Mwim.el

[[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt][file:https://img.shields.io/badge/license-GPL_3-orange.svg]] [[https://melpa.org/#/mwim][file:https://melpa.org/packages/mwim-badge.svg]] [[https://stable.melpa.org/#/mwim][file:https://stable.melpa.org/packages/mwim-badge.svg]]

• About

This Emacs package provides several commands to switch between various line positions, like moving to the beginning/end of code, line or comment. It is inspired by [[https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BackToIndentationOrBeginning][this EmacsWiki page]] (some code from this page is used). =mwim= stands for =Move Where I Mean=.

[[file:demo.gif]]

** Quick start

If you don't have a wish to read all the text written below, just try the following key bindings and see what happens:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (global-set-key (kbd "C-a") 'mwim-beginning) (global-set-key (kbd "C-e") 'mwim-end) #+END_SRC

• Installation

** Automatic

This package can be installed from [[https://melpa.org/][MELPA]] (with =M-x package-install= or =M-x list-packages=).

** Manual

For the manual installation, clone the repo, add the directory to =load-path= and add autoloads for the commands you need:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/mwim-dir") (autoload 'mwim "mwim" nil t) (autoload 'mwim-beginning "mwim" nil t) (autoload 'mwim-end "mwim" nil t) (autoload 'mwim-beginning-of-code-or-line "mwim" nil t) (autoload 'mwim-beginning-of-line-or-code "mwim" nil t) (autoload 'mwim-beginning-of-code-or-line-or-comment "mwim" nil t) (autoload 'mwim-end-of-code-or-line "mwim" nil t) (autoload 'mwim-end-of-line-or-code "mwim" nil t) #+END_SRC

• Usage

** Simple commands

As you can see in the gif demonstration:

• =M-x mwim-beginning-of-code-or-line= moves the point between a first non-space character and a first character of the line.

• =M-x mwim-end-of-code-or-line= moves the point between the end of code (not counting a trailing comment) and the end of the line.

=M-x mwim-beginning-of-line-or-code= and =M-x mwim-end-of-line-or-code= do the same but in a reverse order.

Also there is =M-x mwim-beginning-of-code-or-line-or-comment= command that switches the point between these 3 positions.

You may bind some keys to some of those commands in a usual manner, for example:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (global-set-key (kbd "C-a") 'mwim-beginning-of-code-or-line) (global-set-key (kbd "C-e") 'mwim-end-of-code-or-line) (global-set-key (kbd "<home>") 'mwim-beginning-of-line-or-code) (global-set-key (kbd "<end>") 'mwim-end-of-line-or-code) #+END_SRC

Note that =shift-selection= is supported by all MWIM commands, which means if you press =Shift= with the bound keys (for example, =<S-home>=), the region of text will be selected (see [[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Shift-Selection.html#Shift-Selection][Emacs manual]] for details).

** Move where you really want

Along with the described simple commands, there are more general commands that allow you to switch between any positions you want:

• =M-x mwim-beginning=
• =M-x mwim-end=
• =M-x mwim=

You can configure switching positions for these commands with =mwim-beginning-position-functions=, =mwim-end-position-functions= and =mwim-position-functions= variables.

The position functions from these variables are called without arguments and they should return a new point position. For example, after:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (setq mwim-beginning-position-functions (list (lambda () (+ 2 (line-beginning-position))) 'mwim-code-beginning)) #+END_SRC

=M-x mwim-beginning= will switch between the third character (the second counting from 0) on the current line and the code beginning position.

You can also make mode-specific positions by making these variables local. Let's say, for =emacs-lisp-mode=, you want a usual switch between the code end and line end when you call =M-x mwim-end=; but if there is a comment on the current line, you want to move to the beginning of this comment instead of the code end position. You can do it like this:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (defun my/comment-beginning-or-code-end () (or (mwim-line-comment-beginning) (mwim-code-end)))

(defun my/setup-elisp-mwim-positions () (setq-local mwim-end-position-functions '(my/comment-beginning-or-code-end mwim-line-end)))

(add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook 'my/setup-elisp-mwim-positions) #+END_SRC

So, if you want to use these commands instead of the Emacs defaults, you can bind them like this:

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (global-set-key (kbd "<C-tab>") #'mwim) (global-set-key [remap move-beginning-of-line] #'mwim-beginning) (global-set-key [remap move-end-of-line] #'mwim-end) #+END_SRC

** Define your own commands

Finally, you can define your own commands using =mwim-move-to-next-position= macro. See the code of =mwim=, =mwim-beginning= or =mwim-end= commands for examples.

• Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Adam Porter, who wrote [[https://github.com/alphapapa/mosey.el][mosey.el]] package, which provides similar facilities as =mwim.el=. Several ideas were taken from it.