align selections

[QiBaobin]

Select above lines, & and input \| would turn them to

2& and input \| would turn them to

3& and input \| would turn them to

[Omnikar]

Suggested change

// & align selections

[archseer]

Rather than using a regex for the delimiter, this should align selections in the same line: http://kakoune.org/video/align.webm

^ it selects the whole line, splits into sub selections, moves cursors to the start of the selection, then & aligns the cursors.

https://github.com/mawww/kakoune/blob/e7100dc87434d933fd8268e5bf70080b627750c5/src/normal.cc#L1615-L1701

[QiBaobin]

@archseer , I tried to implement using selections, one problem is that we the cursor is not at the selection we want(in another word, it's at a part of the separators), it would make cursor as a selection too.

[archseer]

What do you mean? Can you show me an example?

In general we want commands to always take advantage of multiple selections, it's more idiomatic for helix.

[QiBaobin]

When I used split_selections with \| after selecting two lines, I got below selections, as you can see the selections in the first line doesn't make sense.

Just checked select_regex with. [^|]+, it seems to work in this case.

[archseer]

Here's something that works for me: select all the columns then use s\w<enter>, mi|, _ and then alt-; to jump to the start.

https://asciinema.org/a/q7Jd8EgPQ6OVMZ4aAWCTGTjJt

[QiBaobin]

Updated the code, shall work well with select_regex, but maybe not with split_selection without move cursor.

[pickfire]

Suggested change

	2 => s.insert_str(s.len() / 2, trimed), // center align
	3 => s.push_str(trimed), // right align
	1 => s.insert_str(0, trimed), // left align
	1 => s.insert_str(0, trimed), // left align
	2 => s.insert_str(s.len() / 2, trimed), // center align
	3 => s.push_str(trimed), // right align

Also, I think it's better to create an enum or reuse an existing one (if possible) for this, so we don't need unimplemented!.

Also, I think it is better to use https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/primitive.slice.html#method.swap_with_slice swap_with_slice rather than having multiple allocations. We can just swap it twice and it should move all the whitespaces. The alternative is to use String::with_capacity and push it manually.

[QiBaobin]

swap_with_slice need two mut str or string, but the trimmed or the fragment is not own by us, to use it we have make another string, which is same thing, right?

[archseer]

Great work! Tested locally 🎉

[sudormrfbin]

We also need some docs about this in the book in the usage section, especially since the workflow might be confusing at first (using cursors to align) and left, right, center alignment are controlled by counts before &. Bonus points for a gif :)

Awesome work btw @QiBaobin 🎉