Evil-snipe layer
Table of ContentsClose
1. Description
This layer adds various replacements for vim's default search functions.
1.1. Features:
- Alternative implementation of vim's default search operations.
- Replacement of evil-surround with a two-character search.
- Support for alternative scopes for default search operations.
- Support for alternative motions based on configurable regexps.
2. Install
2.1. Layer
To use this configuration layer, add it to your ~/.spacemacs
. You will need to
add evil-snipe
to the existing dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
list in this
file.
2.2. Improved f and t search behavior
With evil-snipe you can define your own search scope for f
and t
searches
which means that you won't have to jump to the correct line before searching
with f
/ t
/ F
/ T
. And after you have found a match, you can just press
f
or t
again afterwards to continue the search. No need to use ;
/ ~,~.
This alternate behavior is disabled by default, to enable it set the
layer variable evil-snipe-enable-alternate-f-and-t-behaviors
to t
:
(setq-default dotspacemacs-configuration-layers '((evil-snipe :variables evil-snipe-enable-alternate-f-and-t-behaviors t)))
2.3. Two-character search with s
With the s~/~S
keys you can do a simple search like f~/~t
, but instead of
searching for one character, you search for two. This makes the search a lot
more precise than regular f~/~t
searches. While you can search forward or
backwards in the buffer with /
and ?
, s
/ S
are much easier to reach,
don't require you to press enter and they are precise enough for many common
purposes.
2.4. More scopes
Evil-snipe also adds several scope options for searches (set evil-snipe-scope
and evil-snipe-repeat-scope
to one of these, the default value is buffer
):
Value | Description |
---|---|
buffer | search in the rest of the buffer after the cursor (vim-sneak behavior) |
line | search in the current line after the cursor (vim-seek behavior) |
visible | search in the rest of the visible buffer only |
whole-line | same as line , but highlight matches on either side of cursor |
whole-buffer | same as buffer , but highlight all matches in buffer |
whole-visible | same as visible , but highlight all visible matches in buffer |
If you do not want to replace the regular f
/ F
/ t
/ T
behavior, just
remove this line from evil-snipe/packages.el
:
(evil-snipe-replace-evil)
2.5. Symbol groups
With symbol groups you can let a character stand for a regex, for example a
group of characters. By adding a pair of (CHAR REGEX)
to the list
evil-snipe-aliases
you can search for a regex very simply:
Here we set the
[
character to meanall characters [({
in all modes so a search withsa[
would finda[
,a{
ora(
.;; Alias [ and ] to all types of brackets (push '(?\[ "[[{(]") evil-snipe-aliases) (push '(?\] "[]})]") evil-snipe-aliases)
Here we set the char
:
to mean "a regex matching python function definitions" (but only in python-mode), so by searching withf:fff
you can quickly cycle through all function definitions in a buffer!;; For python style functions (add-hook 'python-mode-hook (lambda () (make-variable-buffer-local 'evil-snipe-aliases) (push '(?: "def .+:") evil-snipe-aliases)))
3. Key bindings
Key binding | Description |
---|---|
f |
search forward for the next entered character and set the cursor to it's position |
F |
search backward for the next entered character and set the cursor to it's position |
t |
search forward for the next entered character and set the cursor before it's position |
T |
search backward for the next entered character and set the cursor before it's position |
s |
search forward for the next entered two characters and set the cursor to it's position |
S |
search backward for the next entered two characters and set the cursor to it's position |