Re: Abbrev for shorthand purposes

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* uzibalqa via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> [2022-08-05 08:34]:
> Have been trying to use abbrev for shorthand purposes. I can go from text to shorthand but not the other way round, because
> of the punctuation. Is there something I can do? Use of abbrev-mode also fails in situations when different the same abbreviation
> could expand to more than one word.
> 
> ("wayward" "wa/") ("westward" "W/")
> ("adjustment" "ajs-") ("armament" "am-")
> ("basement" "bs-") ("casement" "ks-")
> ("enactment" "nak-") ("enjoyment" "njy-")
> ("enlargement" "nlj-") ("entertainment" "Ntn-") ("measurement" "mz/-") ("movement" "mv-")
> ("recommend" "rk-") ("require" "rqi") ("separate" "sp;")
> ("silk" "slk") ("struck" "Sk") ("subject" "sj")

Why don't you use Emacs built-in interactive functions to add abbrevs?

Purpose of abbrevs was not to use them programmatically, but to have
it handy to quickly add them while writing text.

Abbrevs are not really made to abbreviate common words. Come one. That
is way too complicated. They are rather for more complex statements,
let us say to expand rms into Richard M. Stallman.

There are other good packages for that purpose to expand common words
of English language.

How about {M-x dynamic-completion-mode RET}?

From completion.el:

;;     After you type a few characters, pressing the "complete" key inserts
;; the rest of the word you are likely to type.
;;
;; This watches all the words that you type and remembers them.  When
;; typing a new word, pressing "complete" (meta-return) "completes" the
;; word by inserting the most recently used word that begins with the
;; same characters.  If you press meta-return repeatedly, it cycles
;; through all the words it knows about.
;;
;;  If you like the completion then just continue typing, it is as if you
;; entered the text by hand.  If you want the inserted extra characters
;; to go away, type control-w or delete.  More options are described below.
;;
;;  The guesses are made in the order of the most recently "used".  Typing
;; in a word and then typing a separator character (such as a space) "uses"
;; the word.  So does moving a cursor over the word.  If no words are found,
;; it uses an extended version of the dabbrev style completion.
;;
;;   You automatically save the completions you use to a file between
;; sessions.
;;
;;   Completion enables programmers to enter longer, more descriptive
;; variable names while typing fewer keystrokes than they normally would.
;;
;;
;; Full documentation
;;---------------------
;;
;;   A "word" is any string containing characters with either word or symbol
;; syntax.  [E.G. Any alphanumeric string with hyphens, underscores, etc.]
;; Unless you change the constants, you must type at least three characters
;; for the word to be recognized.  Only words longer than 6 characters are
;; saved.
;;
;;   When you load this file, completion will be on.  I suggest you use the
;; compiled version (because it is noticeably faster).
;;
;;  M-x completion-mode toggles whether or not new words are added to the
;; database by changing the value of enable-completion.
;;
;;  SAVING/LOADING COMPLETIONS
;;   Completions are automatically saved from one session to another
;; (unless save-completions-flag or enable-completion is nil).
;; Activating this minor-mode (calling completion-initialize) loads
;; a completions database for a saved completions file
;; (default: ~/.completions).  When you exit, Emacs saves a copy of the
;; completions that you often use.  When you next start, Emacs loads in
;; the saved completion file.
;;
;;   The number of completions saved depends loosely on
;; *saved-completions-decay-factor*.  Completions that have never been
;; inserted via "complete" are not saved.  You are encouraged to experiment
;; with different functions (see compute-completion-min-num-uses).
;;
;;   Some completions are permanent and are always saved out.  These
;; completions have their num-uses slot set to T.  Use
;; add-permanent-completion to do this
;;
;;   Completions are saved only if enable-completion is T.  The number of old
;; versions kept of the saved completions file is controlled by
;; completions-file-versions-kept.
;;
;; COMPLETE KEY OPTIONS
;;   The complete function takes a numeric arguments.
;;  control-u :: leave the point at the beginning of the completion rather
;;               than the middle.
;;  a number  :: rotate through the possible completions by that amount
;;  `-'       :: same as -1 (insert previous completion)
;;
;; HOW THE DATABASE IS MAINTAINED
;;  <write>
;;
;; UPDATING THE DATABASE MANUALLY
;;   m-x kill-completion
;;     kills the completion at point.
;;   m-x add-completion
;;   m-x add-permanent-completion
;;
;; UPDATING THE DATABASE FROM A SOURCE CODE FILE
;;   m-x add-completions-from-buffer
;;     Parses all the definition names from a C or LISP mode buffer and
;;     adds them to the completion database.
;;
;;   m-x add-completions-from-lisp-file
;;     Parses all the definition names from a C or Lisp mode file and
;;     adds them to the completion database.
;;
;; UPDATING THE DATABASE FROM A TAGS TABLE
;;   m-x add-completions-from-tags-table
;;     Adds completions from the current tags-table-buffer.
;;
;; HOW A COMPLETION IS FOUND
;;  <write>
;;
;; STRING CASING
;;   Completion is string case independent if case-fold-search has its
;;  normal default of T.  Also when the completion is inserted the case of the
;;  entry is coerced appropriately.
;;  [E.G.  APP --> APPROPRIATELY     app --> appropriately
;;         App --> Appropriately]
;;
;; INITIALIZATION
;;  The form `(completion-initialize)' initializes the completion system by
;; trying to load in the user's completions.  After the first call, further
;; calls have no effect so one should be careful not to put the form in a
;; site's standard site-init file.




-- 
Jean

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