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Re: Opening multiple files in a single buffer?
From: |
Douglas Lewan |
Subject: |
Re: Opening multiple files in a single buffer? |
Date: |
Sat, 13 Jun 2020 11:20:55 -0400 |
User-agent: |
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.8.0 |
On 6/13/20 10:31 AM, Gregory Heytings wrote:
Dear List,
I've now been using Emacs for many, many years, and there is perhaps a
single feature I'm really missing, namely opening more than one file
in a single buffer, with the contents of the files appearing one after
the other in the same buffer, with some kind of visual separator
between them. I don't know if that feature exists in other text editors.
For example, suppose you write a book, which has fifteen chapters in
files chap1.tex, ..., chap15.tex. Opening these files in a single
buffer means that you could use isearch-{forward,backward} in the
whole book. (I know that multi-isearch-buffers could be used in this
particular case, but it is not as convenient to use.) You could also
use query-replace on the whole book, or reindent all files, or execute
shell-command on all files at once, and so forth. (Again I know that
all this can be done with already existing features, e.g. through
dired, but again I find them not as convenient as what I have in mind.)
Each file would have its own major and minor modes, and the mode-line
would adapt depending on the file corresponding to the buffer portion
in which the point is currently located.
My question is: Is this feasible, or is the one-to-one correspondence
between buffers and files too deeply rooted in Emacs' codebase that it
is not feasible? If it is feasible, could this feature be considered
for implementation in a future Emacs version?
I would say it's feasible, but probably awkward as stated. An
application that implements something similar via a sequence of buffers
with a way of navigating next and previous and providing appropriate
commands via a (map) function would probably be simpler to build and
manage. It would also be much more natural.
--
,Doug
d.lewan2000@gmail.com
(908) 720 7908
If this is what winning looks like, I'd hate to see what losing is.