marker-visit.el --- navigate through a buffer's marks in order in Emacs

marker-visit.el

;;; marker-visit.el --- navigate through a buffer's marks in order

;; Copyright (C) 2001 Benjamin Rutt
;;
;; Maintainer: Benjamin Rutt <brutt@bloomington.in.us>
;; Version: 1.1

;; This file is not part of GNU Emacs.

;; This file is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published
;; by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your
;; option) any later version.

;; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
;; GNU General Public License for more details.

;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
;; along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING.  If not, send e-mail to
;; this program's maintainer or write to the Free Software Foundation,
;; Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330; Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

;;; Commentary:

;; This file provides a simple way to navigate among marks in a
;; buffer.  C-u C-SPC is similar, but takes you haphazardly around the
;; buffer.  Setting bookmarks is a lot of extra work if you just want
;; to jump around your buffer quickly; plus, you have to come up with
;; a name for every bookmark.

;; All the marks you've left while editing a buffer serve as bread
;; crumb trails of areas in the buffer you've edited.  It is
;; convenient to navigate back and forth among these marks in order.
;; This file provides two methods to do just that, marker-visit-prev
;; and marker-visit-next.  These two functions will take you, from
;; point, to the nearest mark in either direction.  The function
;; marker-visit-truncate-mark-ring will truncate the mark ring.

;; The marks you can visit in a buffer consist of: "the mark" plus the
;; contents of the mark-ring.

;;; Usage:

;; put this file in your load-path and add the line
;;
;; (require 'marker-visit)
;;
;; to your ~/.emacs file.
;;
;; This package is most useful when some easy-to-press keys are bound
;; to the functions marker-visit-prev and marker-visit-next.  See C-h
;; i m Emacs RET m Key Bindings RET for info on emacs key bindings.

;;; History:

;; 1.0 -> 1.1 Incorporated patch from Colin Walters to make the code
;; consistent with elisp code conventions mentioned in 
;; (Info-goto-node "(elisp) Coding Conventions").

;;; Code:

;;utility remove-dupes function
(defun marker-visit-remove-dupes (ls)
  (cond
   ((null ls) '())
   ((member (car ls) (cdr ls)) (marker-visit-remove-dupes (cdr ls)))
   (t (cons (car ls) (marker-visit-remove-dupes (cdr ls))))))

;;create a sorted list of marks, including the point as mark, the
;;mark, and the contents of the mark-ring.
(defun marker-visit-get-sorted-mark-set (current-point-mark)
  (marker-visit-remove-dupes
   (sort
    (append (cons current-point-mark
		  (if (mark-marker) (list (mark-marker)) nil))
	    (mapcar (lambda (id) id) mark-ring))
    (lambda (a b) (< a b)))))

(defun marker-visit-no-markers-p ()
  (and (null mark-ring)
       (or (not (mark-marker))
	   (not (marker-position (mark-marker))))))

(defun marker-visit-warn (error-message)
  (message error-message)
  (beep))

;;;###autoload
(defun marker-visit-prev ()
  "From point, visit the nearest mark earlier in the buffer."
  (interactive)
  (if (marker-visit-no-markers-p)
      (marker-visit-warn "Mark does not point anywhere")
    (let* ((current-point-mark (point-marker))
	   (sorted-marks (marker-visit-get-sorted-mark-set current-point-mark))
	   (dest-mark nil))
      (while (not (equal current-point-mark (car sorted-marks)))
	(setq dest-mark (car sorted-marks))
	(setq sorted-marks (cdr sorted-marks)))
      (if dest-mark
	  (goto-char dest-mark)
	(marker-visit-warn "No previous mark to visit")))))

;;;###autoload
(defun marker-visit-next ()
  "From point, visit the nearest mark later in the buffer."
  (interactive)
  (if (marker-visit-no-markers-p)
      (marker-visit-warn "Mark does not point anywhere")
    (let* ((current-point-mark (point-marker))
	   (sorted-marks (marker-visit-get-sorted-mark-set current-point-mark))
	   (dest-mark nil)
	   (done nil))
      (while (not done)
	(if (equal current-point-mark (car sorted-marks))
	    (progn
	      (setq dest-mark (cadr sorted-marks))
	      (setq done t))
	  (setq sorted-marks (cdr sorted-marks))))
      (if dest-mark
	  (goto-char dest-mark)
	(marker-visit-warn "No next mark to visit")))))

;;;###autoload
(defun marker-visit-truncate-mark-ring ()
  "Truncate the `mark-ring'."
  (interactive)
  (setq mark-ring nil))

(provide 'marker-visit)

;; marker-visit.el ends here