Divine, a modal interface for Emacs with text objects (or something close enough)
Installation
Divine isn’t on Melpa (yet!). Simply clone the repository somewhere
in your load-path, and
(require 'divine)You can now activate Divine for every buffer with M-x
global-divine-mode RET, or for the current buffer only with M-x
divine-mode RET. The global approach is the preferred way; Divine
provides facilities to customize its initial state per-buffer.
The simplest way to activate Divine is to add this to your init file:
(divine-global-mode)Or with use-package:
(use-package divine
:init (divine-global-mode))Getting started
Basic motion
Basic motion is very close to ordinary Emacs commands: F will go
forward one character, B backward. f and b will move forward
and backward a word, respectively.
With p and n, you move to the previous
and the next visible line, respectively. a and e go to the
beginning and end of the current line, A end E move through
sentences.
isearch is on s, r for backwards. S and R activate regexp
search.
Operators
Like Vim and other modal editors, Divine has operators. Operators are
commands that act on a region. Calling an operator with a non-empty
region active will execute immediately. In normal mode, mark some
text (m toggles the mark) and press d to delete it. If no region
active region exists, the operator becomes “pending” until the point
moves. When the point has moved, it runs on the text range between
the previous and the new point position.
Here’s a very simple example, again with d, the deletion operator.
If you move to the end of a line and press d, the cursor starts
blinking fast and “Pending” appears in the echo area. Press a to go
to the beginning of the line, and the line disappears (cancel with
u).
All the basic operators have a “magic” motion that can be triggered by
pressing them twice: dd kills the current line, cc does the same,
but enters insert mode immediately after, ww copies it to the
kill-ring, and so on.
| Default binding | Action |
|---|---|
c (change) | Kill REGION to REGISTER then switch to insert mode |
d (delete) | Kill REGION to REGISTER |
w (delete) | Copy REGION to REGISTER |
SPC w | Wrap REGION (prompt for char) |
REGISTER defaults to the kill-ring.
Text objects
Text objects are motion commands that set both the point and the mark, and thus define a region. There are two types of text objects: scoped motions, which are motions that accept a scope modifier, and pure text objects, which cannot be used as motions.
Scoped motions
Divine has two standard scopes: around and inside, activated by
a and i, respectively. Most basic motion commands respect these
scopes, and behave as text objects when one is active. For example,
di2w will delete two full words, starting from the one the point’s
on. da2w will do the same, also eating the surrounding space.
a | Activate the around scope. |
i | Activate the inside scope. |
Pure objects
Pure objects accept scope modifiers, but don’t behave as motions even
without one. Divine has only one such object, w, which is the
balanced expression object. It takes an extra parameter, which is the
delimiter to look for. For example, d2w( will unwrap both
parentheses around the second sexp around point. di2w( will delete
inside the sexp, and da2w( will also delete the parentheses.
w | Balanced expression around point1 |
w is a special object. Special objects can hot-replace a pending
operator with their own implementation. When called without a scope
modifier, w will hot-replace divine-change by divine-rewrap, and
divine-delete by divine-unwrap.
Regions
Divine has no equivalent to Vim’s visual modes. Instead, activating
the region with m modifies the behavior of some commands. Operators
run immediately and most actions are disabled.
M | Toggle region |
m | Toggle full lines only |
C-m | Toggle rectangular mark mode |