mirror of https://github.com/rkd77/elinks.git
102 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
102 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
The tale of ex-mode
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-------------------
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Are you a vim-controls nerd who wants to see them everywhere? Welcome.
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Actually ELinks doesn't shine in this area yet very much. Heck, the famous
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hjkl foursome is still occupied by some feeble managers in the default keymap
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(we have that in our monumental TODO lists). Still, if you know what to touch
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during the compilation (`\--enable-exmode`), you can get at least some familiar
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reply to the mighty ``:'' (colon) grip.
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What it is
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~~~~~~~~~~
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Ex-mode gives you some (still very rough and only marginally complete) access
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to advanced ELinks commands, to be invoked anywhere anytime, straight and
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fast.
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When you activate the ex-mode (named after the equivalent gadget in the vi
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text editor flavours), a command line appears at the bottom of the screen for
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you to type the commands.
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Only two kinds of commands are supported so far. First, (almost?) anything
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that can appear in the configuration file can be used in ex-mode. Second, you
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can invoke (almost) any action from the ex-mode.
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Configuration directives in exmode
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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There aren't many of these, so we can skim through them fast.
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If you want to flip an option you know by name and refuse to engage with the
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option manager visuals, you can just drop in to the ex-mode and type 'set
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the.option = 1234'. See man elinks.conf (5) or the options manager for the
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list of options; you can also get a complete options tree saved to elinks.conf
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if you set 'config.saving_style' = 2 (but do *NOT* keep that setting unless
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you know what are you doing; if we change a default value of some option in
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future releases, we (generally) know what are we doing - this change won't
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propagate to you during an upgrade if you already have the original default
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value saved in your configuration file, though).
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It's the same story with keybindings. You can use 'bind "main" "h" =
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"move-cursor-left"'. It's not the same story with keybindings documentation.
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There is the elinkskeys (5) manual page but it's horribly obsolete, so don't
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rely on it. You can refer to the keybindings manager for names of actions and
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even their short descriptions. Also, all the 'bind' commands are saved to the
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configuration file if you set config.saving_style = 2 (but see above).
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You can also use 'include my.conf', which will read my.conf as an ELinks
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configuration file.
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Actually, ELinks would eat '#blahblah blah' too, if you see a point in feeding
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it that kind of stuff.
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Actions in exmode - or exmode in action?
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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There is too many of these, so we should better skim through them fast.
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Actually, we already talked about them. It's the last argument to the 'bind'
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command. So, they are those listed in the keybinding manager. So if you enter
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'move-cursor-left' command, it will move your cursor left - by a single
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character, making this a little awkward, but it's useful if you sometimes want
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to easily invoke an action and you don't want to waste a key for it.
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Actually, actions could theoretically take arguments too. This is currently
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implemented only for the 'goto-url' action, which can take the location it
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should go at as a parameter (otherwise it opens the standard well-known dialog
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as if you pressed 'g' in the default keymap).
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Regarding the mysterious "(almost)" hinted above, you can never invoke the
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"quit" action from the exmode - if you type it there, "really-quit" is invoked
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instead.
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How to use it
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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It's simple. You press ':' (without the apostrophes, of course) and type in
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the command, then you press enter. E.g., ':set config.saving_style = 3' (this
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is a good thing), ':quit' (and the game is over). The standard line-editing
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facility is present (cursor keys and so), and the ex-mode input line has own
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history.
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The "but"s
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~~~~~~~~~~
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The biggest usability hurdle so far is that there is no tab-completion. This
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is why the ex-mode support is not enabled by default and part of the reason
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why its practical usage is somewhat limited yet - if you don't remember
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exactly what do you want to invoke, tough beans. Someone shall address this
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issue in the future.
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Also, perhaps wider scale of commands should be implemented in ex-mode. The
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code is extremely flexible and it is very trivial to make another ex-mode
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command handler, it's just that no one has done it yet ;-). Also, more actions
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should be able to take arguments.
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