transparent access to zsh shell functions and aliases; and, the Emacs/tty/X clipboard issue

transparent access to zsh shell functions and aliases; and, the Emacs/tty/X clipboard issue

[Emanuel Berg]

Been away from the game a long time. People say Emacs
changed - they want to know what I think about
it. Truth told, suffered from self-doubt. Had to prove
I still had it. If I succeeded? Y'know what they say:
in hacking, the *fans* are the judges. But seems to me,
since I left ain't too much changed.

1. Transparent access to zsh aliases and functions from
Emacs, having them at one place (or places, if you make
calls form ~/.zshenv) - point is, same place for zsh
and Emacs so no multiple definitions that may get out of
synch.

(defun emacs-or-shell-cmd (command-name)
  (interactive "s command: ")
  (if (commandp (intern command-name))
      (execute-extended-command current-prefix-arg command-name)
    (shell-command command-name 1) ))

;; in ~/.zshenv, put
;; say_hello () { echo hello }
;; alias shut='shutdown -h now -F'

(global-set-key (kbd "M-a") 'emacs-or-shell-cmd)

2. Emacs tty/X clipboard finally working - if you
remember this issue - the key was to use 'xsel', not
'xclip'. Contrary to 'xclip', you'll have to get 'xsel'
from the repos.

(defun insert-X-clipboard ()
  (interactive)
  (shell-command "xsel --display \":0\" -b -o" 1) ; 1 = output at point
  (goto-char (mark)) )

(defun set-X-clipboard ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((input (if mark-active
                   (buffer-substring-no-properties
                    (region-beginning)
                    (region-end))
               (string-make-unibyte
                (current-kill 0 t)) ))) ; most recent kill; don't pop
    (shell-command
     (format "echo -n '%s' | xsel --display \":0\" -b -i" input) )))

(defalias 'pst 'insert-X-clipboard)
(defalias 'cpy 'set-X-clipboard)

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: transparent access to zsh shell functions and aliases; and, the Emacs/tty/X clipboard issue

[Emanuel Berg]

Graeme Vetterlein <graeme.vetterlein@hds.com> writes:

> I think you need to escape the quotes (BTW, I don't
> know lisp, I guessed and it worked) if the text being
> cut has meta characters
>
>     (format "echo -n \'%s\' | Xsel --display \":0\" -b
> -i" input) )))
>
>
>   here ----> \'%s\'

Did you intend this as a private mail or for the
list/newsgroup? It doesn't contain anything sensitive
which is why I send this reply, and your fix (quoted),
to gnu.emacs.help.

I don't really remember the issue back then, so either
I dropped it or got it to work :) But thanks!

Here are the related files, which are probably better
as I have used them more:

http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/linux-shell.el
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/xsel.el

-- 
underground experts united

Re: transparent access to zsh shell functions and aliases; and, the Emacs/tty/X clipboard issue

[Emanuel Berg]

Graeme Vetterlein <graeme.vetterlein@hds.com> writes:

> Thanks for the *.el

I forgot, it also relies on the xo and xi in this file
for zsh:

http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/.zsh/x

And the "scroll/copy mode" part of this file, for tmux:

http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/.tmux.conf

> BTW... I assume you bind these to some keys? ... Which
> ones did you use?

In general you assume correctly as I always want
everything shortcutted. Tho I don't think M-x is bad
(at all), and certainly one thousand times better than
the mouse, I think shortcuts are superior and
especially for editing commands.

However, in this case - I did all that that several
years ago, when I had just discovered Emacs.

At that time I didn't know of Rmail or Gnus, and not of
Emacs-W3M (or any other browser for Emacs). I did know
of Usenet, but I thought it was dead. So I still relied
on X do to mail, browsing, and technology discussion...

But even then I wanted to do everything in Emacs (to
have a uniform, programmable interface). So I tried
various ways to bridge the gap between Emacs and the
X/GUI applications. This is part of that project.

In time, I discovered all the other in-Emacs solutions
and gradually moved over to them, so those clever
schemes lost their allure. But I still use them, but
now seldom and almost always from another tty (with
tmux/zsh) into Emacs.

So long story short (?) today I use them so seldom the
meta-exes of xsel.el, namely

(defalias 'pst  'insert-X-clipboard)
(defalias 'xo   'insert-X-clipboard)

(defalias 'xi   'set-X-clipboard)
(defalias 'cpy' 'set-X-clipboard)

are fast enough :)

-- 
underground experts united