Description

Inspired by Spacemacs major mode leader key and based on the awesome hydra, this package offers a better way to manage your major mode specific key bindings.

Install

MELPA

Coming soon

Manual

This package depends on hydra, dash and s.el. Make sure they are installed first.

Download the source code and put it wherever you like and add the directory to the load path:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/place/where/you/put/it/")

then require the package and bind the major-mode-hydra command to a key:

(require 'major-mode-hydra)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-M-m") 'major-mode-hydra)

or if you prefer use-package:

(use-package major-mode-hydra
  :bind
  ("C-M-m" . major-mode-hydra))

Usage

Whenever the command major-mode-hydra is executed, a (hopefully) pretty hydra for the major mode of the current buffer pops up.

Use the major-mode-hydra-bind macro to add heads to a major mode hydra. The following is an example for clojure-mode (as shown in the above screenshot):

(major-mode-hydra-bind clojure-mode "Connect"
  ("j" cider-jack-in "jack-in")
  ("J" cider-jack-in-clojurescript "jack-in-cljs")
  ("c" cider-connect "connect")
  ("R" cider-restart "restart")
  ("Q" cider-quit "quit"))
(major-mode-hydra-bind clojure-mode "Load"
  ("k" cider-load-buffer "buffer")
  ("l" cider-load-file "file")
  ("L" cider-load-all-project-ns "all-ns")
  ("r" cider-refresh "reload"))

It takes the name of a major mode (it should be an unquoted symbol), a column name and a list of hydra heads under that column. Each head is defined exactly in the same way as defhydra. You can call major-mode-hydra-bind multiple times for the same major mode in different places. Every time it's called, the hydra for that major mode will be recreated the next time major-mode-hydra command is used.

The generated hydra has the following default options:

(:color teal :hint nil)

which means by default it quits the hydra after a head command is executed. For major mode commands, this should usually be what you want. You can override it for each head using head options:

(major-mode-hydra-bind clojure-mode "Load"
  ("k" cider-load-buffer "buffer" :exit nil)
  ("l" cider-load-file "file" :color red))

Customization

Custom separator

You can customize the separator by setting the custom varable major-mode-hydra-separator. It should be set to a string containing a single character which is used to draw the separator line. Unicode box drawing characters are recommended.

Add title to the hydra

You can add a title to the major mode hydra by setting major-mode-hydra-title-generator, which is a function that takes the major mode symbol and returns a string. For example, the title in the above screenshot is generated with the following generator:

(setq major-mode-hydra-title-generator
      '(lambda (mode)
         (s-concat "\n"
                   (s-repeat 10 " ")
                   (all-the-icons-icon-for-mode mode :v-adjust 0.05)
                   " "
                   (symbol-name mode)
                   " commands")))

Pretty Hydra

This package includes pretty-hydra.el which is used by major-mode-hydra.el but can also be used on its own. The following is an example in my own configuration:

(pretty-hydra-define jp-window (:hint nil :foreign-keys warn)
  (;; general window management commands
   "Windows" (("x" ace-delete-window "delete")
              ("m" ace-delete-other-windows "maximize")
              ("s" ace-swap-window "swap")
              ("a" ace-select-window "select")
              ("o" other-window "cycle")
              ("q" nil "quit"))
   ;; resize
   "Resize" (("h" move-border-left "←")
             ("j" move-border-down "↓")
             ("k" move-border-up "↑")
             ("l" move-border-right "→")
             ("n" balance-windows "balance"))
   ;; split
   "Split"  (("b" split-window-right "horizontally")
             ("B" split-window-horizontally-instead "horizontally instead")
             ("v" split-window-below "vertically")
             ("V" split-window-vertically-instead "vertically instead"))
   ;; zoom
   "Zoom" (("+" zoom-in "in")
           ("=" zoom-in)
           ("-" zoom-out "out")
           ("0" jp-zoom-default "reset"))))

Apart from hydra's options like :hint or :color, there are additional options that allow you to customize the generated body docstring:

• :title adds a title to the docstring. It's ignored when :formatter is also specified. You can customize pretty-hydra-title-face to change the look of the title.
• :formatter allows you to fully customize the docstring. It's a function that takes the docstring pretty-hydra-define generates, and returns a new docstring that's gonna be used. You can do things like generating a border etc.

Note that hydra itself seems to provide a similar feature using the :column option but it doesn't seem to be documented in README. The generated docstring also looks a bit different.

License

Copyright © 2018 Jerry Peng

Distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 3