Need to know how to goto-column

Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

I would like to use function goto-column but it is not there.

Somebody knows how can I move cursor to specific column?

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[tomas]

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On Thu, Dec 03, 2020 at 02:20:31PM +0300, Jean Louis wrote:
> I would like to use function goto-column but it is not there.
> 
> Somebody knows how can I move cursor to specific column?

  move-to-column

Cheers
 - t

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Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

* tomas@tuxteam.de <tomas@tuxteam.de> [2020-12-03 14:46]:
> On Thu, Dec 03, 2020 at 02:20:31PM +0300, Jean Louis wrote:
> > I would like to use function goto-column but it is not there.
> > 
> > Somebody knows how can I move cursor to specific column?
> 
>   move-to-column

That works, especiall with

(move-to-column column t) to go to column even if there are no spaces.

I am trying to construct ordered display of various items. Maybe I
should use skeleton for that. I have 2 columns and in first one
sometimes, sometimes not, appear various properties, in second one
sometimes, sometimes not appear various properties. But in any case I
want them aligned.

If anybody knows what is usually used in Emacs to align text, may let me know.

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Joost Kremers]

On Thu, Dec 03 2020, Jean Louis wrote:
> * tomas@tuxteam.de <tomas@tuxteam.de> [2020-12-03 14:46]:
>> On Thu, Dec 03, 2020 at 02:20:31PM +0300, Jean Louis wrote:
>> > I would like to use function goto-column but it is not there.
>> > 
>> > Somebody knows how can I move cursor to specific column?
>> 
>>   move-to-column
>
> That works, especiall with
>
> (move-to-column column t) to go to column even if there are no spaces.
>
> I am trying to construct ordered display of various items. Maybe I
> should use skeleton for that. I have 2 columns and in first one
> sometimes, sometimes not, appear various properties, in second one
> sometimes, sometimes not appear various properties. But in any case I
> want them aligned.
>
> If anybody knows what is usually used in Emacs to align text, may let me know.

There is `tabulated-list-mode`, which may be of use. There is also the function
`truncate-string-to-width`, in case `tabulated-list-mode` is too high-level for
your purpose.

-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments

tabulated-list-mode for dynamic knowledge repository - Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

* Joost Kremers <joostkremers@fastmail.fm> [2020-12-03 17:34]:
> > I am trying to construct ordered display of various items. Maybe I
> > should use skeleton for that. I have 2 columns and in first one
> > sometimes, sometimes not, appear various properties, in second one
> > sometimes, sometimes not appear various properties. But in any case I
> > want them aligned.
> >
> > If anybody knows what is usually used in Emacs to align text, may let me know.
> 
> There is `tabulated-list-mode`, which may be of use. There is also the function
> `truncate-string-to-width`, in case `tabulated-list-mode` is too high-level for
> your purpose.

That function truncate-string-to-width although it sounds destructive
is probably useful for this.

tabulated-list-mode I use since quite long time as that is where
Hyperscope software fits in. I am developing dynamic knowledge library
and tabulated-list-mode is used to browse the data tree. I spend more
time in tabulated-list-mode than many users as that is where I do the
things that people do with Org mode as I have transitioned from Org
mode to Hyperscope.

About Dynamic Knowledge Repositories (DKR)
https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/190/163/

The hyperlink as above, I am inserting with one key from
Hyperscope. It will tell you some foundation. It is backed by
PostgreSQL database. Currently I am using it for 19700+ indexed items
for conceptual or semantic access to any piece of information
including files. No more hierarchical browsing as file system is now
concept based.

In general it is similar to other software like:

GNOWSYS: A Kernel for Semantic Computing!
https://www.gnu.org/software/gnowsys

Memex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex

Hypothes.is Annotate the web, with anyone, anywhere.
https://web.hypothes.is/

Memacs
https://github.com/novoid/Memacs

SMOS - A Comprehensive Self-Management System
https://github.com/NorfairKing/smos

Project Xanadu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu

For me it would be best if tabulated-list-mode could expand under each
line into some pieces of text.

Emacs Hyperscope is like meta level Org mode editing. It provides
relational structure. When necessary it can be exported into Org
mode. That would be maybe good to print documents or otherwise give
small degraded presentation of the multi-object document.

Here is the checklist I am following for Hyperscope.

TECHNOLOGY TEMPLATE PROJECT OHS Framework 
https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/110/460/

Org mode can hardly catchup in implementation of the Technology
Template Project, it has single user features and lacks the structured
data. It has structured text but it is not near the structure of a
database.

Org mode was simple and now became complex software that was meant to
be remain simple and now wish to become database which is not
(yet). Users spend way much time handling simple things and getting
stuck while procrastination.

- DEADLINE... extend it... DEADLINE extend it... hahahhaah

- SCHEDULED... delete it... not any more scheduled

- to send task by email to assignee involves tedious copy and
  pasting. It should be one or two clicks, not more than that.

- users put TODO everywhere and of course they need agenda piece of
  software because in first place they make mess out of all tasks
  distributed randomly everywhere.

Jean

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Michael Heerdegen]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> If anybody knows what is usually used in Emacs to align text, may let
> me know.

Is this table with aligned text to be edited, or output, presented to
the user?

Michael.

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

* Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> [2020-12-04 01:28]:
> Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:
> 
> > If anybody knows what is usually used in Emacs to align text, may let
> > me know.
> 
> Is this table with aligned text to be edited, or output, presented to
> the user?

Only presented to user in window, saved as file, or sent by email.

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Michael Heerdegen]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> Only presented to user in window, saved as file, or sent by email.

AFAIK we don't have anything built-in that allows to print a table
conveniently.  I can offer some code I wrote for myself the last time I
needed something like this.

What I know Emacs does have is ses, the "Simple Emacs Spreadsheet", and
table support in Org-Mode.  But they probably help only if you also use
the same tools to save your data.

Regards,

Michael.

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

* Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> [2020-12-04 02:34]:
> Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:
> 
> > Only presented to user in window, saved as file, or sent by email.
> 
> AFAIK we don't have anything built-in that allows to print a table
> conveniently.  I can offer some code I wrote for myself the last time I
> needed something like this.
> 
> What I know Emacs does have is ses, the "Simple Emacs Spreadsheet", and
> table support in Org-Mode.  But they probably help only if you also use
> the same tools to save your data.

Yes, I have tried SES and I use Org tables. Alignment of text should
not be in tables, just something like

 FIELD                    FIELD HERE AND MORE
 FIELD AND MORE           FIELD AND MORE TOO
 MORE HERE                AND HERE ALSO MORE

And I would need to inject in those fields values whichever come
first. Like if there is no value A, then B, and so on. So it is better
that I construct list programmatically and then make it display.

+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
|Something here      |And more here       |And here more       |
|                    |                    |                    |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
|And osmething       |This works          |well                |
|                    |                    |                    |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
|And more            |more                |more                |
|                    |                    |                    |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+

This type of tables also exist under Tools / Table but I did not see
there is anything nice to make it programmatically. And I need not
have the lines, it could be empty as long as programmatically possible
without writing much code myself.

I will try to use something like:
https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AlignCommands#toc2

And this command:

(align BEG END &optional SEPARATE RULES EXCLUDE-RULES)

Jean

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Michael Heerdegen]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> (align BEG END &optional SEPARATE RULES EXCLUDE-RULES)

Yeah, this is not bad.

I chose to implement something that transforms a table given as a list
of lists to a string.  So that I can e.g. call

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(insert (my-print-table-to-string
          '((1 "xx") (20 "yyy"))
          `(,#'number-to-string ,#'identity) ; how cols are formatted
          '(left right)))                    ; col alignments
#+end_src

and I would get

 1   xx
 20 yyy

inserted.


Regards,

Michael.

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

* Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> [2020-12-04 04:34]:
> Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:
> 
> > (align BEG END &optional SEPARATE RULES EXCLUDE-RULES)
> 
> Yeah, this is not bad.
> 
> I chose to implement something that transforms a table given as a list
> of lists to a string.  So that I can e.g. call
> 
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
> (insert (my-print-table-to-string
>           '((1 "xx") (20 "yyy"))
>           `(,#'number-to-string ,#'identity) ; how cols are formatted
>           '(left right)))                    ; col alignments
> #+end_src
> 
> and I would get
> 
>  1   xx
>  20 yyy

Show me the `my-print-table-to-string' if you have it. That is same
approach just without converting numbes to strings.

Jean

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Michael Heerdegen]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> Show me the `my-print-table-to-string' if you have it.

Thrown together late at night and in a hurry, expect some nonsense
errors (and a useless docstring):

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(defun my-print-table-to-string (table &optional col-formatters alignments)
  "Print formatted TABLE, a matrix of strings, to a string and return it."
  (let* ((nb-cols (length (car table)))
         (fill (lambda (l) (let ((d (- nb-cols (length l))))
                             (if (< 0 d) (append l (make-list d nil)) l))))
         (col-formatters (funcall fill col-formatters))
         (alignments     (funcall fill alignments))
         (table (mapcar (lambda (line)
                          (cl-mapcar
                           (lambda (entry formatter)
                             (if formatter (funcall formatter entry) entry))
                           line col-formatters))
                        table))
         (max-col-lengths
          (mapcar
           (lambda (i)
             (apply #'max
                    (mapcar #'length (mapcar (apply-partially #'nth i)
                                             table))))
           (number-sequence 0 (1- nb-cols)))))
    (mapconcat (lambda (line)
                 (let ((i 0))
                   (mapconcat
                    #'identity
                    (cl-mapcar
                     (lambda (entry alignment)
                       (prog1 (let ((padding (- (nth i max-col-lengths)
                                                (length entry))))
                                (pcase alignment
                                  ('right (concat (make-string padding ?\ ) entry))
                                  ((and (or 'center 'centered)
                                        (let left (/ padding 2)))
                                   (concat (make-string left ?\ )
                                           entry
                                           (make-string (- padding left) ?\ )))
                                  (_ (concat entry (make-string padding ?\ )))))
                         (cl-incf i)))
                     line alignments)
                    " ")))
               table "\n")))
#+end_src

Regards,

Michael.

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

* Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> [2020-12-06 00:40]:
> Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:
> 
> > Show me the `my-print-table-to-string' if you have it.
> 
> Thrown together late at night and in a hurry, expect some nonsense
> errors (and a useless docstring):

(my-print-table-to-string '(("OK" "More")
			    ("One" "Two")) nil '(10 50))

I have expected that above will give some aligned columns. Maybe you
have example how to use it?

> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
> (defun my-print-table-to-string (table &optional col-formatters alignments)
>   "Print formatted TABLE, a matrix of strings, to a string and return it."

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Michael Heerdegen]

Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> (my-print-table-to-string '(("OK" "More")
> 			    ("One" "Two")) nil '(10 50))
>
> I have expected that above will give some aligned columns. Maybe you
> have example how to use it?

I made it so that the last argument is expected to be a list of symbols
left, right, centered (not numbers as you tried) - like in the example I
had given:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(my-print-table-to-string
  '((1 "xx") (20 "yyy"))
  `(,#'number-to-string ,#'identity) ; how cols are formatted
  '(left right))                    ; col alignments
#+end_src

Columns are always made as narrow as possible with the given strings.
One could use the COL-FORMATTERS argument to add padding to a certain
column (I guess I would use `format' for that).

Does that answer your question?  Would you prefer different semantics?


Regards,

Michael.

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

* Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> [2020-12-07 01:35]:
> Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:
> 
> > (my-print-table-to-string '(("OK" "More")
> > 			    ("One" "Two")) nil '(10 50))
> >
> > I have expected that above will give some aligned columns. Maybe you
> > have example how to use it?
> 
> I made it so that the last argument is expected to be a list of symbols
> left, right, centered (not numbers as you tried) - like in the example I
> had given:
> 
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp
(my-print-table-to-string
  '((1 "xx") (50 "yyy"))
  `(,#'number-to-string ,#'identity) ; how cols are formatted
  '(right right))                    ; col alignments
> #+end_src
> 
> Columns are always made as narrow as possible with the given strings.
> One could use the COL-FORMATTERS argument to add padding to a certain
> column (I guess I would use `format' for that).
> 
> Does that answer your question?  Would you prefer different
> semantics?

Thank you. When there is useful function in email there is custom
option in Mutt to quickly capture email message ID so that I may open
that email by from search at any time later.

This is what I was initially thinking of. You have included also
various options for format or call actions.

I have also discovered I could use tabulated-list-mode to print
columns in display buffer, let us say first 4-5 rows, and I can then
change the mode to something else.

(defun my-display ()
  (define-derived-mode my-mode tabulated-list-mode "Choice" "Choice Mode"
    (setq tabulated-list-padding 1)
    (setq tabulated-list-format  [("Title" 60 t) ("Button" 20 t)])
    (tabulated-list-init-header))
  (let* ((buffer "Choice")
	 (buffer (get-buffer-create buffer)))
    (switch-to-buffer-other-window buffer)
    (my-mode)
    (setq tabulated-list-entries '((1 ["Something" ("Button" action (lambda (b) (message "Hello")) font-lock-face link follow-link t)])))
    (tabulated-list-print t)))

(progn
  (my-display)
  (tabulated-list-mode)
  (read-only-mode 0)
  (goto-line 3)
  (markdown-mode)
  (insert "\n\n## New text\n")
  (insert "\nMore text\n"))

This is because I just need such meta information at header of
displayed file. But I may as well hide it or provide more meta
information that user may see with TAB.

Additionally there is the fancy enriched mode that allows for all
kinds of Emacs Lisp expressions which could be used to
programmatically display information. 

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2020 03:00:33 +0300
> From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> 
> > AFAIK we don't have anything built-in that allows to print a table
> > conveniently.  I can offer some code I wrote for myself the last time I
> > needed something like this.
> > 
> > What I know Emacs does have is ses, the "Simple Emacs Spreadsheet", and
> > table support in Org-Mode.  But they probably help only if you also use
> > the same tools to save your data.
> 
> Yes, I have tried SES and I use Org tables. Alignment of text should
> not be in tables, just something like
> 
>  FIELD                    FIELD HERE AND MORE
>  FIELD AND MORE           FIELD AND MORE TOO
>  MORE HERE                AND HERE ALSO MORE

Did you look at align.el?  (Sorry if someone already mentioned that
and I missed it.)

Re: Need to know how to goto-column

[Jean Louis]

* Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2020-12-04 11:17]:
> > Yes, I have tried SES and I use Org tables. Alignment of text should
> > not be in tables, just something like
> > 
> >  FIELD                    FIELD HERE AND MORE
> >  FIELD AND MORE           FIELD AND MORE TOO
> >  MORE HERE                AND HERE ALSO MORE
> 
> Did you look at align.el?  (Sorry if someone already mentioned that
> and I missed it.)

Thank you, I looked, it seem complex for now as I only wish to align
header parts of the displayed text and not body part of the
programmatically displayed text. Something like string based
positioning actually very similar to tabulated list mode.

I guess that key to positioning is `string-width' function

I am looking how to use this function:

(defun tabulated-list-print-col (n col-desc x)