evil-snipe

Evil-snipe enables you to search quicker and more precisely in the buffer. It improves on evil-mode's built-in single character motions (f/F/t/T) by adding another key pair for 2-char searches: s and S -- as well as z/Z in operator mode (e.g. following a d or c motion).

2-char searchs are 50x more accurate. You could use / or ?, but it saves you the extra keystroke of pressing enter and is harder to reach than s and S.

Main Features

2-char search with s/S

A 2-char search can be performed with s{char}{char}, S will do the same backwards.

Enhanced 1-char search (f/F/t/T)

(evil-snipe-override-mode 1) causes evil-snipe to replace evil-mode's single character motions with 1-char sniping; this comes with the added benefit of incremental highlighting, customizable search scope and character aliasing (see evil-snipe-symbol-groups).

Customizable search scope

evil-snipe-scope determines the scope of a snipe and the incremental highlighter. These are the possible settings:

Value	Description
'buffer	the rest of the buffer after cursor (vim-sneak behavior)
'line	(default) the rest of the current line after cursor (vim-seek behavior)
'visible	the rest of the visible buffer after cursor
'whole-line	same as 'line, but match on either side of cursor
'whole-buffer	same as 'buffer, but match all matches in buffer
'whole-visible	same as 'visible, but match all visible matches in buffer

Search scope while repeating a previous search is independently adjustable by changing evil-snipe-repeat-scope, which accepts the same values evil-snipe-scope does.

Symbol groups

With symbol groups you can alias specific characters to regex patterns. To add a pattern, add a '(CHAR REGEX) list to evil-snipe-symbol-groups.

Here are some examples:

(evil-snipe-add-alias ?[ "[[{(]")

• Map [ to all opening parenthesis and brackets. Therefore: sa[ matches a[, a( or a{.

(evil-snipe-add-alias ?: "def .+:")

• For python users, this maps : to python function defs so you can cycle through function definitions with f:fff.

Installation

Evil-snipe is on MELPA: M-x package-install RET evil-snipe

Enable it globally with:

(require 'evil-snipe)
(evil-snipe-mode 1)

;; OPTIONAL: Replaces evil-mode's f/F/t/T motions with evil-snipe
(evil-snipe-override-mode 1)

Configuration

• If you want sniping in visual mode:

  (evil-define-key 'visual evil-snipe-mode-map "z" 'evil-snipe-f)
  (evil-define-key 'visual evil-snipe-mode-map "Z" 'evil-snipe-F)

• To change the highlight colors, configure: evil-snipe-first-match-face and evil-snipe-matches-face

Configure like vim-seek

(setq evil-snipe-scope 'line)
(setq evil-snipe-repeat-scope 'whole-line)
(setq evil-snipe-count-scope nil)
(setq evil-snipe-search-highlight nil)
(setq evil-snipe-search-incremental-highlight nil)

Configure like vim-sneak

(setq evil-snipe-repeat-keys t)

;; or 'buffer, 'whole-visible or 'whole-buffer
(setq evil-snipe-scope 'visible)
(setq evil-snipe-repeat-scope 'whole-visible)
(setq evil-snipe-enable-highlight t)
(setq evil-snipe-enable-incremental-highlight t)

Credits

Evil-snipe was inspired by:

• vim-seek
• vim-sneak
• evil-sneak