Re: dired_show_dot_files

[Piscium]

On Sun, 21 Aug 2022 at 19:40, Charlie Gordon <qemacs@chqrlie.org> wrote:

> >> You can toggle this variable by pressing ‘.’ in a dired buffer.
> >> The setting applies to all dired current and future buffers, yet it is not 
> >> saved (yet) when you exit qemacs.
> >
> > Thanks a lot. This is what I was looking for. It works.
>
> I just realized this binding is non standard, emacs does something else for 
> this key
> and there is no simple key to toggle between hiding and showing dot files

I also checked the emacs documentation and also could not find a
simple key. For me in this respect qemacs is better than emacs! This
is because I like a simple way of toggling. In some file managers I
use C-h, there is one file manager that also has the dot to toggle but
I forgot which.

> >> You could also add these lines to create named macros and bind them to 
> >> ‘f2’ and ‘f3’ but given how easy it is to switch inside a dired buffer, it 
> >> seems hardly necessary:
> >>    define_kbd_macro(“hide-dot_files", “M-x set-variable RET 1 RET", “f2");
> >>    define_kbd_macro(“hide-dot_files", “M-x set-variable RET 0 RET", “f3”);
> >
> > This does not work for me. “hide-dot_files" has a dash and a
> > underscore. It does not work even if I replace the dash with an
> > underscore.
>
> Sorry about that, the variable names have `-` (dashes) in them, the 
> underlying C variables use `_` (underscore).
> The config file parser does the conversion automatically, but the function 
> set-variable does not. I should probably make this more transparent.
> Sorry also about the guillemets instead of double quotes. This email client 
> insists on silly automatic conversions.

Even after replacing dash with underscore, and removing the funny
characters that were there instead of double quotes, it still does not
work for me. This is what I have at the moment.

define_kbd_macro("hide_dot_files", "M-x set-variable RET 1 RET", "f2");
define_kbd_macro("hide_dot_files", "M-x set-variable RET 0 RET", "f3");

Maybe there is something else amiss there?

> I have not used microemacs since 1987, and lost track of the may versions 
> available, including one customized by Linus Torvalds.
> Which version do you use? I suspect it is “mg”, widely available and part of 
> the OpenBSD source tree, where do you get it from?

I use several editors and IDEs for different purposes, probably not a
good idea! But with respect to editors somewhat similar to micro
emacs, I evaluated all that are available in Arch but the only one I
am using is qemacs. Of the micro emacs style of editors, mg seems to
be the one available in most distros or OSes. For me qemacs has two
advantages over mg, syntax highlighting and UTF-8. One good thing
about mg is that it is (apparently) well documented. In the OpenBSD
project, documentation is considered very important. I recently set up
a headless back-up server with Debian. As there is no qemacs in Debian
I use mg there (or nvi).