Expanding Text using abbrev and skeletons

Wed, Nov 23, 2022

My next investigation into trying to improve my emacs workflow is expanding entered text for repetitive tasks.

I’m not yet sure how useful this will be for me as I typically copy and paste my way through the creation of text files, especially org files. Maybe org-capture could be a help?

As always I want to try built in options to augment my vanilla emacs setup, so the obvious place to look is abbrev.

This facility can be geared towards fixing common spelling misteaks (ha!, see what I did there!) or expanding acronyms. I don’t really want to be using that aspect however as I read somewhere that you can link abbrevs to skels, my aim is to type a few unique characters which would autofill a common textual structure, for example PROPERTIES in an org file.

What about yasnippet! I all hear you vehemently proclaim!, but of course this is not built in, so no I shall not be considering this option for now.

I am not even familiar with defining a skeleton (skel), so what on earth am I thinking about jumping in like this for potentially a negligible return, well of course the answer is twofold:

it is fun, this is of course emacs we are talking about.
in the long run it will improve my productivity.

The usual way I approach absorbing something new is to first read around all the options and then to start simple. By simple I mean setting up some uncomplicated skeletons and elementary abbrevs to initially test my setup. Then after a while adjusting to this new way of working to gradually start learning the more complex and subtle aspects of the functionality.

Firstly lets try and set up a simple properties skeleton, namely :

(define-skeleton org-hugo-properties-skel
  "org properties skeleton."
  "\n"
  ":PROPERTIES:\n"
  ":EXPORT_FILE_NAME:\n"
  ":EXPORT_HUGO_LASTMOD: " (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d") "\n"
  ":EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :thumbnail\n"
  ":END:\n")

This is a typical setup for inserting a Hugo article into an org file ready for export, in fact this article is written using this framework.

I can call this by defining keybinding such as :

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c i p") 'org-hugo-properties-skel)

but I suspect my tiny brain is currently full to capacity of emacs keybindings and the ones that are in my head need a little more time to settle in before I commit to any more.

My overall idea is to define a family of common characters that I can insert for expansion as in this case I am talking about inserting a predefined set of text rather than some emacs function, so why commit to another keybinding?

So lets set up abbrev for this task, the first thing to do is to set up an abbrev_defs file for my abbreviation definitions in my emacs init file as thus:

(setq abbrev-file-name (concat home-dir "/content/abbrev_defs"))
(setq-default abbrev-mode t)

In this file I can define an elisp definition, by either linking a sequence of characters to a string or a skel, so I define thus :

(define-abbrev-table 'global-abbrev-table
  '(
     ("hugprop" "" org-hugo-properties-skel)
     ))

There are commands to insert, edit and perform various different operations on this file but really all I want for now is a simple text file that I edit in emacs to add in any new definitions.

So typing hugprop <space> gives me:

:PROPERTIES:
:EXPORT_FILE_NAME:
:EXPORT_HUGO_LASTMOD: 2022-12-11
:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :thumbnail
:END:
#+hugo: more

In the define-abbrev-table I can also define a mapping to a simple string, for example:

(define-abbrev-table 'global-abbrev-table
  '(
     ("hugprop" "" org-hugo-properties-skel)
     ("btw" "by the way" nil)
     ))

So now I have figured this out I am ready to go!

After a little while of using this method I was starting to struggle with updating the abbrev_defs and seeing its effects immediately in emacs. When I update to a new abbrev it means that I pretty much want to use it now!

I couldn’t really figure out an easy method of instantly making the newly added abbrev command available (except restarting emacs of course). There will be a way but it wasn’t quickly apparent to me and I suspect it was related to the fact that I am not adding to the abbrev_defs using an emacs function.

Before my investigations consumed too much time however I thought I would try something!.

I am not a great fan of configuration files cluttering up my system and certainly with emacs configuration I really am aiming with my vanilla-ish emacs setup to keep everything in one init file and as concise as possible. So why can’t I move the define-abbrev-table straight into my .emacs file? and just reevaluate an updated abbrev table?

Well the answer is that I can!

Problem solved. So if I feel the need to add more skeletons they can now be defined next to the abbreviation table and I can update immediately with a reevaluation in my emacs init file.

Next on my expanding text journey I think might take a look at dabbrev and hippie-expand

Expanding Text using abbrev and skeletons

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