Re: Q: Use external editor for Gnus?

[Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net>]

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On Tue, 23 Oct 2001, Kai Großjohann wrote:
> Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:
> 
>> Presumably you could write your own message mode hook that would
>> invoke the external editor and stuff. But ... why?
> 
> They say, they're so accustomed to vim keybindings, they don't want to
> switch.  And actually, I can understand this.  I'm equally addicted to
> Emacs keybindings, after all!
> 
> Now, if they were addicted to vi keybindings, we could just tell them
> to use viper.  But with vim keybindings?

Mostly the same, I believe. Anyway, in /theory/ you could do something
like the attached Lisp, but it's pretty horrible.

Oh, and untested, though I am almost tempted just to see how insane a
thing I could put together. :)

The code, as written, probably falls over in the following cases:
1. User kills the message buffer before the editor terminates.
2. Editor terminates uncleanly on startup.
3. Editor is canceled with no changes.
4. Multiple message buffers all at once.

You could probably solve most of the issues, including the lack of
closures, by making the code use buffer local values in the *message*
buffer to store state.


Heh. You know, I /must/ really want to avoid this mailing list setup I
have to do. I would never have written something this silly otherwise. ;)

        Daniel


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(defun edit-buffer-in-vi ()
  "Put the content of the buffer into an external file and invoke VI on it."
  (let ((filename (make-temp-name "silly.vi.user."))
	(message  (current-buffer)))
    (with-temp-buffer filename
		      (insert (buffer-string message)))
    (let ((editor (start-process-shell-command "message editor"
					       nil ; no associated buffer...
					       "xterm"
					       "-e"
					       "vim"
					       filename)))
      (cons editor filename))))

(defun edit-buffer-in-vi-make-closure (buffer filename)
  "Restore the content of buffer from filename when invoked."
  (let ((buffer-name (buffer-name buffer))) ; Oh for closures...
    `(lambda ()
      (let ((buffer (get-buffer ,buffer-name)))
	(when buffer
	  (with-current-buffer buffer
	    (erase-buffer)
	    (insert-file-contents ,filename)))))))
  
(add-hook 'message-setup-hook		; am I the right hook?
	  (lambda ()
	    "Invoke an external editor on the content of this buffer..."
	    (let ((result (edit-buffer-in-vi)))
	      (set-process-sentinel
	       (car result)
	       (edit-buffer-in-vi-make-closure (current-buffer) (cdr result))))))

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-- 
Unix was not designed to stop people from doing stupid things,
because that would also stop them from doing clever things.
        -- Doug Gwyn