Table of Contents

Evil-snipe layer

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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 mean all characters [({ in all modes so a search with sa[ would find a[, a{ or a(.

    ;; 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 with f: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

Author: root

Created: 2024-11-05 Tue 09:47

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