iflipb.el

;;; iflipb -- interactively flip between recently visited buffers
;;
;; Copyright (C) 2007-2009 Joel Rosdahl
;;
;; Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
;; modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
;; are met:
;; 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
;;    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
;; 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
;;    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
;;    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
;; 3. Neither the name of the author nor the names of its contributors
;;    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
;;    without specific prior written permission.
;;
;; ============================================================================
;;
;; iflipb lets you flip between recently visited buffers in a way that
;; resembles what Alt-(Shift-)TAB does in Microsoft Windows and other graphical
;; window managers. iflipb treats the buffer list as a stack, and (by design)
;; it doesn't loop around. This means that when you have flipped to the last
;; buffer and continue, you don't get to the first buffer again. This is a good
;; thing.
;;
;;
;; OPERATION
;; =========
;;
;; iflipb provides two commands: iflipb-next-buffer and iflipb-previous-buffer.
;;
;; iflipb-next-buffer behaves like Alt-TAB: it switches to the previously used
;; buffer, just like "C-x b RET" (or C-M-l in XEmacs). However, another
;; consecutive call to iflipb-next-buffer switches to the next buffer in the
;; buffer list, and so on. When such a consecutive call is made, the
;; skipped-over buffer is not regarded as visited.
;;
;; While flipping, the names of the most recent buffers are displayed in the
;; minibuffer, and the currently visited buffer is surrounded by square
;; brackets and marked with a bold face.
;;
;; A key thing to notice here is that iflipb displays the buffer contents after
;; each step forward/backwards (in addition to displaying the buffer names),
;; unlike for instance the buffer switching model of ido-mode where only the
;; buffer names are displayed.
;;
;; iflipb-previous-buffer behaves like Alt-Shift-TAB: it walks backwards in the
;; buffer list.
;;
;; Here is an illustration of what happens in a couple of different scenarios:
;;
;;                    Minibuffer    Actual
;;                    display       buffer list
;; --------------------------------------------
;; Original:                        A B C D E
;; Forward flip:      A [B] C D E   B A C D E
;; Forward flip:      A B [C] D E   C A B D E
;; Forward flip:      A B C [D] E   D A B C E
;;
;; Original:                        A B C D E
;; Forward flip:      A [B] C D E   B A C D E
;; Forward flip:      A B [C] D E   C A B D E
;; Backward flip:     A [B] C D E   B A C D E
;;
;; Original:                        A B C D E
;; Forward flip:      A [B] C D E   B A C D E
;; Forward flip:      A B [C] D E   C A B D E
;; [Edit buffer C]:                 C A B D E
;; Forward flip:      C [A] B D E   A C B D E
;;
;; iflipb by default ignores buffers whose names start with an asterix or
;; space. You can give a prefix argument to iflipb-next-buffer to make it flip
;; between more buffers. See the documentation of the variables
;; iflipb-ignore-buffers and iflipb-always-ignore-buffers for how to change
;; this.
;;
;;
;; INSTALLATION
;; ============
;;
;; To load iflipb, store iflipb.el in your Emacs load path and put
;;
;;   (require 'iflipb)
;;
;; in your .emacs file or equivalent.
;;
;; This file does not install any key bindings for the two commands. I
;; personally use M-h and M-H (i.e., M-S-h) since I don't use the standard
;; binding of M-h (mark-paragraph) and M-h is quick and easy to press. To
;; install iflipb with M-h and M-H as keyboard bindings, put something like
;; this in your .emacs:
;;
;;   (global-set-key (kbd "M-h") 'iflipb-next-buffer)
;;   (global-set-key (kbd "M-H") 'iflipb-previous-buffer)
;;
;; Another alternative is to use C-tab and C-S-tab:
;;
;;   (global-set-key (kbd "<C-tab>") 'iflipb-next-buffer)
;;   (global-set-key
;;    (if (featurep 'xemacs) (kbd "<C-iso-left-tab>") (kbd "<C-S-iso-lefttab>"))
;;     'iflipb-previous-buffer)
;;
;; Or perhaps use functions keys like F9 and F10:
;;
;;   (global-set-key (kbd "<f10>") 'iflipb-next-buffer)
;;   (global-set-key (kbd "<f9>")  'iflipb-previous-buffer)
;;
;;
;; ABOUT
;; =====
;;
;; iflipb was inspired by cycle-buffer.el
;; <http://kellyfelkins.org/pub/cycle-buffer.el>. cycle-buffer.el has some more
;; features, but doesn't quite behave like I want, so I wrote my own simple
;; replacement.
;;
;; Have fun!
;;
;; /Joel Rosdahl <joel@rosdahl.net>
;;

(defvar iflipb-ignore-buffers "^[*]"
  "*This variable determines which buffers to ignore when a
prefix argument has not been given to iflipb-next-buffer. The
value may be either a regexp string, a function or a list. If the
value is a regexp string, it describes buffer names to exclude
from the buffer list. If the value is a function, the function
will get a buffer name as an argument (a return value of nil from
the function means include and non-nil means exclude). If the
value is a list, the filter matches if any of the elements in the
value match.")
(defvar iflipb-always-ignore-buffers "^ "
  "*This variable determines which buffers to always ignore. The
value may be either a regexp string, a function or a list. If the
value is a regexp string, it describes buffer names to exclude
from the buffer list. If the value is a function, the function
will get a buffer name as an argument (a return value of nil from
the function means include and non-nil means exclude). If the
value is a list, the filter matches if any of the elements in the
value match.")
(defvar iflipb-current-buffer-index 0
  "Index of the currently displayed buffer in the buffer list.")
(defvar iflipb-include-more-buffers nil
  "Whether all buffers should be included while flipping.")
(defvar iflipb-saved-buffers nil
  "Saved buffer list state; the original order of buffers to the left
of iflipb-current-buffer-index.")

(defun iflipb-first-n (n list)
  "Returns the first n elements of a list."
  (butlast list (- (length list) n)))

(defun iflipb-filter (pred elements)
  "Returns elements that satisfy a predicate."
  (let ((result nil))
    (while elements
      (let ((elem (car elements))
            (rest (cdr elements)))
        (when (funcall pred elem)
          (setq result (cons elem result)))
        (setq elements rest)))
    (nreverse result)))

(defun iflipb-any (elements)
  "Returns non-nil if and only if any element in the list is non-nil."
  (iflipb-filter (lambda (x) (not (null x))) elements))

(defun iflipb-match-filter (string filter)
  "Returns non-nil if string matches filter, otherwise nil."
  (cond ((null filter) nil)
        ((functionp filter) (funcall filter string))
        ((listp filter)
         (iflipb-any (mapcar (lambda (f) (iflipb-match-filter string f))
                             filter)))
        ((stringp filter) (string-match filter string))
        (t (error "Bad iflipb ignore filter element: %s" filter))))

(defun iflipb-buffers-not-matching-filter (filter)
  "Returns a list of buffer names not matching a filter."
  (iflipb-filter
   (lambda (b) (not (iflipb-match-filter (buffer-name b) filter)))
   (buffer-list)))

(defun iflipb-interesting-buffers ()
  "Returns buffers that should be included in the displayed
buffer list."
  (iflipb-buffers-not-matching-filter
   (append
    (list iflipb-always-ignore-buffers)
    (if iflipb-include-more-buffers
        nil
      (list iflipb-ignore-buffers)))))

(defun iflipb-first-iflipb-buffer-switch-command ()
  "Determines whether this is the first invocation of
iflipb-next-buffer or iflipb-previous-buffer this round."
  (not (or (eq last-command 'iflipb-next-buffer)
           (eq last-command 'iflipb-previous-buffer))))

(defun iflipb-restore-buffers ()
  "Helper function that restores the buffer list to the original state."
  (mapc 'switch-to-buffer (reverse iflipb-saved-buffers)))

(defun iflipb-format-buffer (current-buffer buffer)
  "Format a buffer name for inclusion in the buffer list in the
minibuffer."
  (let ((name (buffer-name buffer)))
    (when (eq current-buffer buffer)
      (setq name (format "[%s]" name))
      (add-text-properties 1 (1- (length name)) '(face bold) name))
    name))

(defun iflipb-format-buffers (current-buffer buffers)
  "Format buffer names for displaying them in the minibuffer."
  (truncate-string-to-width
   (mapconcat
    (lambda (buffer)
      (iflipb-format-buffer current-buffer buffer))
    buffers
    " ")
   (1- (window-width (minibuffer-window)))))

(defun iflipb-select-buffer (index)
  "Helper function that shows the buffer with a given index."
  (iflipb-restore-buffers)
  (setq iflipb-saved-buffers nil)
  (let* ((buffers (iflipb-interesting-buffers))
         (current-buffer (nth index buffers)))
    (setq iflipb-current-buffer-index index)
    (setq iflipb-saved-buffers (iflipb-first-n index buffers))
    (message (iflipb-format-buffers current-buffer buffers))
    (switch-to-buffer current-buffer)))

(defun iflipb-next-buffer (arg)
  "Flip to the next buffer in the buffer list. Consecutive
invocations switch to less recent buffers in the buffer list.
Buffers matching iflipb-always-ignore-buffers are always ignored.
Without a prefix argument, buffers matching iflipb-ignore-buffers
are also ignored."
  (interactive "P")
  (when (iflipb-first-iflipb-buffer-switch-command)
    (setq iflipb-current-buffer-index 0)
    (setq iflipb-saved-buffers nil))
  (if arg
      (setq iflipb-include-more-buffers t)
    (if (iflipb-first-iflipb-buffer-switch-command)
      (setq iflipb-include-more-buffers nil)))
  (let ((buffers (iflipb-interesting-buffers)))
    (if (or (null buffers)
            (and (memq (window-buffer) buffers)
                 (= iflipb-current-buffer-index
                    (1- (length buffers)))))
        (message "No more buffers.")
      (iflipb-select-buffer (1+ iflipb-current-buffer-index)))
    (setq last-command 'iflipb-next-buffer)))

(defun iflipb-previous-buffer ()
  "Flip to the previous buffer in the buffer list. Consecutive
invocations switch to more recent buffers in the buffer list."
  (interactive)
  (when (iflipb-first-iflipb-buffer-switch-command)
    (setq iflipb-current-buffer-index 0)
    (setq iflipb-saved-buffers nil))
  (if (= iflipb-current-buffer-index 0)
      (message "You are already looking at the top buffer.")
    (iflipb-select-buffer (1- iflipb-current-buffer-index)))
  (setq last-command 'iflipb-previous-buffer))

(provide 'iflipb)