abbrev-hook

This package allows easy definition of abbrev hooks for major modes. It defines a separate abbrev table with regexps that support non word characters in abbrev names.

You might be interested in tempo-extra, too.

Usage

(abbrev-hook-define
 "if" 'js-mode
 (tempo-define-template
  "js-if"
  '("if (" p ") {" n>
    r> n>
    "}" >)))

To define abbrev hooks you can use abbrev-hook-define function. You just need to provide a name, a major mode and a hook that will be called on abbrev expansion.

For automatic expansion to work you have to have abbrev-mode enabled, of course. Otherwise, you can use them semi-automatically with expand-abbrev (which is usually bind to =C-x ‘=).

You can also call hooks by name with completion with abbrev-hook-call.

Tips

Example configuration

(with-eval-after-load 'abbrev-hook
  (define-key global-map "\C-z" 'abbrev-hook-call))

(with-eval-after-load 'lisp-mode
  (require 'abbrev-hook)
  (abbrev-hook-define
   "let" 'lisp-mode
   (tempo-define-template
    "lisp-let"
    '("(let (" p ")" n>
      r> ")"))))

Solutions for problems with abbrev expansion in Lisp modes

Lisp languages are notoriuos for having non-word charcters in their symbols and abbrev is not very well versed in the domain of non-word characters.

abbrev-hook tries to mitigate this problem by adding a custom regexp for its abbrev tables and solves the issue of having non-word characters inside the symbols. The following are the solutions for a problem of having non-word characters at the end of the symbols.

Disable expansion on non space characters for Lisp modes

This solution will enable automatic expansion only on space or explicit call to expand-abbrev. I’m, personally, using this one. Works pretty well.

(cl-flet ((enable () (or (eq this-command 'expand-abbrev)
                         (eql ?\s last-command-event))))
  (dolist (mode '(lisp-mode emacs-lisp-mode))
    (let ((table (abbrev-hook-abbrev-table mode)))
      (define-abbrev-table table nil nil :enable-function #'enable))))

Modify syntax for some characters to make them word characters

This solution will treat some-long-symbol* as a single word. You can change only * character, but in that case let- will trigger let.

(defun modify-lisp-syntax-tables ()
  (modify-syntax-entry ?* "w" (syntax-table))
  (modify-syntax-entry ?- "w" (syntax-table)))

(dolist (hook '(lisp-mode-hook emacs-lisp-mode-hook))
  (add-hook hook #'modify-lisp-syntax-tables))

Bind expand-abbrev on some key

See the last section of this link.

Definition for multiple mode

Since abbrev-hook-define is a function, you can do it like this.

(let ((template (tempo-define-template
                 "js-c-php-if"
                 '("if (" p ") {" n>
                   r> n>
                   "}" >))))
  (dolist (mode '(js-mode c-mode php-mode))
    (abbrev-hook-define "if" mode template)))

This is very stupid and simple, but effective.

Installation

Nix

This repo is a nix flake. You can just add overlays.default output to your nixpkgs overlays.

{
  inputs.abbrev-hook.url = "github:xFA25E/abbrev-hook";
  outputs = { self, abbrev-hook, nixpkgs }: let
    pkgs = import nixpkgs {
      system = "your-system";
      overlays = [ abbrev-hook.overlays.default ];
    };
  in {
    # YOUR OUTPUTS
  };
}

Package manager

If you’ve installed it with your package manager, you’re done.

Manual

Put abbrev-hook.el in your load-path, and put the following in a file where you want to define templates:

(require 'abbrev-hook)

Rationale

This package, for the most part, is a rethinking of the original skempo package. Since it was born, 2 years ago, I was experimenting with various templating setups, got a pretty decent workflow and learned a couple of things.

I hope that, one day, something like abbrev-hook ends up being in Emacs core and tempo becomes more popular. Who knows, maybe we could outcompete Yasnippet.

Tempo tags are not worth it (at least for now)

I think they are unfinished. They are not very convinient to use for the end user and necessitate a large infrustracture if you wish to have inheritance for templates by mode.

Maybe they were intended to be used by mode authors, but they are not very popular there either. A search for tempo-use-tag-list on GitHub gives custom configurations with manual definition of tag-lists and hooks for modes which load these tag-lists.

Abbrevs are great

They are very good at what tempo tags tries to achieve. I think the automatic expansion on non-word characters is better than the manual trigger by a key-chord. Indeed, during these 2 years, I never used tempo tags. I just typed “if”, pressed space and abbrev handled the expansion automagically. I think that this approach is much better and intuitive.

Plus, if you bind abbrevs to keywords of your programming language, you don’t have to remember the templates that you’ve defined.

Tempo is much more extensible than skeleton

We should deprecate skeletons in favor of tempo. Tempo supports user elements with which you can implement all the looping and conditional features of skeleton (and more). We don’t need two templating systems in Emacs. Also, I slightly prefer the tempo language to skeleton one.

Development

Bug reports, feature requests and suggestions are, of course, welcome!

License

GPLv3