Smex is a M-x enhancement for Emacs. Built on top of Ido, it provides a convenient interface to your recently and most frequently used commands. And to all the other commands, too.
-
Get Smex
- Via ELPA.
- Or manually download Smex and set-up your load path. (Find out more.)
-
To auto-start Smex every time you open Emacs add these lines to your .emacs file: (require 'smex) (smex-initialize) Bind some keys: (global-set-key (kbd "M-x") 'smex) (global-set-key (kbd "M-X") 'smex-major-mode-commands) ;; This is your old M-x. (global-set-key (kbd "C-c C-c M-x") 'execute-extended-command)
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Run Smex. (Type M-x, if that's your key binding).
The commands are displayed in an Ido completion buffer, ordered by relevance. The 7 most recently executed commands come first, the rest are sorted by frequency of use, command length and in alphabetical order.
Ido completion in 10 seconds: Typing selects matching commands:
e.g. 'lnmd' matches 'line-number-mode'. C-s
/C-r
switches to the
next/previous match. Enter executes the selected command.
smex-major-mode-commands
runs Smex, limited to commands that
are relevant to the active major mode. Try it with Dired or Magit.
C-h f
, while Smex is active, runs describe-function
on the
currently selected command.
M-.
jumps to the definition of the selected command.
Before accepting user input, Smex checks for new command definitions
and updates its caches accordingly.
You can disable auto-updating and gain some slight speed improvements
on older systems by setting smex-auto-update
to nil.
To manually update Smex, call it a second time while it is already running.
Additionally, you can teach Smex to auto-update after Emacs has
been idle for 60 seconds: Call (smex-auto-update)
; provide an integer
argument for a custom time period in seconds.
smex-show-unbound-commands
shows frequently used commands that have
no key bindings.
Smex keeps a file to save its state betweens Emacs sessions. The
default path is "~/.smex-items"; you can change it by setting the
variable smex-save-file
.
Set smex-history-length
to change the number of recent commands that
Smex keeps track of.
Set smex-prompt-string
for a custom prompt.
Smex is my first venture into Elisp. I'd be glad to receive patches, comments and your considered criticism.
Have fun with Smex!