Dired like functionality on a custom text file

Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Jesse]

I have a situation where I have a lot of common files i need to edit
but they are all in various directories spread across my hard drive.
I was trying to come up with a way where I could make a text file that
has all the paths to the files I commonly need and somehow open that
file into a dired like mode.  Is there anyway I can do this, or even
alternatively possibly easily pass the current line my cursor is on in
that file to the mini buffer when I put in the visit command?

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[harven]

On May 19, 8:38 pm, Jesse <jesse.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a situation where I have a lot of common files i need to edit
> but they are all in various directories spread across my hard drive.
> I was trying to come up with a way where I could make a text file that
> has all the paths to the files I commonly need and somehow open that
> file into a dired like mode.  Is there anyway I can do this, or even
> alternatively possibly easily pass the current line my cursor is on in
> that file to the mini buffer when I put in the visit command?

M-x find-name-dired prompts for the name of a directory
and a filename wildcard, and fetch in a Dired buffer all
files in the subdirectories matching the wildcard.

M-x find-grep-dired fetches files which contain strings matching a
regular expression, recursively starting from
a given directory.

Finally, dired-x is an extension to dired which provides a feature
called "Virtual Dired". This feature puts a buffer with Dired-like
contents in Dired mode. Have a look at the dired-x manual (C-h i m
dired-x), which comes with a basic emacs install. You need first to
enable dired-x with something like
 (add-hook 'dired-load-hook  (lambda ()
                 (load "dired-x")))

RE: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Drew Adams]

> > I have a situation where I have a lot of common files i need to edit
> > but they are all in various directories spread across my hard drive.
> > I was trying to come up with a way where I could make a 
> > text file that has all the paths to the files I commonly need and
> > somehow open that file into a dired like mode.  Is there anyway I
> > can do this, or even alternatively possibly easily pass the current
> > line my cursor is on in that file to the mini buffer when I put in
> > the visit command?
> 
> M-x find-name-dired prompts for the name of a directory
> and a filename wildcard, and fetch in a Dired buffer all
> files in the subdirectories matching the wildcard.
> 
> M-x find-grep-dired fetches files which contain strings matching a
> regular expression, recursively starting from a given directory.
> 
> Finally, dired-x is an extension to dired which provides a feature
> called "Virtual Dired". This feature puts a buffer with Dired-like
> contents in Dired mode. Have a look at the dired-x manual (C-h i m
> dired-x), which comes with a basic emacs install. You need first to
> enable dired-x with something like
>  (add-hook 'dired-load-hook  (lambda ()
>                  (load "dired-x")))

Here's another approach you might want to consider: 

1. Choose the files and subdirectories you want to access together. This is a
one-time operation, but you can modify the list later if you want.

2. Use that set of files and directories as completion candidates for file
operations.

You can do this with Icicles. See, for instance:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/Icicles_-_Support_for_Projects

There are links on that page for how to use such a defined set of files to do
various things, such as find and replace.

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[David Kastrup]

Jesse <jesse.brown@gmail.com> writes:

> I have a situation where I have a lot of common files i need to edit
> but they are all in various directories spread across my hard drive.
> I was trying to come up with a way where I could make a text file that
> has all the paths to the files I commonly need and somehow open that
> file into a dired like mode.

Well, you could do

M-! xargs -a your-text-file ls -ld

and then do

M-: (dired-mode) RET

on the resulting Shell output window.

Untested.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Dmitri Minaev]

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 11:38 PM, Jesse <jesse.brown@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there anyway I can do this, or even
> alternatively possibly easily pass the current line my cursor is on in
> that file to the mini buffer when I put in the visit command?

You could use the hyperlinks in Org-mode or Muse:

[[file:/path/to/directory][my first directory]] -- for Org;
[[/path/to/directory][my first directory]] -- for Muse.

Clicking on the link will open dired on the directory. Of course, you
can also add links to files.

-- 
With best regards,
Dmitri Minaev

Russian history blog: http://minaev.blogspot.com

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Chris McMahan]

Look at the function `dired-virtual` -- part of the virtual-dired mode
in dired-x.

The short version is you use dired to view a directory you're
interested in, then save that dired buffer to a file. You can then add
other dired listings to this file to build the collection you're
interested in. When you open the file the next time, use M-x
dired-virtual to put it in dired mode.

- Chris

Jesse <jesse.brown@gmail.com> writes:

> I have a situation where I have a lot of common files i need to edit
> but they are all in various directories spread across my hard drive.
> I was trying to come up with a way where I could make a text file that
> has all the paths to the files I commonly need and somehow open that
> file into a dired like mode.  Is there anyway I can do this, or even
> alternatively possibly easily pass the current line my cursor is on in
> that file to the mini buffer when I put in the visit command?

-- 
     (.   .)
  =ooO=(_)=Ooo=====================================
  Chris McMahan | first_initiallastname@one.dot.net
  =================================================

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Bernardo Bacic]

it was a dark and stormy night when Jesse said, On 05/20/2008 04:38 AM:
> I have a situation where I have a lot of common files i need to edit
> but they are all in various directories spread across my hard drive.
> I was trying to come up with a way where I could make a text file that
> has all the paths to the files I commonly need and somehow open that
> file into a dired like mode.  


 > Is there anyway I can do this, or even
> alternatively possibly easily pass the current line my cursor is on in
> that file to the mini buffer when I put in the visit command?

could it be that find-file-at-point (M-x ffap) is what you are looking for here?

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[reader]

Bernardo Bacic <bernardo.bacic@pobox.com> writes:

> it was a dark and stormy night when Jesse said, On 05/20/2008 04:38 AM:
>> I have a situation where I have a lot of common files i need to edit
>> but they are all in various directories spread across my hard drive.
>> I was trying to come up with a way where I could make a text file that
>> has all the paths to the files I commonly need and somehow open that
>> file into a dired like mode.  

[...]

If I might butt in here a moment:

Bernardo writes:
> could it be that find-file-at-point (M-x ffap) is what you are looking for here?

I don't see much of anything happen using that...

First compile a list of files

find dir -type f >dir/file

Now load file into emacs.

With cursor on this line:
dir/new.txt

Pressing M-x ffap shows
Find file or URL: ~/dir/

And that's it.  Completion doesn't go anywhere either.

I thought this was supposed to load the file name.

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Bernardo Bacic]

>> could it be that find-file-at-point (M-x ffap) is what you are looking for here?
> 
> I don't see much of anything happen using that...
> 
> First compile a list of files
> 
> find dir -type f >dir/file
> 
> Now load file into emacs.
> 
> With cursor on this line:
> dir/new.txt
> 
> Pressing M-x ffap shows
> Find file or URL: ~/dir/
> 
> And that's it.  Completion doesn't go anywhere either.
> 
> I thought this was supposed to load the file name.
i'm only guessing - it could be due to relative path names;
try changing your command to:
    find `pwd`/dir -type f >dir/file

or just manually edit entries in your 'dir/file' and see if that makes any 
difference

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[reader]

Bernardo Bacic <bernardo.bacic@pobox.com> writes:

>>> could it be that find-file-at-point (M-x ffap) is what you are looking for here?
>>
>> I don't see much of anything happen using that...
>>
>> First compile a list of files
>>
>> find dir -type f >dir/file
>>
>> Now load file into emacs.
>>
>> With cursor on this line:
>> dir/new.txt
>>
>> Pressing M-x ffap shows
>> Find file or URL: ~/dir/
>>
>> And that's it.  Completion doesn't go anywhere either.
>>
>> I thought this was supposed to load the file name.
> i'm only guessing - it could be due to relative path names;
> try changing your command to:
>    find `pwd`/dir -type f >dir/file
>
> or just manually edit entries in your 'dir/file' and see if that makes
> any difference

Yup, that was it .. thanks

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Alan]

I have found globalff.el a tremendous help to quickly find files
scattered all over tarnations.  I have to have locate or slocate up to
date, and I had to make sure that the directories I am interested in---
in deep and dark regions of my machine --- are searched and indexed by
updatedb.  It is possible to save the link and open it elsewhere, or
open the files right away.

That being said, I think the virtual dired option will be interesting
for me.  I use a kind of a depot file for org-mode to keep a list of
links to important directories and files all over the place.  What is
lacking is the ability to grep-find...   I use long filenames, though.

Alan

RE: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Drew Adams]

> I have found globalff.el a tremendous help to quickly find files
> scattered all over tarnations.  I have to have locate or slocate up to
> date, and I had to make sure that the directories I am interested in---
> in deep and dark regions of my machine --- are searched and indexed by
> updatedb.  It is possible to save the link and open it elsewhere, or
> open the files right away.
> 
> That being said, I think the virtual dired option will be interesting
> for me.  I use a kind of a depot file for org-mode to keep a list of
> links to important directories and files all over the place.  What is
> lacking is the ability to grep-find...   I use long filenames, though.

For globalff and alternatives:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/LocateFilesAnywhere

RE: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Drew Adams]

> easily pass the current line my cursor is on in
> that file to the mini buffer when I put in the visit command?

See ffap.el for that. See node FFAP in the Emacs manual for an explanation.

RE: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Drew Adams]

> > easily pass the current line my cursor is on in
> > that file to the mini buffer when I put in the visit command?
> 
> See ffap.el for that. See node FFAP in the Emacs manual for 
> an explanation.

I should also have suggested this:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/FindFileAtPoint

Re: Dired like functionality on a custom text file

[Ilya Zakharevich]

[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to
Jesse 
<jesse.brown@gmail.com>], who wrote in article <683a41e6-1009-4c2e-9354-b748c6f7ad95@t12g2000prg.googlegroups.com>:
> I have a situation where I have a lot of common files i need to edit
> but they are all in various directories spread across my hard drive.
> I was trying to come up with a way where I could make a text file that
> has all the paths to the files I commonly need and somehow open that
> file into a dired like mode.  Is there anyway I can do this, or even
> alternatively possibly easily pass the current line my cursor is on in
> that file to the mini buffer when I put in the visit command?

I'm puzzled why you do not consider a solution like

  emacs `cat list-of-files`

Maybe the files have spaces in their names?  Or is the total size
larger than what Emacs may handle?

Yours,
Ilya