oboe.el

A simple Emacs temporary buffer management framework.

Installation

;; for emacs-30+
(use-package oboe
  :vc (:url "https://github.com/gynamics/oboe.el"))

Usage

Emacs has scratch buffer for temporary elisp evaluation. However, sometimes you may want to get a temporary buffer in specific configuration to do something immediately. That is not something difficult to do but makes me tired. Therefore oboe.el be.

The idea of oboe.el is just as simple as following steps:

1. prompt for configuration to load (you can skip the prompt)
2. create a buffer and load configuration
3. display it for use, with method specified by :display
4. manage buffers with a buffer menu

The idea looks like a trival version of org-capture, but trival isn't that bad. org integrated so many advanced features, which also made it harder to learn to extend it. You may choose to do the same thing in the trival way.

At first there was a prototype in CL style, but I found that it was actually not clearer with CL, so I just abandoned using cl-lib.

Currently we have commands: (if you have any good ideas, please tell me!)

• oboe-new creates a new temporary buffer.
• oboe-recall brings back a temporary buffer.
• oboe-absorb absorbs content from multiple temporary buffers.
• oboe-branch clones a temporary buffer.
• oboe-menu filters out temporary buffers in a buffer menu.

I think we may do more in the future, for example, merge two buffers, continue from an exist buffer like snapshots ... After all, temporary buffers construct almost everything in high-level text edit control, e. g. undo, redo, copy, concatenation, etc.

This simple framework is designed to be tweaked easily. The basic concept is that, a temporary buffer class is defined by a plist, e. g.

   `(elisp
     :major emacs-lisp-mode
     :init-content
     ,(concat
       ";; This buffer is a temporary buffer for elisp scripting by MEMO.\n"
       ";; you can save it somewhere by pressing C-x C-w.\n"))

I have implemented these keys:

:create : A function to create the buffer. Its default value is oboe-default-create-method. Normally you don't need to tweak it.

:display : A function to display given buffer. Its default value is oboe-default-display-method.

:has-temp-file : A flag which indicates if a temporary file with be created, if non-nil, open a temporary file for this buffer.

:tmp-file-path : A path string to a valid path, if :has-tmp-file is non-nil, the temporary file will be created in that directory. This solves some path env problems when loading a project-wide major-mode.

:major : Major mode to be loaded in the buffer. Actually, it doesn't need to be a major-mode at all, just a function to be called once.

:minor-list : A list of minor-modes to be loaded in the buffer. The order of minor-mode calls is determined by mapc.

:init-content : A string to be inserted into the buffer.

:revive : A function to find and display a buried buffer with given config. This function works on a specific buffer config rather than a specific buffer, so you can choose which buffer to revive, even concat all existing buffers. Its default value is oboe-default-revive-method.

Some items can be used by oboe-loaders, which is a list of functions, each function is a loader that will be called to initialize the temporary buffer created. Loaders can have arguments, these arguments are fetched from corresponding config with keys. This is just a brute way to implement generic functions.

    (f :key1 :key2 ... :keyN)
    + config
    => (funcall 'f () (plist-get :key1 config)
                      (plist-get :key2 config)
                      ...
                      (plist-get :keyN config))

Actually there was a prototype CL style. But I just found that, that one was not simpler, so I just abandoned CL and chose plists.