Chicken Scratches

Previously, I wrote about how I set up syntax-highlighting for Django template files using MMM (multiple major modes) in XEmacs. This entry builds on the previous one, so if you haven't read that one, I suggest doing so now.

This post addresses the age old question, "If (X)Emacs is so good, why can't it do the typing for me?" Well, the answer, of course, is it can. You just have to write a few lines of Lisp first. Or you can copy and paste the Lisp code off of sites like this one. ;)

Introducing dynamic abbreviations

Pressing M-/, (that is, holding down the Alt key and pressing the forward slash key), runs the command dabbrev-expand, which tries to finish whatever word you are in the middle of typing. For example, if as I'm typing this entry, I type the letter d, then press M-/, "dabbrev-expand" shows up, because that was the last word I typed that started with d. If I then type M-/ again, "dabbrev-expand" changes to "down". If I keep pressing it, the word cycles through different guesses for what I'm going for. If you've ever used VisualStudio, you may see some similarities to the Intellisense feature. I find I almost never type a whole word anymore, I've become so dependent on dynamic completion.

Templates and more abbreviations

dabbrev-expand is useful to avoid having to type long words over and over, but there are also longer patterns that seem to need typing frequently. Thats where the tempo package comes in handy, especially when combined with the abbrev library. Here is some documentation for tempo. Here is some documentation for abbrev.

Essentially, tempo allows you to specify "templates," or blocks of standard text that can be parameterized as they are filled in: the same concept as Django templates, but meant for interactive use. From now on, I will say "tempo template" or "Django template" to avoid confusing the two types.

abbrev lets you define your own pre-set abbreviations, which can be filled in automatically as you type or upon request. This can be combined with tempo to do some pretty powerful stuff very easily.

I have a few Django-specific tempo templates and abbrevs set up in my XEmacs initialization file. For example, as soon as I type "{% block" followed by a space, the entire framework of a Django template block is filled in for me. I've also added a special menu to the menu bar for tempo templates I use frequently.

HTML and templates can be very repetitive, so I've found this saves me a lot of typing.

My initialization file

Here is the subset of my ~/.xemacs/init.el file. This includes the mmm-mode stuff I discussed last time, as well as the tempo templates and abbrevs. I haven't put a tempo template for every possible Django template tag, just the ones I use most frequently. I'll leave further extension as an exercise for the reader.

Also, some people don't like the expansion to happen automatically as they are typing. To turn this off, comment out the line that says "(setq abbrev-mode t)" by putting a semicolon (;) in front of it. Then you can manually expand tempo templates by pressing C-\ (control-backslash).

Once again, this is known to work in XEmacs version 21.4 on Windows XP. It will most likely work in other versions of XEmacs, and possibly in GNU Emacs.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; CSS-Mode
(autoload 'css-mode "css-mode" "Mode for editing CSS files" t)
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.css\\'" . css-mode))
(setq cssm-indent-function #'cssm-c-style-indenter)
(setq cssm-indent-level '2)

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Use hm--html-mode for files that end in .tmpl (Django templates)
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.tmpl\\'" . hm--html-mode))

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Multiple Major Modes.
(require 'mmm-vars)
(require 'mmm-mode)
(require 'mmm-sample)
(setq mmm-global-mode 'maybe)

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Custom MMM classes for Django templates
(mmm-add-classes
 '((my-django-expr
    :submode python-mode
    :face mmm-declaration-submode-face
    :front "{%"
    :back "%}"
    :include-front t
    :include-back t)))

(mmm-add-classes
 '((my-django-var
    :submode python
    :face mmm-output-submode-face
    :front "{{"
    :back "}}"
    :include-front t
    :include-back t)))

(mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.tmpl\\'" 'embedded-css)
(mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.tmpl\\'" 'my-django-var)
(mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.tmpl\\'" 'my-django-expr)
(mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.tmpl\\'" 'html-js)

;; Use different colors for different sub-modes.
(setq mmm-submode-decoration-level 2)
;; Make the code submode a little more readable.
(set-face-background 'mmm-code-submode-face "#EEEEFF")


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Tempo templates and abbrevs

;; Control-backslash to expand a tempo template manually.
(global-set-key "\C-\\" 'tempo-complete-tag)

(require 'adapt) ; Must be done before hm--html for some reason.
(require 'hm--html-mode) ; Needed for hm--html-mode-abbrev-table
(require 'tempo) ; Tempo templates.


;; Expands <span into an HTML span with a class defined.
(tempo-define-template "span"
                       '("<span class=\"" (p "Class? ") "\">" r "</span>" >)
                       "<span "
                       "Insert a template for a span with a class")
(define-abbrev hm--html-mode-abbrev-table
  "<span" "" 'tempo-template-span)

;; Expands <script into an HTML javascript block.
(tempo-define-template "script"
                       '(> "<script type=\"text/javascript\">" r "</script>" > %)
                       "<script "
                       "")
(define-abbrev hm--html-mode-abbrev-table
  "<script" "" 'tempo-template-script)

;; Expands a Django template block.
(tempo-define-template "block"
                       '("{% block " (p "Block name? ") " %}" p "{% endblock %}")
                       "{% block "
                       "")
(define-abbrev hm--html-mode-abbrev-table
  "{% block" "" 'tempo-template-block)

;; Expands a Django template if tag.
(tempo-define-template "django-if"
                       '("{% if " (p "Conditional? ") " %}" p "{% endif %}")
                       "{% if "
                       "")
(define-abbrev hm--html-mode-abbrev-table
  "{% if" "" 'tempo-template-django-if)

;; Expands a Django template for tag.
(tempo-define-template "django-for"
                       '("{% for "
                         (p "Variable? ") " in "
                         (p "List? ") " %}" p
                         "{% endfor %}")
                       "{% for "
                       "")
(define-abbrev hm--html-mode-abbrev-table
  "{% for" "" 'tempo-template-django-for)

;; Create a menu for inserting these templates.
(defun add-templates-menu ()
  (interactive)
  (add-submenu nil '("Tem%_plates"
                     ["{%% %_block %%}" tempo-template-block]
                     ["{%% %_if %%}" tempo-template-django-if]
                     ["{%% %_for %%}" tempo-template-django-for]
                     ["<%_span>" tempo-template-span]
                     ["<s%_cript>" tempo-template-script])))

;; When entering hm--html-mode, turn on abbrevs and add the template menu.
(add-hook 'hm--html-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (setq abbrev-mode t)
            (add-templates-menu)))
            

NOTE: This post is pretty old, and I no longer use mmm-mode for Django template editing. This post and this post are still accurate, though.

Every programmer has their favorite editor and mode of working. Some people have more than one. For example, I use Microsoft Visual Studio when editing .NET code, DrScheme for editing Scheme code, and XEmacs for pretty much everything else.

This post is about how I use XEmacs for editing Django template files, in the hopes that others may find this useful.

The "Other" One True Editor

It's rare that people will get passionate about something as pedestrian as a way of editing plain text, but the brief history of the internet is awash with flamewars and heated discussions with titles like "Emacs vs. XEmacs," "Emacs vs vi," and so on. I'm not about to go into the relative merits, but the fact that certain editors pop up time and time again in these debates must mean there is something special about them.

Early on in my college education I started using Emacs because it was all that was available on the school's servers. (Well, that or vi, but vi was and still is black-magic to me.) I got over the learning curve, and now I'm hooked.

At some point, I switched from Emacs to XEmacs, for reasons I can't remember. At the time, it had some feature which was to me essential. That reason no longer applies, but neither have I had a reason to switch back. These tips may apply even if you use GNU Emacs, but they've only been tested in XEmacs.

My current setup is Xemacs 21.4 (patch 20), running on Windows XP. *gasp!* Yes, I use Windows for Django development. Shocking, I know. I have my reasons. In any case, these tips should work equally well with XEmacs on other platforms.

Multiple Major Modes

I won't include a full XEmacs tutorial here, since there is already plenty of info on the web about it. The key point is that there is a "major mode" for each programming environment. There is a Python mode, a Java mode, and so on. Django templates tend to combine more than one language in a file, so that's when the mmm library comes in handy. It stands for "multiple major modes," and it turns out to be just exactly what we need. We can have html-mode for the HTML parts, JavaScript-mode for the JavaScript parts, css-mode for embedded CSS, and python-mode for the Django template filters and tags.

Which HTML mode?

As often happens in the world of Free Software, there are several options to choose from when setting up HTML editing in XEmacs.

• html-mode. This has the fullest support for HTML parsing and validation. The problem is, when dealing with templates, the HTMl will often not validate, so all kinds of error messages show up.
• sgml-mode. This is a more general mode for SGML (of which XML and HTML 4 are subsets).
• xml-mode. SGML mode specialized for XML.
• hm--html-mode. I have no idea what the HM stands for, but this is a lightweight HTML mode, with basic syntax highlighting and indentation.

I use html-mode for full-fledged HTML documents, and hm--html-mode for templates. So that XEMacs can tell the difference, I use the suffix ".tmpl" for template files.

One problem

I did run into some problems getting mmm-mode to work with XEmacs. It turns out the version of mmm-mode that is distributed with the XEmacs package system is ancient - from 2001. I had to download the newer version of mmm-mode and unzip it into my site-packages directory.

How it looks

Here's a screenshot of me editing an example Django template (borrowed from my beta-registration Django app). I've chosen fairly bright colors to make the syntax highlighting more obvious, but that's all customizable. Notice how the Django tags and variables are easy to find in the file. (Click on the image for a larger size.)

My initialization file

Here is the subset of my ~/.xemacs/init.el file dealing with setting up mmm-mode for XEmacs. I hope someone finds this useful. Let me know if you do, or if you encounter problems.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; CSS-Mode
(autoload 'css-mode "css-mode" "Mode for editing CSS files" t)
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.css\\'" . css-mode))
(setq cssm-indent-function #'cssm-c-style-indenter)
(setq cssm-indent-level '2)

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Use hm--html-mode for files that end in .tmpl (Django templates)
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.tmpl\\'" . hm--html-mode))

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Multiple Major Modes.
(require 'mmm-vars)
(require 'mmm-mode)
(require 'mmm-sample)
(setq mmm-global-mode 'maybe)

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Custom MMM classes for Django templates
(mmm-add-classes
 '((my-django-expr
    :submode python-mode
    :face mmm-declaration-submode-face
    :front "{%"
    :back "%}"
    :include-front t
    :include-back t)))

(mmm-add-classes
 '((my-django-var
    :submode python
    :face mmm-output-submode-face
    :front "{{"
    :back "}}"
    :include-front t
    :include-back t)))

(mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.tmpl\\'" 'embedded-css)
(mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.tmpl\\'" 'my-django-var)
(mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.tmpl\\'" 'my-django-expr)
(mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.tmpl\\'" 'html-js)

;; Use different colors for different sub-modes.
(setq mmm-submode-decoration-level 2)
;; Make the code submode a little more readable.
(set-face-background 'mmm-code-submode-face "#EEEEFF")