Re: Don't you think this would be a nice feature? (Place holder)

[Weiwei]

Thanks Tim. The problem I try to state is how to quickly jump to
places which is already there. I never used tempo, but have a little
bit of experience with skeleton. I defined a skeleton which helps me
to insert the following environment by typing "isub" followed by
space:

\begin{figure}[H]
  \centering
  \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
  \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
  \caption{}
  \label{fig:}
\end{figure}

Now the cursor is in between the first "[]". After I type something, I
want to jump to "{}" in the same line to fill the eps filename. Can
skeleton or tempo do this job? I have used a third-party template mode
before (not tempo though), and it let me fill staff such as date,
author, etc. in the minibuffer, which I feel not that convenient.
Correct me if skeleton or tempo is able to do the job and I will give
them a try. Thanks!

Weiwei



On Sep 27, 6:52 pm, Tim X <t...@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
> Weiwei <shuww1...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Hi guys,
>
> > I'm a Emacs newbie, just jumped into it from Vim. I'm using AUCTeX to
> > write LaTeX files. In Vim, it has a very nice feature -- placeholder.
> > For example, you have the following skeleton in inserting figures:
>
> > \begin{figure}[H]
> >   \centering
> >   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
> >   \subfigure[]{\includegraphics[width=3.1in]{}}
> >   \caption{}
> >   \label{fig:}
> > \end{figure}
>
> > Now your cursor is in the third line between the first square brackets
> > [], after you type something, you want to jump to the brackets at the
> > end of the same line {}, and so forth. Vim LaTeX suite has this
> > function with a single key-stroke. In AUCTeX, I didn't find such one,
> > or maybe I missed it. Could anybody kindly point it to me if it
> > exists?
>
> > Now lets look at this feature a little bit further. Can we have (Or do
> > we already have) a universal place-holder in Emacs? For example, we
> > have a block of text/program as this:
>
> > foofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
> > foo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoo
> > foofoofoofoofoo<>foofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoofoo
>
> > The <> indicates a place-holder in which you want to jump quickly. The
> > function I proposed is to find next <>, and then delete the left "<"
> > and right ">", and leave cursor there.
>
> > I'm not sure if any similar functions are already there. I think it
> > should be easy with regular expressions. Simply I'm not a regexp guy.
> > What do you guys think? And anybody want to have a try? Thanks!
>
> If I understand you correctly, I think everything you need is therre, it
> just needs to be configured for your particular needs. Emacs has two
> standard template systems, tempo and skeleton mode. There are also a
> number of other template modes, varying in features and flexibility,
> that you can use that are not standard parts of emacs.
>
> You can create very powerful 'electric' behavior by combining these
> template modes with abbrevs. For example, some of the programming modes
> use this technique for common constructs, such as an if statement. When
> you type if and hit space, an abbrev executes that has a template
> definition that fills in the rest of the construct and leave the cursor
> in a 'useful' place, often wehre you need to enter the test.
>
> For my own work, I have various templates to setup the latex preamble
> that prompt me for the document title. It then inserts or the
> documentclass, title, date, author etc puts in the start/end document
> pair and leaves my cursor between them. I have some other templates for
> common latex constructs that I use that are not already built into
> auctex.
>
> The other emacs feature which can be useful is macros. You can define a
> macro and associate it with a key. then, hitting that binding will
> execute the macro, which can in turn execute various emacs commands.
>
> I would suggest that making such templates part of auctex probably won't
> have much value. There is too much variation in the way people like to
> write their documents and as latex has a wealth of packages to do almost
> everything, the combination of options is probably too great to do much
> more than it already has. I find the default auctex commands for
> inserting sections, various standard/common envrionments, font
> attributes etc meet 99% of what I need. the templates are probably best
> left for individuals to derive for themselves based on their own
> requirements.
>
> HTH
>
> Tim
>
> --
> tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au