Key-leap is a minor mode for Emacs that allows you to quickly jump to any visible line in the current window. When the mode is active, it will populate the margin of the buffer's window with a set of unique keywords.
By calling the interactive function key-leap-start-matching (C-c # by default), you can jump to any visible line by typing the keyword of that line.
The keywords are assigned to lines based on their distance from the top of the window. When scrolling through a buffer, the keys stay in the same position in the window.
Key-leap can be enabled in a buffer by calling M-x key-leap-mode.
Assuming you have set up your config to use the MELPA repository, the easiest way of installing key-leap is by doing M-x package-install RET key-leap RET.
You can also do a manual install by cloning this repositiory somewhere and telling Emacs where to find the folder containing the file key-leap.el.
$ git clone https://github.com/MartinRykfors/key-leap.git
Then add the following to your init.el:
(add-to-list 'load-path "path/to/key-leap")
(require 'key-leap)The default key sequence for the key-leap-start-matching command is C-c #. If you want a more suitable key sequence, you can create a new binding by adding the following to your config:
(define-key key-leap-mode-map (kbd "[your keys]") 'key-leap-start-matching)The variable key-leap-key-strings allows you to specify which characters to use in each position of the keywords. For instance, adding the following to your config
(setq key-leap-key-strings '("htn" "ao" "ht"))will make Key-leap generate and use these strings as keywords:
hah hat hoh hot tah tat toh tot nah nat noh not
key-leap-key-strings should always be set to a list of strings. The first string specifies what characters to use for the first position of the keywords. The second string specifies the characters for the second positon, and so on. The keywords will be as long as the number of strings that you specify with this variable.
By default, it will generate 125 three-letter keys from the letters of the home-row of a qwerty layout.
You should use a suitably large number of different characters for Key-leap to use. The number of combinations of characters should be bigger than the number of possible visible lines for your setup, but not too much bigger than that.
When calling the interactive command key-leap-start-matching, it will run the hooks key-leap-before-leap-hook and key-leap-after-leap-hook. To make it move the point to the first non-whitespace character of the line after leaping, add the following to your config:
(add-hook 'key-leap-after-leap-hook 'back-to-indentation)For more info on customization, please see the commentary in the file key-leap-mode.el, or have a look at Key-leap's customization group by calling M-x customize-group RET key-leap.
Key-leap's way of jumping between lines can be integrated with evil-mode to be used as a motion. This allows you to compose key-leap with operators to do things like deleting every line between the point and a line with a specific key.
The integration can be enabled by adding the following to your init.el:
(key-leap-create-evil-motion (kbd "<SPC>"))This defines a new evil motion, key-leap-evil-motion bound to <SPC> in the evil-motion-state-map. If the argument to key-leap-create-evil-motion is left out, no key binding will be created, only the motion is defined.
This function may only be called once both evil and key-leap have been loaded.
With this setup, you can delete every line between the point and the line with key hot by typing d<SPC>hot. The motion will also work with evil's visual states, and you will be able to undo leaping by pressing `` for instance.
This mode was inspired by the avy-goto-line command of avy-mode. I wanted that kind of functionality but with the following differences:
- The keys should be always visible, so that you are able to read the key and activate the leap command at the same time.
- You should be able to control the keyword generation so that they can be typed by alternating hands.
Key-leap was the result.
Bug reports, suggestions and pull requests are welcome!
Visit @rykarn if you want to say hi.
GPL v3