Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

Hello!
Version 1.0 of the tool is ready, webpage with animated gifs:

https://github.com/psprint/zsh-cmd-architect

Feature highlights:
- adding, removing, moving segments of commands
- colorful searching in history with multi-word matching
- unique mode - no need for HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS
- horizontal scroll - commands of any lengths can be handled and build
- colorifying - configurable highlight of selected keywords

(z) and zsh/curses are tools, ZCA is utility that uses them in a high
level fashion. No more need for a mouse to copy parts of commands in
history.

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Dominik Vogt]

On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 05:22:29PM +0100, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
> Version 1.0 of the tool is ready, webpage with animated gifs:
> 
> https://github.com/psprint/zsh-cmd-architect

I've watched the video on that page many times and I'm still
trying to figure out what kind of problem this module can solve
that cannot be solved with history search, menu completion and
pressing <TAB> a couple of times.

> Feature highlights:
> - adding, removing, moving segments of commands

> - colorful searching in history with multi-word matching

The multi-word matching syntax would be helpful in general for all
"search"-type operations.

> - unique mode - no need for HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS
> - horizontal scroll - commands of any lengths can be handled and build
> - colorifying - configurable highlight of selected keywords
> 
> (z) and zsh/curses are tools, ZCA is utility that uses them in a high
> level fashion.

> No more need for a mouse to copy parts of commands in history.

I never use the mouse for that (partially because the middle mouse
button is broken):

  (Move cursor to start of word to copy)
  Ctrl-Space (set mark)
  (Move cursor to start of word to copy)
  Ctrl-w (cut)
  (Move cursor to new location of the word)
  Ctrl-y (yank; insert cut buffer)

Or with the example from the video:

  # type
  mplayer -fs
  # noticed that I need a long word from the history, so comment
  # out the unfinished command line and store it in the history
  <ctrl-a>#<return>
  # look for the history line with the long word; the multi word
  # search would be helpful
  <ctrl-r>The_Voi
  # Mark and cut the file name:
  <move cursor><ctrl-space><ctrl-f><ctrl-w>
  # abort editing
  <ctrl-g>
  # recall the unfinished command and insert the cut-buffer
  <cursor-up><ctrl-e> <ctrl-y>
  # remove comment and execute
  <ctrl-a><delete><return>

That's fifteen additional keystrokes plus typing part of the file
name and moving the cursor to the start of the name.  And that's a
lot more typing than just "mplayer -fs The_Voi<TAB><RETURN>".

To me it appears that cases where a complicated part of a former
history line needs to be copied and the same cannot easily be done
with completion is quite rare.  And even then I could just edit
the complicated line instead of copying a part of it to a new
line.

I'm really interested in user experience with that approach,
though.

Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

-- 

Dominik Vogt
IBM Germany

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

Hello,
I will read your email more deeply later when I have time, but a quick
answer is that among other things the software provides what
"transpose-words" does, but with strings divided according to (z)
flag.

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

On 8 January 2016 at 10:33, Dominik Vogt <vogt@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 05:22:29PM +0100, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
>> Version 1.0 of the tool is ready, webpage with animated gifs:
>>
>> https://github.com/psprint/zsh-cmd-architect
>
> I've watched the video on that page many times and I'm still
> trying to figure out what kind of problem this module can solve
> that cannot be solved with history search, menu completion and
> pressing <TAB> a couple of times.

The main idea is navigation. It's possible to implement in Zsh thanks
to zsh/curses. I quite well feel what this is about but my explanation
is still rather imperfect.

Navigation: seeing much, narrowing what is seen, pressing cursors.
Typical approach: seeing little, invoking commands to resolve,
pressing keystrokes.

For example, Zsh can invoke things from history. I never learned how
to do this, but it has something to do with "!" command. AFAIK, one
can quickly run say 3rd last command from history and also use say 2nd
argument from last command. Forgive me my ignorance, but I never
crossed the border to use this functionality as I was repelled by the
following: seeing little, commanding much, pressing keystrokes.

Navigation is opposite. Seeing much, commanding little, pressing cursors.

ZNT allowed to see history, narrow what is seen with multi-keyword
searches, press cursors. ZCA allows to use any command segment from
all that, and arrange the selected segments. Seeing much, commanding
little, pressing cursors.

>> Feature highlights:
>> - adding, removing, moving segments of commands
>
>> - colorful searching in history with multi-word matching
>
> The multi-word matching syntax would be helpful in general for all
> "search"-type operations.

Yep, and all what's needed is awareness of patterns of following form:
*foo*~^*bar*

> I never use the mouse for that (partially because the middle mouse
> button is broken):
>
>   (Move cursor to start of word to copy)
>   Ctrl-Space (set mark)
>   (Move cursor to start of word to copy)
>   Ctrl-w (cut)
>   (Move cursor to new location of the word)
>   Ctrl-y (yank; insert cut buffer)
>
> Or with the example from the video:
>
>   # type
>   mplayer -fs
>   # noticed that I need a long word from the history, so comment
>   # out the unfinished command line and store it in the history
>   <ctrl-a>#<return>
>   # look for the history line with the long word; the multi word
>   # search would be helpful
>   <ctrl-r>The_Voi
>   # Mark and cut the file name:
>   <move cursor><ctrl-space><ctrl-f><ctrl-w>
>   # abort editing
>   <ctrl-g>
>   # recall the unfinished command and insert the cut-buffer
>   <cursor-up><ctrl-e> <ctrl-y>
>   # remove comment and execute
>   <ctrl-a><delete><return>
>
> That's fifteen additional keystrokes plus typing part of the file
> name and moving the cursor to the start of the name.  And that's a
> lot more typing than just "mplayer -fs The_Voi<TAB><RETURN>".
>
> To me it appears that cases where a complicated part of a former
> history line needs to be copied and the same cannot easily be done
> with completion is quite rare.  And even then I could just edit
> the complicated line instead of copying a part of it to a new
> line.

The yanking you presented is big player here. ZCA allows to quickly
insert segments from history, but with yanking learned by fingers one
can accomplish this in the way you presented. However, this is still:
seeing little, commanding much, pressing keystrokes, isn't it? The
normal command-wise approach.

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Mikael Magnusson]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Dominik Vogt <vogt@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 05:22:29PM +0100, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
>> Version 1.0 of the tool is ready, webpage with animated gifs:
>>
>> https://github.com/psprint/zsh-cmd-architect
>
> I've watched the video on that page many times and I'm still
> trying to figure out what kind of problem this module can solve
> that cannot be solved with history search, menu completion and
> pressing <TAB> a couple of times.
>
>> Feature highlights:
>> - adding, removing, moving segments of commands
>
>> - colorful searching in history with multi-word matching
>
> The multi-word matching syntax would be helpful in general for all
> "search"-type operations.
>
>> - unique mode - no need for HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS
>> - horizontal scroll - commands of any lengths can be handled and build
>> - colorifying - configurable highlight of selected keywords
>>
>> (z) and zsh/curses are tools, ZCA is utility that uses them in a high
>> level fashion.
>
>> No more need for a mouse to copy parts of commands in history.
>
> I never use the mouse for that (partially because the middle mouse
> button is broken):
>
>   (Move cursor to start of word to copy)
>   Ctrl-Space (set mark)
>   (Move cursor to start of word to copy)
>   Ctrl-w (cut)
>   (Move cursor to new location of the word)
>   Ctrl-y (yank; insert cut buffer)
>
> Or with the example from the video:
>
>   # type
>   mplayer -fs
>   # noticed that I need a long word from the history, so comment
>   # out the unfinished command line and store it in the history
>   <ctrl-a>#<return>
>   # look for the history line with the long word; the multi word
>   # search would be helpful
>   <ctrl-r>The_Voi
>   # Mark and cut the file name:
>   <move cursor><ctrl-space><ctrl-f><ctrl-w>
>   # abort editing
>   <ctrl-g>
>   # recall the unfinished command and insert the cut-buffer
>   <cursor-up><ctrl-e> <ctrl-y>
>   # remove comment and execute
>   <ctrl-a><delete><return>
>
> That's fifteen additional keystrokes plus typing part of the file
> name and moving the cursor to the start of the name.  And that's a
> lot more typing than just "mplayer -fs The_Voi<TAB><RETURN>".
>
> To me it appears that cases where a complicated part of a former
> history line needs to be copied and the same cannot easily be done
> with completion is quite rare.  And even then I could just edit
> the complicated line instead of copying a part of it to a new
> line.
>
> I'm really interested in user experience with that approach,
> though.

If you need a long word from history, another great widget to invoke
is _history-complete-older, which is bound to alt-/ in emacs mode by
compinit. This style makes it usually more usable,
zstyle ':completion:*' range 50000:2000

narrow-to-region and push-input are also nice options, rather than
mucking about with storing the current command somewhere else while
looking around for your new word.

-- 
Mikael Magnusson

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

BTW., I always forgot to credit. ZNT and ZCA weren't be possible
without #zsh, and *foo*~^*bar* is from your conversation Mikael.
Thanks

On 8 January 2016 at 17:29, Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you need a long word from history, another great widget to invoke
> is _history-complete-older, which is bound to alt-/ in emacs mode by
> compinit. This style makes it usually more usable,
> zstyle ':completion:*' range 50000:2000

I've invoked bindkey -e, compinit and the zstyle, Alt-/ shows set of
words, when repeated it iterates over them. One problem: duplicates.
Any solution? Also, is it possible to select with cursor keys? Anyway,
"ls The[Alt-/]" did complete the long word (the title of youtube's
video).

> narrow-to-region and push-input are also nice options, rather than
> mucking about with storing the current command somewhere else while
> looking around for your new word.

How to use them, in an example?

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

On 8 January 2016 at 18:04, Sebastian Gniazdowski
<sgniazdowski@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8 January 2016 at 17:29, Mikael Magnusson <mikachu@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If you need a long word from history, another great widget to invoke
>> is _history-complete-older, which is bound to alt-/ in emacs mode by
>> compinit. This style makes it usually more usable,
>> zstyle ':completion:*' range 50000:2000
>
> I've invoked bindkey -e, compinit and the zstyle, Alt-/ shows set of
> words, when repeated it iterates over them. One problem: duplicates.
> Any solution? Also, is it possible to select with cursor keys? Anyway,
> "ls The[Alt-/]" did complete the long word (the title of youtube's
> video).

PS. It completes only "The_Voice...", does not propose the other
segment "The\ Voice...", don't know why

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Bart Schaefer]

On Jan 8,  6:04pm, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
}
} I've invoked bindkey -e, compinit and the zstyle, Alt-/ shows set of
} words, when repeated it iterates over them. One problem: duplicates.
} Any solution?

zstyle ':completion:*:history-words' remove-all-dups true

To find this you must either read comments in _history_complete_word
or search the docs, because of the way all the styles are grouped in
one doc section separate from all the widgets or completion functions.

} Also, is it possible to select with cursor keys?

You have to override the complete-word binding in the #compdef line of
_history_complete_word, like so:

compdef -K _history_complete_word \
	_history-complete-older menu-select '\e/' \
	_history-complete-newer menu-select '\e,'

On Jan 9,  9:21am, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
} Subject: Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0
}
} PS. It completes only "The_Voice...", does not propose the other
} segment "The\ Voice...", don't know why

I'm not sure why either, because for me it works with both variations.
What does

    print -lr "${historywords[@]}" | fgrep Voice

show in the context you are testing?

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Mikael Magnusson]

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 12:54 AM, Bart Schaefer
<schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
> On Jan 8,  6:04pm, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
> }
> } I've invoked bindkey -e, compinit and the zstyle, Alt-/ shows set of
> } words, when repeated it iterates over them. One problem: duplicates.
> } Any solution?
>
> zstyle ':completion:*:history-words' remove-all-dups true
>
> To find this you must either read comments in _history_complete_word
> or search the docs, because of the way all the styles are grouped in
> one doc section separate from all the widgets or completion functions.
>
> } Also, is it possible to select with cursor keys?
>
> You have to override the complete-word binding in the #compdef line of
> _history_complete_word, like so:
>
> compdef -K _history_complete_word \
>         _history-complete-older menu-select '\e/' \
>         _history-complete-newer menu-select '\e,'
>
> On Jan 9,  9:21am, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
> } Subject: Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0
> }
> } PS. It completes only "The_Voice...", does not propose the other
> } segment "The\ Voice...", don't know why
>
> I'm not sure why either, because for me it works with both variations.
> What does
>
>     print -lr "${historywords[@]}" | fgrep Voice
>
> show in the context you are testing?

Perhaps he doesn't have hist_lex_words set.

-- 
Mikael Magnusson

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

Hello
I've added setopt before history setup:

setopt hist_lex_words
HISTSIZE=20000
SAVEHIST=20000
HISTFILE=~/.zhistory

and still Alt-/ (now bound by myself not by compinit) only completes
the "_" delimeted word. However, the other word is now displayed by
print -lr "${historywords[@]}" | fgrep Voice:

https://asciinema.org/a/03x7dhxwu9ona61kso5rlgo8z

The two words are:
The_Voice_of_Poland_VI_Krzysztof_Iwaneczko_Writings_On_The_Wall_Fina.mp4
The\ Voice\ of\ Poland\ VI\ –\ Marta\ Moszczyńska\ –\ „Sail”\ –\
Live-h9KgwUAlCjE.mkv

maybe one can reproduce? Code that I use to setup the functionality:

bindkey "^[/" _history-complete-older
zstyle ':completion:*:history-words' remove-all-dups true
zstyle ':completion:*' range 50000:2000

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

I was using 5.0.8 and it doesn't work there, but in 5.1.1 it works,
multiple filenames are proposed

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski


On 10 January 2016 at 08:32, Sebastian Gniazdowski
<sgniazdowski@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello
> I've added setopt before history setup:
>
> setopt hist_lex_words
> HISTSIZE=20000
> SAVEHIST=20000
> HISTFILE=~/.zhistory
>
> and still Alt-/ (now bound by myself not by compinit) only completes
> the "_" delimeted word. However, the other word is now displayed by
> print -lr "${historywords[@]}" | fgrep Voice:
>
> https://asciinema.org/a/03x7dhxwu9ona61kso5rlgo8z
>
> The two words are:
> The_Voice_of_Poland_VI_Krzysztof_Iwaneczko_Writings_On_The_Wall_Fina.mp4
> The\ Voice\ of\ Poland\ VI\ –\ Marta\ Moszczyńska\ –\ „Sail”\ –\
> Live-h9KgwUAlCjE.mkv
>
> maybe one can reproduce? Code that I use to setup the functionality:
>
> bindkey "^[/" _history-complete-older
> zstyle ':completion:*:history-words' remove-all-dups true
> zstyle ':completion:*' range 50000:2000
>
> Best regards,
> Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

On 10 January 2016 at 10:52, Sebastian Gniazdowski
<sgniazdowski@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was using 5.0.8 and it doesn't work there, but in 5.1.1 it works,
> multiple filenames are proposed

I was bisecting to find which patch changed the behavior and noticed
that all revisions tested by git worked. I removed recent entries with
the filename from ~/.zhistory and then it stopped working. So it looks
like the filename was too far away in history to make
_history-complete-older see it. This probably has something to do with
your zstyle Mikael. If I copy an old ~/.zhistory entry to a recent
position then the filename is correctly proposed.

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

On 10 January 2016 at 00:54, Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure why either, because for me it works with both variations.
> What does
>
>     print -lr "${historywords[@]}" | fgrep Voice
>
> show in the context you are testing?

Three words "The_Voi..." (the long one), "Voice\", "Voice*"

https://asciinema.org/a/6etswm9myzgy6fl1g4edqr2xp

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

PS. Still seeing duplicates after:

zstyle ':completion:*:history-words' remove-all-dups true

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski

history-words (Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0)

[Bart Schaefer]

On Jan 10,  8:20am, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
}
} PS. Still seeing duplicates after:
} 
} zstyle ':completion:*:history-words' remove-all-dups true

My mistake; only "list" and "stop" are looked up in that context,
"remove-all-dups" and "range" are looked up in the context
:completion:history-words:history::: without the trailing tag.

Obviously this is not very well documented.

zstyle ':completion:history-words:*' remove-all-dups true

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Bernd Steinhauser]

Hi,

On 08/01/16 10:33, Dominik Vogt wrote:
>> No more need for a mouse to copy parts of commands in history.
> I never use the mouse for that (partially because the middle mouse
> button is broken):
>
>    (Move cursor to start of word to copy)
>    Ctrl-Space (set mark)
>    (Move cursor to start of word to copy)
>    Ctrl-w (cut)
>    (Move cursor to new location of the word)
>    Ctrl-y (yank; insert cut buffer)
>
> Or with the example from the video:
>
>    # type
>    mplayer -fs
>    # noticed that I need a long word from the history, so comment
>    # out the unfinished command line and store it in the history
>    <ctrl-a>#<return>
>    # look for the history line with the long word; the multi word
>    # search would be helpful
>    <ctrl-r>The_Voi
>    # Mark and cut the file name:
>    <move cursor><ctrl-space><ctrl-f><ctrl-w>
>    # abort editing
>    <ctrl-g>
>    # recall the unfinished command and insert the cut-buffer
>    <cursor-up><ctrl-e> <ctrl-y>
>    # remove comment and execute
>    <ctrl-a><delete><return>
zsh provides a lot of stuff that is really cool and I'm sure that you can do 
pretty much everything out of the box (with using the provided plugins).
However I would have a hard time to remember all of the key shortcuts you're 
using because I don't use emacs.
I know that you can use vi bindings for zle as well, but I'm not really used to 
it and therefore often just fall back to plain mouse select and copy.
Even after 8 years of using zsh, I'm still only scratching the surface of it.

So such a tool as presented for me would be quite cool because it seems to 
provide a quite intuitive approach to edit the command.

Best Regards,
Bernd

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Bart Schaefer]

On Jan 8, 10:33am, Dominik Vogt wrote:
}
}   mplayer -fs
}   # noticed that I need a long word from the history, so comment
}   # out the unfinished command line and store it in the history
}   <ctrl-a>#<return>

This really shouldn't be necessary; ESC q (or Alt-q if properly bound)
to do push-line and then at the end ...

}   # recall the unfinished command and insert the cut-buffer
}   <cursor-up><ctrl-e> <ctrl-y>
}   # remove comment and execute
}   <ctrl-a><delete><return>

ESC g space ctrl-y return, should be sufficient.

} To me it appears that cases where a complicated part of a former
} history line needs to be copied and the same cannot easily be done
} with completion is quite rare.

The one thing completion can't do well is copy around multiple words
at once.  It's quite tightly bound to the idea that it's acting on a
single word -- even inside quotes it usually wants to work on the
whitespace-separated internal bits rather than on the whole quoted
string.

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[jrun]

On Wed, Jan 06, 2016 at 05:22:29PM +0100, Sebastian Gniazdowski wrote:
> Hello!
> Version 1.0 of the tool is ready, webpage with animated gifs:
> 
> https://github.com/psprint/zsh-cmd-architect
> 
> Feature highlights:
> - adding, removing, moving segments of commands
> - colorful searching in history with multi-word matching
> - unique mode - no need for HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS
> - horizontal scroll - commands of any lengths can be handled and build
> - colorifying - configurable highlight of selected keywords

can it do this:

https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1465


jrun

Re: Announcement of Zsh Command Architect v1.0

[Sebastian Gniazdowski]

On 9 January 2016 at 18:21, jrun <darwinskernel@gmail.com> wrote:
> can it do this:
>
> https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1465

Could you describe in a few words what's the functionality is about?
I'm short on time and the page is very long. I will rather read it in
future but maybe you could provide some description? It will serve for
the mailing list too.

Best regards,
Sebastian Gniazdowski