bufferwizard.el

The bufferwizard Emacs package offers a suite of helper functions:

• (bufferwizard-toggle-highlight-symbol-at-point): Toggle highlighting for the symbol at point. This function checks if the symbol at point is currently highlighted. If it is, it removes the highlight; otherwise, it applies the highlight. (This is a lightweight alternative to the highlight-symbol package.)
• (bufferwizard-replace-symbol-at-point): Replace occurrences of a symbol at point with a specified string.
• (bufferwizard-clone-indirect-buffer) and (bufferwizard-clone-and-switch-to-indirect-buffer): These functions are enhanced versions of the built-in clone-indirect-buffer. They create an indirect buffer with the same content as the current buffer while preserving the point position, window start, and horizontal scroll position. This package also provides the (bufferwizard-switch-to-base-buffer) function, which allows switching from an indirect buffer to its corresponding base buffer.

Installation

Install with straight (Emacs version < 30)

To install bufferwizard with straight.el:

1. It if hasn't already been done, add the straight.el bootstrap code to your init file.
2. Add the following code to the Emacs init file:

(use-package bufferwizard
  :ensure t
  :straight (bufferwizard
             :type git
             :host github
             :repo "jamescherti/bufferwizard.el"))

Installing with use-package and :vc (Built-in feature in Emacs version >= 30)

To install bufferwizard with use-package and :vc (Emacs >= 30):

(use-package bufferwizard
  :ensure t
  :vc (:url "https://github.com/jamescherti/bufferwizard.el"
       :rev :newest))

Customizations

Case sensitivity

The functions (bufferwizard-toggle-highlight-symbol-at-point) and (bufferwizard-replace-symbol-at-point) depend on built-in functions that can be customized via the following variable:

• case-fold-search: This buffer-local variable determines the behavior of (bufferwizard-toggle-highlight-symbol-at-point) and (bufferwizard-replace-symbol-at-point). When set to t (default), both symbol highlighting and searches become case-insensitive, matching symbols regardless of case. When set to nil, they become case-sensitive, matching symbols only when the case exactly matches the text in the buffer. Example:

  ;; Setting case-fold-search to nil enables case-sensitive symbol highlighting
  ;; and search/replace
  (setq-default case-fold-search nil)

• case-replace: When non-nil, this variable ensures that (bufferwizard-replace-symbol-at-point) preserves the case of the original text during replacements. Example:

  ;; t means (bufferwizard-replace-symbol-at-point) should preserve case in
  ;; replacements.
  (setq case-replace t)

Author and License

The bufferwizard Emacs package has been written by James Cherti and is distributed under terms of the GNU General Public License version 3, or, at your choice, any later version.

Copyright (C) 2024-2025 James Cherti

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program.

Links

• bufferwizard.el @GitHub