project-buffer-mode is a generic mode to handle projects. It provides an easy and intuitive way to interact with the multiple projects within one buffer.
Three project implementations uses this mode:
Two generic extensions are also available:
Key features:
The latest version is available at:
git clone git://repo.or.cz/project-buffer-mode.git
I always wanted a have global of directories containing source files, makefiles… or to be able to view sln files within emacs…
Regarding the sln files, I couldn’t find a single script to be able to easily list the files belonging to the different projects.
Some will say that you coul link visual studios and emacs… well.. it didn’t work out of the box for me… Furthermore; I sometimes want to open sln files on a linux machine.
And regarding the tree of source code + makefile, what I found was: speedbar and to be honest: I couldn’t do all I wanted with it (filter files, mark files, search in files, launch build…) and I’m not really keen on having an extra framework. I wanted something intuitive, a view mode you can easily switch to using C-x b.
This is why I started working on this project-buffer-mode.
As mentioned above, project-buffer-mode provides a generic way to handle multiple projects in a buffer.
A Project is defined by:
This mode is not meant to be used as it. Please check the project implementation pages.
Opening the current file (defined by the position of the cursor) is a simple as pressing <return> or ‘o’ to open it in another window.
But you can also mark N files, and use ‘f’ to open them.
‘v’ will enter the file using the view-mode.
The project-buffer mode provides an very easy and intuitive way to search for a particular files.
By pressing the ‘/’ key; you can enter a regular expression; the matching files will then appears in bold. You can navigate between them using ‘n’ and ‘p’.
Note: pressing ‘m’ or ‘u’ in front of a matching file will mark (or unmark) all the matching files.
To cancel a research, simply press ‘q’.
Files can be marked/unmarked individually, but you can also easily mark all files whose names are matching a regular expression (’/’ then ‘m’).
Note: using the mark/unmark commands in front of a folder of a project results in marking each files which belong to this folder or this project.
Four different view-modes are currently supported:
It’s possible to switch between them using ‘c v’. It is also possible to quickly switch using the key ‘1’ to ‘4’.
The first three modes show the project with their associated files:
The final view mode named marked-view shows only the list of marked files, prefixed by their project and folders.
The search in files functionality comes with three different behaviors:
Before talking about the “Narrow the marked files” behavior which is the default one; let’s quickly go throught the others two:
- If the search behavior is set to “All files”, the search-in-files command (’s’) will do a search regexp in files for each unmarked files (all projects) and mark the ones which contain the regexp.
- If the search behavior is set to “Current Project” the search-in-files command will do search regexp in files for each unmarked files contained in the current project. The current project being defined by the position of the cursor. Again, each matching files will be marked.
Note: it is possible to have the search-in-files command unmarking the files instead by using the prefix argument (C-u).
Finally in case the search behavior is set to “Narrow the marked files”: if no files are actually marked, it will behave the same way as the “All files” behavior. In case some files are marked, it will only perform the “search-regexp in files” on the marked files, unmarking the ones which don’t contain the regular expression.
This provide an easy way to narrow/refine some research.
The search behavior can be either customized or locally change (pressing ‘c s’)
Note: in case a search-in-files marks or unmarks some files; the view mode will automatically be switched to marked-view. This behavior can be disabled.
The master project, build configuration and platform can be easily changed using respectively: ‘c t’ ‘c b’ ‘c p’ Using capital letters (’c T’ ‘c B’ and ‘c P’) will prompt the user for a new value.
These values allow to take quick actions regarding the master project: build/clean/run/debug/update (keys: ‘B’ ‘C’ ‘R’ ‘D’ ‘U’)
I tried to follow the common usage for the different keys (such as ‘/’ ‘n’ ‘m’ …); the rest of the time I tried to keep it intuitive…
The case of the ‘c’ binding: all the ‘c’ key-combinaisons are meant to ‘c’hange something: ‘c s’ = Change Search mode, ‘c b’ = Change Build configuration.
Actions are bind to single capital letter: ‘B’ to build, ‘C’ to clean…
As it was mentioned earlier, project-buffer-mode is just an abstract project manager. Even if some extensions already exist, you may want to be able to handle you own project system.
One of my goal through this project: I wanted to keep the usage as simple as possible.
This mode comes with a generic save and load functionality; it’s meant to save the whole project including its extended settings. It will save:
‘project-buffer-locals-to-save’;‘project-buffer-hooks-to-save’.The user can refresh the display using ‘g’; it is advised while implementing a project mode to add a refresh function to ‘project-buffer-refresh-hook’ in order to refresh the file and project lists.
Here is a sample code which shows how to create a new project:
(defun test-projbuff()
(interactive)
(let ((buffer (generate-new-buffer "test-project-buffer"))) ; Creation of a buffer for the project
(display-buffer buffer) ; We want to switch to this buffer right away.
(with-current-buffer buffer
(cd "~/temp") ; It's always better to set the root directory if it's known.
(project-buffer-mode) ; Initialize the project buffer mode
(project-buffer-insert "test1" 'project "test1/Makefile" "test1") ; Create an insert a project node called 'test1' (note: it's recommended to have project and node being the same)
(project-buffer-insert "src/gfr.cpp" 'file "~/temp/test1/gfr.cpp" "test1") ; Add "~/tenp/gfr.cpp" to the project 'test1' it's project path will be: "src/gfr.cpp"
(project-buffer-insert "src/abc.cpp" 'file "~/temp/test1/abc.cpp" "test1") ; Add "~/tenp/abc.cpp" to the project 'test1' it's project path will be: "src/abc.cpp"
(project-buffer-insert "test2" 'project "test2/Makefile" "test2") ; Creation of a second project namded "test2"
(project-buffer-insert "header/yyy.h" 'file "~/temp/test2/zzz.h" "test2") ; Add some file to this project; note that the project path and the physical file name can be completely different
(project-buffer-insert "src/roo.c" 'file "~/temp/test2/roo.c" "test2") ; the file name research will be based on the project-path and not on the physical file name
(project-buffer-insert "script.awk" 'file "~/temp/test2/script.awk" "test2") ;
)))
List of user functions available to handle your own project:
‘project-buffer-mode’ to initialize the project-buffer mode‘project-buffer-insert’ to insert a file or project to the view‘project-buffer-delete-file’ to remove a file‘project-buffer-delete-folder’ to remove a folder and all its files‘project-buffer-delete-project’ to remove a project and all its files‘project-buffer-set-project-platforms’ to set the platform configuration for a particular project‘project-buffer-set-build-configurations’ to set the build configurations for a particular project‘project-buffer-raw-save’ to save a project into a file‘project-buffer-raw-load’ to load a project from a file‘project-buffer-set-project-user-data’ to set user data to a project node‘project-buffer-get-project-user-data’ to get user data from a project node‘project-buffer-set-file-user-data’ to set user data to a file node‘project-buffer-get-file-user-data’ to get user data from a file node‘project-buffer-get-current-project-name’ to get the nane of the current project the cursor is on‘project-buffer-get-current-file-data’ to get data about the current file the cursor is on; nil if it’s on a folder or a project‘project-buffer-exists-p’ to check if a node exists (file or folder) inside a project‘project-buffer-project-exists-p’ to check if a project exists‘project-buffer-get-project-path’ to get a project’s path‘project-buffer-get-file-path’ to get the path of a file of the project‘project-buffer-get-current-node-type’ to get the type of the current node (including folder)‘project-buffer-get-current-node-name’ to get the name of the current node (including folder)‘project-buffer-get-marked-node-list’ to get the list of marked files‘project-buffer-set-project-settings-data’ to set user project settings data‘project-buffer-get-project-settings-data’ to retrive the user project settings data‘project-buffer-apply-to-each-file’ to perform a function call on every file node‘project-buffer-apply-to-marked-files’ to perform a function call on eveyr marked files; the function returns nil if no marked files were found‘project-buffer-apply-to-project-files’ to perform a function call on every files belonging to a specified projectIf you need to have some local variables to be saved; register them in ‘project-buffer-locals-to-save’. The same way, if there is need to save extra hooks: register them in ‘project-buffer-hooks-to-save’.
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