Re: Generalizing find-definition

[Stephen Leake]

Helmut Eller <address@hidden> writes:

>> Perhaps we need another dispatch/user option to choose this UI?
>
> I added a variable xref-show-xrefs-function so that people can
> experiment with alternative UIs.  I'm not sure if compilation-mode is
> able to handle locations that can't be represented as simple strings.

Ok, I'll give that a try.

> [...]
>> I'd actually prefer xref-find-definitions as the user function, and
>> xref-find-defintions-m as the dispatching function; the user function
>> can show more than one definition.
>
> I decided to call the backend functions xref-lookup-defintions and
> xref-lookup-references and the commands xref-find-defintions
> resp. xref-find-references.

Ok.


Another aspect of "cross reference" is to follow links such as:

1) http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs

2) admin/notes/commits

3) (info "(elisp)Syntax Class Table" "*info syntax class table*")

Currently, 1) is handled by browse-url-at-point, which is not bound to
any key by default.

Similarly, 2) is find-file-at-point

3) is handled by C-x C-e; I don't think we need to change that.

I have a function that combines 1 and 2 and similar links; it calls
ffap-string-at-point, compares that to an alist of (regexp . command),
and then defaults to find-file. The alist has:

      (cons "^ftp://"; 'browse-url-at-point)
      (cons "^http://"; 'browse-url-at-point)
      (cons "^https://"; 'browse-url-at-point)
      (cons "\\.bmp$" 'sal-w32-open)
      (cons "\\.bz2$" 'sal-w32-open)

etc.

Perhaps a similar function could be included in xref?

-- 
-- Stephe