wanted. Thanks Harven!!!

On Sep 27, 11:01 am, harven <har...@free.fr> wrote:
> Weiwei <shuww1...@gmail.com> writes:
> > I'm a Emacs newbie, just jumped into it from Vim. I'm using AUCTeX to
> > write LaTeX files. In Vim, it has a very nice feature -- placeholder.
> > For example, you have the following skeleton in inserting figures:
>
> My first guess was doing a macro.
> F3 C-M-s \[\]\|{} RET C-b F4
> Unfortunatly it fails on your first example at some point
> for some strange reason. So here is the lisp code to put in your .emacs:
>
> (defun jump-next-bracket-pair ()
> "jump inside the next [] or {}"
>  (interactive)
>  (when (re-search-forward "\\[\\]\\|{}" nil t)
>  (backward-char)))
>
> (add-hook 'TeX-mode-hook (lambda ()
>    (define-key TeX-mode-map (kbd "<f4>") 'jump-next-bracket-pair))
>
> This binds the command to the F4 key in tex editing modes only.
> Cheers.

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Andreas Politz]

Weiwei wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm a Emacs newbie, just jumped into it from Vim. I'm using AUCTeX to
> write LaTeX files. In Vim, it has a very nice feature -- placeholder.
> For example, you have the following skeleton in inserting figures:
> 
> \begin{figure}[H]
>   \centering
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \caption{}
>   \label{fig:}
> \end{figure}
> 
> Now your cursor is in the third line between the first square brackets
> [], after you type something, you want to jump to the brackets at the
> end of the same line {}, and so forth. Vim LaTeX suite has this
> function with a single key-stroke. In AUCTeX, I didn't find such one,
> or maybe I missed it. Could anybody kindly point it to me if it
> exists?
> 
> Now lets look at this feature a little bit further. Can we have (Or do
> we already have) a universal place-holder in Emacs? For example, we
> have a block of text/program as this:
> 
> foofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
> foo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoo
> foofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
> 
> The <> indicates a place-holder in which you want to jump quickly. The
> function I proposed is to find next <>, and then delete the left "<"
> and right ">", and leave cursor there.
> 
> I'm not sure if any similar functions are already there. I think it
> should be easy with regular expressions. Simply I'm not a regexp guy.
> What do you guys think? And anybody want to have a try? Thanks!
> 
> 
> Weiwei
> 
> 
> 

There are better ways in emacs to do this, instead of inserting literal text.
For example using text properties to mark regions of interest (`jumpspots').
I am not familiar with the various abbrev/template packages, but I could imagine
that at least some of them are taking advantage of this.

-ap

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Tim X]

Weiwei <shuww1980@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi guys,
>
> I'm a Emacs newbie, just jumped into it from Vim. I'm using AUCTeX to
> write LaTeX files. In Vim, it has a very nice feature -- placeholder.
> For example, you have the following skeleton in inserting figures:
>
> \begin{figure}[H]
>   \centering
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \caption{}
>   \label{fig:}
> \end{figure}
>
> Now your cursor is in the third line between the first square brackets
> [], after you type something, you want to jump to the brackets at the
> end of the same line {}, and so forth. Vim LaTeX suite has this
> function with a single key-stroke. In AUCTeX, I didn't find such one,
> or maybe I missed it. Could anybody kindly point it to me if it
> exists?
>
> Now lets look at this feature a little bit further. Can we have (Or do
> we already have) a universal place-holder in Emacs? For example, we
> have a block of text/program as this:
>
> foofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
> foo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoo
> foofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
>
> The <> indicates a place-holder in which you want to jump quickly. The
> function I proposed is to find next <>, and then delete the left "<"
> and right ">", and leave cursor there.
>
> I'm not sure if any similar functions are already there. I think it
> should be easy with regular expressions. Simply I'm not a regexp guy.
> What do you guys think? And anybody want to have a try? Thanks!
>
If I understand you correctly, I think everything you need is therre, it
just needs to be configured for your particular needs. Emacs has two
standard template systems, tempo and skeleton mode. There are also a
number of other template modes, varying in features and flexibility,
that you can use that are not standard parts of emacs. 

You can create very powerful 'electric' behavior by combining these
template modes with abbrevs. For example, some of the programming modes
use this technique for common constructs, such as an if statement. When
you type if and hit space, an abbrev executes that has a template
definition that fills in the rest of the construct and leave the cursor
in a 'useful' place, often wehre you need to enter the test. 

For my own work, I have various templates to setup the latex preamble
that prompt me for the document title. It then inserts or the
documentclass, title, date, author etc puts in the start/end document
pair and leaves my cursor between them. I have some other templates for
common latex constructs that I use that are not already built into
auctex. 

The other emacs feature which can be useful is macros. You can define a
macro and associate it with a key. then, hitting that binding will
execute the macro, which can in turn execute various emacs commands. 

I would suggest that making such templates part of auctex probably won't
have much value. There is too much variation in the way people like to
write their documents and as latex has a wealth of packages to do almost
everything, the combination of options is probably too great to do much
more than it already has. I find the default auctex commands for
inserting sections, various standard/common envrionments, font
attributes etc meet 99% of what I need. the templates are probably best
left for individuals to derive for themselves based on their own
requirements. 

HTH

Tim



-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Weiwei]

Thanks Tim. The problem I try to state is how to quickly jump to
places which is already there. I never used tempo, but have a little
bit of experience with skeleton. I defined a skeleton which helps me
to insert the following environment by typing "isub" followed by
space:

\begin{figure}[H]
  \centering
  \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
  \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
  \caption{}
  \label{fig:}
\end{figure}

Now the cursor is in between the first "[]". After I type something, I
want to jump to "{}" in the same line to fill the eps filename. Can
skeleton or tempo do this job? I have used a third-party template mode
before (not tempo though), and it let me fill staff such as date,
author, etc. in the minibuffer, which I feel not that convenient.
Correct me if skeleton or tempo is able to do the job and I will give
them a try. Thanks!

Weiwei



On Sep 27, 6:52 pm, Tim X <t...@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
> Weiwei <shuww1...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Hi guys,
>
> > I'm a Emacs newbie, just jumped into it from Vim. I'm using AUCTeX to
> > write LaTeX files. In Vim, it has a very nice feature -- placeholder.
> > For example, you have the following skeleton in inserting figures:
>
> > \begin{figure}[H]
> >   \centering
> >   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
> >   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
> >   \caption{}
> >   \label{fig:}
> > \end{figure}
>
> > Now your cursor is in the third line between the first square brackets
> > [], after you type something, you want to jump to the brackets at the
> > end of the same line {}, and so forth. Vim LaTeX suite has this
> > function with a single key-stroke. In AUCTeX, I didn't find such one,
> > or maybe I missed it. Could anybody kindly point it to me if it
> > exists?
>
> > Now lets look at this feature a little bit further. Can we have (Or do
> > we already have) a universal place-holder in Emacs? For example, we
> > have a block of text/program as this:
>
> > foofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
> > foo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoo
> > foofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
>
> > The <> indicates a place-holder in which you want to jump quickly. The
> > function I proposed is to find next <>, and then delete the left "<"
> > and right ">", and leave cursor there.
>
> > I'm not sure if any similar functions are already there. I think it
> > should be easy with regular expressions. Simply I'm not a regexp guy.
> > What do you guys think? And anybody want to have a try? Thanks!
>
> If I understand you correctly, I think everything you need is therre, it
> just needs to be configured for your particular needs. Emacs has two
> standard template systems, tempo and skeleton mode. There are also a
> number of other template modes, varying in features and flexibility,
> that you can use that are not standard parts of emacs.
>
> You can create very powerful 'electric' behavior by combining these
> template modes with abbrevs. For example, some of the programming modes
> use this technique for common constructs, such as an if statement. When
> you type if and hit space, an abbrev executes that has a template
> definition that fills in the rest of the construct and leave the cursor
> in a 'useful' place, often wehre you need to enter the test.
>
> For my own work, I have various templates to setup the latex preamble
> that prompt me for the document title. It then inserts or the
> documentclass, title, date, author etc puts in the start/end document
> pair and leaves my cursor between them. I have some other templates for
> common latex constructs that I use that are not already built into
> auctex.
>
> The other emacs feature which can be useful is macros. You can define a
> macro and associate it with a key. then, hitting that binding will
> execute the macro, which can in turn execute various emacs commands.
>
> I would suggest that making such templates part of auctex probably won't
> have much value. There is too much variation in the way people like to
> write their documents and as latex has a wealth of packages to do almost
> everything, the combination of options is probably too great to do much
> more than it already has. I find the default auctex commands for
> inserting sections, various standard/common envrionments, font
> attributes etc meet 99% of what I need. the templates are probably best
> left for individuals to derive for themselves based on their own
> requirements.
>
> HTH
>
> Tim
>
> --
> tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Tim X]

Weiwei <shuww1980@gmail.com> writes:

> Thanks Tim. The problem I try to state is how to quickly jump to
> places which is already there. I never used tempo, but have a little
> bit of experience with skeleton. I defined a skeleton which helps me
> to insert the following environment by typing "isub" followed by
> space:
>
> \begin{figure}[H]
>   \centering
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \caption{}
>   \label{fig:}
> \end{figure}
>
> Now the cursor is in between the first "[]". After I type something, I
> want to jump to "{}" in the same line to fill the eps filename. Can
> skeleton or tempo do this job? I have used a third-party template mode
> before (not tempo though), and it let me fill staff such as date,
> author, etc. in the minibuffer, which I feel not that convenient.
> Correct me if skeleton or tempo is able to do the job and I will give
> them a try. Thanks!
>
> Weiwei
>

OK, now I understand what your after a bit better. The standard way to
do this would be to have the template prompt you for the values in the
mini-buffer and then it would insert them in the appropriate
place. This is also how many of the pre-defined environment insertion
facilities of auctex work. However, from what you say, you don't like
this approach. 

Off the top of my head, I can't see how this could be done easily using
existing template facilities. However, both tempo and skeleton do
provide ways of incorporating elisp into the definition, so it should be
possible, but perhaps not trivial, especially if you wanted something
fairly generic rather than coded for specific examples. For example, how
can emacs know when you have filled in the first value and then
automatically move you to the next value. This is why using the
mini-buffer to get the values is so convenient. All the template needs
to know is where to insert the values. There is no need to try and find
a mechanism to tell emacs when you have finished putting in the first
value and then to jump to the next spot to let you fill in the next
value and so on. 

I personally don't have a problem with being prompted for values in the
mini-buffer. I find that as long as you have the template bound to a
convenient key or triggered by an abbrev, the use of the mini-buffer
doesn't interrupt my workflow or thoughts at all. In fact, as you can
also take advantage of completion and default values, it can be very
convenient and it certainly simplifies matters.

Sorry I couldn't provide more substantial help.

Tim


>

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Tempo has 2 functions : tempo-forward-mark and tempo-backward-mark.

I think it's what the original poster is looking for.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Martin Dahl]

Weiwei <shuww1980@gmail.com> writes:

> Thanks Tim. The problem I try to state is how to quickly jump to
> places which is already there. I never used tempo, but have a little
> bit of experience with skeleton. I defined a skeleton which helps me
> to insert the following environment by typing "isub" followed by
> space:
>
> \begin{figure}[H]
>   \centering
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
>   \caption{}
>   \label{fig:}
> \end{figure}
>
> Now the cursor is in between the first "[]". After I type something, I
> want to jump to "{}" in the same line to fill the eps filename. Can
> skeleton or tempo do this job? I have used a third-party template mode
> before (not tempo though), and it let me fill staff such as date,
> author, etc. in the minibuffer, which I feel not that convenient.
> Correct me if skeleton or tempo is able to do the job and I will give
> them a try. Thanks!
>
> Weiwei
>

I think yasnippet might be what you are looking for. It allows you to
jump beetween predefined points in inserted text with the tab key.

http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/

--
Martin Dahl

Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Weiwei]

Thank you all guys!! Feel very good seeing so many replies and useful
information. You guys are really helpful!!



On Sep 28, 6:41 am, Martin Dahl <martin.d...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Weiwei <shuww1...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Thanks Tim. The problem I try to state is how to quickly jump to
> > places which is already there. I never used tempo, but have a little
> > bit of experience with skeleton. I defined a skeleton which helps me
> > to insert the following environment by typing "isub" followed by
> > space:
>
> > \begin{figure}[H]
> >   \centering
> >   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
> >   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
> >   \caption{}
> >   \label{fig:}
> > \end{figure}
>
> > Now the cursor is in between the first "[]". After I type something, I
> > want to jump to "{}" in the same line to fill the eps filename. Can
> > skeleton or tempo do this job? I have used a third-party template mode
> > before (not tempo though), and it let me fill staff such as date,
> > author, etc. in the minibuffer, which I feel not that convenient.
> > Correct me if skeleton or tempo is able to do the job and I will give
> > them a try. Thanks!
>
> > Weiwei
>
> I think yasnippet might be what you are looking for. It allows you to
> jump beetween predefined points in inserted text with the tab key.
>
> http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/
>
> --
> Martin Dahl