[Vimperator] abbreviation (patch) [+RFC: text substitution]

[Martin Stubenschrott]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 06:34:48PM +1100, Doug Kearns wrote:
> Well you won't be surprised to hear my preference is that it be done "the Vim
> way" whenever possible.

Yes, I knew that ;)

> > :echo "Vimperator version is: #{v:version}" -> Access any vimperator variable

You didn't comment on that.

> > :abbr MS Martin #{cursor} Stubenschrott     -> (would place the cursor to
> >                                                #{cursor} after expanding)
> 
> :imap MS<space> Martin  Stubenschrott<Esc>Bhi " assuming you want it
> triggered by the trailing space

1.) :imap != :abbr
2.) vim understands <up><down> in :abbr, but it's still annoying to use
for such use cases.

> > :iabbr DATE #{`date`}  -> run shell commands and get its output
> 
> :iabbr <expr> DATE vimperator.system('date')

Hmm, how does that work _easily_ with:
:iabbr DATE Today is: #{`date`}

> > Most of these commands are written just once anyway, and the slightly
> > verbose syntax doesn't matter. For interaction with :! this might
> > however be different, what would work well, is that:
> > f to show hints
> > :!wget #{12} #{15} #{22} -> downloads these 3 links
> 
> :!wget @12 @15 @22

Sounds ok for this specific usecase, but in your examples, more and more
keywords became reserved characters which you would need to take car of
in escaping.

> Where @ is probably whatever you like other than % or #.  The # has meaning in
> Vim, alternate buffer, which would be nice to support.

"My" way of specifying substititutions has the advantage, that you can
write :echo "#" or _maybe_ (maybe as it's ruby incompatible) even :echo
"#{blabla" withouth needing to escape the #. So a :buffer # could still
be easily implemented by the :buffer command itself

> <clink> could be the current 'link' like <cword>

Same problematic use of </> which will be input/output redirection.

> > And download the current file, one would need
> > :!wget #{url}
> 
> :!wget %

Hmm, that sounds nice for this specific usecase.

> > To grep the current textContent of the website:
> > :!grep foo #{text}
> 
> :!grep foo <text>

< is bad, since we want to have input redirection at some time.

> I assume you mean the text is written out to a tmp file and then passed to the
> external command?

Hmm, right, but with input redirection probably:
:!grep foo < #{text}
makes more sense, but well, that's for later.

> A separate :dump command would be useful too.

I am rather for extending :saveas -type text|full|whatever [filename]
than making a new command.

--
Martin

PS: I don't think i'll have time for that anyway before i get hints into
a polished state, but that's probably the next project, i'll start after
the hints.