jorisl / select-text-objects

Emacs Lisp package providing functions to quickly select pieces of text (similar to vi's text objects)

select-text-objects.el

select-text-objects.el is a small Emacs package which provides various functions to quickly select pieces of text near the point/cursor.

These functions can be used to quickly select:

• the current line
• everything within a matching pair of brackets
• every consequtive line with at least the current indentation level
• everything within, and including, matching quotation marks
• etc.

This package can be used for a text-editing workflow where you first select text using on of the included functions and then perform an action using that block of text. This is in some sense similar to VI, where these 2 actions are taken in reverse order (e.g. in VI you first “select” the action to be performed, such as copy/paste/delete/etc., and then select the region of text to apply the action to).

Actions can be taken using the standard build-in Emacs functions, but several functions also have been provided to make use of the workflow provided by this package. An example is the function sto/add-line-below-selection-or-point, which adds a line below the current cursor position (similar to VI’s o command) or below the current selection. This can then be used to quickly perform actions such as “adding a line at the end of the current function” (e.g. sto/select-function → sto/add-line-below-selection-or-point).

It is recommended to map these functions to key combinations. My preference is to place them all under the C-v prefix:

(global-unset-key "\C-v")
(defvar ctl-v-map (make-keymap)
  "Keymap for local bindings and functions, prefixed by (^V)")
(define-key global-map "\C-v" 'Control-V-prefix)
(fset 'Control-V-prefix ctl-v-map)

(define-key ctl-v-map "w" 'sto/select-word)
(define-key ctl-v-map "W" 'sto/select-within-whitespace)
(define-key ctl-v-map "l" 'sto/select-line)
(define-key ctl-v-map "L" 'sto/select-inc-newline)
(define-key ctl-v-map "s" 'sto/select-sentence)
(define-key ctl-v-map "p" 'sto/select-paragraph)
(define-key ctl-v-map "b" 'sto/select-buffer)
(define-key ctl-v-map "f" 'sto/select-defun)
(define-key ctl-v-map "i" 'sto/select-indent)
(define-key ctl-v-map "a" 'sto/select-argument)
(define-key ctl-v-map "(" 'sto/select-inner-paren)
(define-key ctl-v-map ")" 'sto/select-outer-paren)
(define-key ctl-v-map "[" 'sto/select-inner-bracket)
(define-key ctl-v-map "]" 'sto/select-outer-bracket)
(define-key ctl-v-map "{" 'sto/select-outer-brace)
(define-key ctl-v-map "}" 'sto/select-inner-brace)
(define-key ctl-v-map "<" 'sto/select-inner-angle-bracket)
(define-key ctl-v-map ">" 'sto/select-outer-angle-bracket)
(define-key ctl-v-map "'" 'sto/select-inner-string)
(define-key ctl-v-map "\"" 'sto/select-outer-string)

(define-key ctl-v-map (kbd "<left>") 'sto/move-cursor-selection-front)
(define-key ctl-v-map (kbd "<right>") 'sto/move-cursor-selection-back)

(define-key global-map "\C-o" 'sto/add-line-below-selection-or-point)
(define-key global-map "\C-\M-o" 'sto/add-line-above-selection-or-point)