Ability to add a custom Project name?

[ReneFroger]

I use Yasnippet in pair with Projectile. Is there any way to prefer custom project names above the current project names?

For example in this Yasnippet:

#include <iostream>

int main () {
try  {
}
catch (int e)  {
        cout << "The `(buffer-name)` from `(project-name)`) encountered an error. Exception Nr. " << e << '\n';
    }
return 0;
}

Sometimes a project does have a unclear name, e.g. ws_project_fooBAR12. So I get unclear snippets. Is it possible to have any ability in Projectile to define custom project names?

[glucas]

+1, I have some projects for which I'd like to have a more meaningful name without having to change my directory structure.

[ehartc]

You could easily create a function for that, e.g:

(defun my-own-project-name ()
;; Checks if Projectile is currently active, or this will ever run into undefinable errors.
(when (featurep 'projectile)
    ;; Checks if the file ".custom-project-name" is currently located in the project root. 
    (if (file-exists-p (concat (expand-file-name (projectile-project-root)) ".custom-project-name"))
        ;; If that's the case, write their contents into the buffer. 
        (with-temp-buffer
        (insert-file-contents (concat (expand-file-name (projectile-project-root)) ".custom-project-name"))
        (buffer-string))
    ;; If not, then extract the projectname.
    (replace-regexp-in-string "/proj/\\(.*?\\)/.*"
                                "\\1"
                                (projectile-project-name)))))

After evaluating the function above, create the file .custom-name, which contains your own projectname and located in the current project root.
If you don't have created the file (yet), it will use the current projectname instead.

[glucas]

Thanks for the suggestion @ehartc, but it looks at least a bit more involved than that.

In addition to replacing (with advice, I guess) the default implementation of projectile-project-name with a function like the one suggested, it looks like there are a number of places where projectile assumes the project name is actually a directory path and uses it that way: functions that let-bind default-directory to the project name, for example.

edit Sorry, I see your suggestion was for the case of having a custom function to use e.g. in a snippet that would return a custom name or fall back to the projectile name. I understood this feature request to mean that projectile itself would support custom project names.

[bbatsov]

The best way to implement this functionality would be simply to augment the existing project tracking. Basically there should be some function which allows you to name a project and it will be saved in the list of known projects as name + folder. All the code dealing with known projects should be updated to reflect this as well. Not a lot of work, but as usual - I'm pretty low on free time.

[dustinpaluch]

+1. I work on WordPress websites, and the convention at my company is to use wp-content as the git root directory, so regardless of the project I'm working on, my mode line always says Projectile[wp-content], which isn't very helpful.

[ReneFroger]

Is anyone except Batsov willing to look into Projectile source code? My Lisp knowhow is not enough for this.

[bbatsov]

See #928