Re: bug#22873: Can we support multiple Cursors?

[Keith David Bershatsky]

Here is a duplicate copy of my recent e-mail and draft patch for the benefit of 
the address@hidden

I will add address@hidden to my list of automatic carbon-copy replies.

Thanks,

Keith

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Begin forwarded message:

> From: Keith David Bershatsky <address@hidden>
> Date: March 8, 2016 10:27:02 PM PST
> To: Marcin Borkowski <address@hidden>, John Wiegley <address@hidden>, Richard 
> Stallman <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: bug#22873: Can we support multiple Cursors?
> 
> The second draft of the proposed feature for multiple fake cursors is 
> attached.  For the record, I'm not a programmer -- just a hobbyist -- and the 
> draft patch is not meant to be a proposed official patch -- it is just a 
> working proof concept.  The patch contains a few extra things that I use for 
> debugging and also for drawing my solid vertical line that tracks the cursor 
> position.  It has been tested to some extent on Emacs built for OSX 10.6.8 
> and Windows XP (SP-3).  Different colors for each fake cursor have already 
> been implemented on Emacs for OSX, but I haven't yet looked into how to 
> accomplish that objective on Emacs for Windows.  The draft concept patch is 
> for the master branch as of March 8, 2016 bearing commit 
> "e0400b72a24d67b53f71c8b97915cae599e36c37".  After applying the patch, the 
> new feature can be tested as follows:
> 
> (defun mc-test (&optional list)
> "Draw fake cursors at all POS defined in the `mc-list'."
> (interactive)
>  (setq mc-list '(
>    (3 "hbar" [1.0 0.0 0.0])
>    (4 "bar" [0.0 1.0 0.0])
>    (5 "box" [0.0 0.0 1.0])
>    (6 "hollow" [1.0 1.0 1.0])
>    (7 ("hbar" 3) [1.0 0.0 1.0])
>    (8 ("bar" 3) [0.0 1.0 1.0]))))
> 
> (global-set-key [f1] 'mc-test)
> 
> To remove the cursors or change the cursors, just modify the buffer-local 
> variable `mc-list' -- e.g., `(setq mc-list nil)` removes them all.  The 
> colors on OSX are the standard RGB color vector.
> 
> Thank you, Marcin, for the referral to the ideit feature.  I will certainly 
> try that feature out in the next few days, but have been buried in life's 
> daily activities and also in acquiring the necessary skills to implement the 
> fake cursors feature.
> 
> It sure would be great if a real programmer (instead of just a hobbyist like 
> myself) could take this feature to the next level.  If the Windows setup is 
> anything similar to OSX, implementing colors should not be that difficult to 
> achieve (at least I hope that is the case).
> 
> I would like this feature to be similar to the original cursor such that a 
> variable like `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can be used to make the fake 
> cursors displayed in only the selected window or in all windows where those 
> points are visible.  At the present time, I've set it up so that only the 
> selected window receives the fake cursors (as that is my personal preference).
> 
> Thank you for taking an interest in this potential new feature,
> 
> Keith
> 
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> 
> At Sat, 05 Mar 2016 07:59:52 +0100,
> Marcin Borkowski wrote:
>> 
>> * * *
>> 
>> Out of curiosity: did you try iedit?  How does it compare wrt speed in
>> such extreme cases?  (If it's applicable at all, that is - it's way
>> simpler than multiple-cursors, of course.)
>

multiple_cursors.diff
Description: application/diff