Last time
I tailored my own helm-do-grep-ag to show you how I use ripgrep within Helm.
However, I missed something: the mode-line.
The default mode-line Helm offers for helm-do-grep-ag doesn’t fit well with my
custom one, which is a minimal1 version of the excellent
doom-modeline. It’s a two-fold
issue: my mode-line is bigger than the default one and I don’t need all the
information usually printed by helm-do-grep-ag.
By inspecting Helm source code one can easily find out what helm-do-grep-ag
does on
mode-line-format.
Basically, among other things helm-grep-ag-init sets up the value for
mode-line-format according to the number of results. Very well, then, it’s
time to bring el-patch back
in the game.
First, though, aesthetics.
(set-face-bold 'helm-grep-finish t)
I am just making helm-grep-finish bold, nothing serious.
(el-patch-defun helm-grep-ag-init (directory &optional type)
"Start AG process in DIRECTORY maybe searching only files of type TYPE."
(let ((default-directory (or (el-patch-swap
helm-ff-default-directory
(mu--project-root))
(helm-default-directory)
default-directory))
(cmd-line (helm-grep-ag-prepare-cmd-line
helm-pattern (or (file-remote-p directory 'localname)
directory)
type))
(el-patch-remove
(start-time (float-time)))
(proc-name (helm-grep--ag-command)))
(set (make-local-variable 'helm-grep-last-cmd-line) cmd-line)
(el-patch-remove
(helm-log "Starting %s process in directory `%s'"
proc-name directory)
(helm-log "Command line used was:\n\n%s"
(concat ">>> " cmd-line "\n\n")))
(prog1
(start-file-process-shell-command proc-name helm-buffer cmd-line)
(set-process-sentinel
(get-buffer-process helm-buffer)
(lambda (process event)
(let* ((err (process-exit-status process))
(noresult (= err 1))
(el-patch-add
(proc (concat " HELM " proc-name))))
(el-patch-swap
(cond (noresult
(with-helm-buffer
(insert (concat "* Exit with code 1, no result found,"
" command line was:\n\n "
(propertize helm-grep-last-cmd-line
'face 'helm-grep-cmd-line)))
(setq mode-line-format
`(" " mode-line-buffer-identification " "
(:eval (format "L%s" (helm-candidate-number-at-point))) " "
(:eval (propertize
(format
"[%s process finished - (no results)] "
,(upcase proc-name))
'face 'helm-grep-finish))))))
((string= event "finished\n")
(helm-log "%s process finished with %s results in %fs"
proc-name
(helm-get-candidate-number)
(- (float-time) start-time))
(helm-maybe-show-help-echo)
(with-helm-window
(setq mode-line-format
`(" " mode-line-buffer-identification " "
(:eval (format "L%s" (helm-candidate-number-at-point))) " "
(:eval (propertize
(format
"[%s process finished in %.2fs - (%s results)] "
,(upcase proc-name)
,(- (float-time) start-time)
(helm-get-candidate-number))
'face 'helm-grep-finish))))
(force-mode-line-update)
(when helm-allow-mouse
(helm--bind-mouse-for-selection helm-selection-point))))
(t (helm-log
"Error: %s %s"
proc-name
(replace-regexp-in-string "\n" "" event))))
(if noresult
(with-helm-buffer
(setq mode-line-format
`(""
mu-mode-line-bar
" "
(:eval
(propertize
(format "%s [no results]" ,proc)
'face 'helm-grep-finish)))))
(with-helm-window
(setq mode-line-format
`(""
mu-mode-line-bar
" "
(:eval
(propertize
(format "%s [%s results]"
,proc (helm-get-candidate-number))
'face 'helm-grep-finish))))
(force-mode-line-update))))))))))
Let’s break down my changes:
(default-directory (el-patch-swap
(or helm-ff-default-directory
(helm-default-directory)
default-directory)
(or (mu--project-root)
(helm-default-directory)
default-directory)))
This has nothing do to with the mode-line, actually, but why not re-use mu–-project-root here? Exactly.
I also removed all the helm-log references, because I am confident my Elisp-fu
will not need debugging.2 Anyway, I want the buffer identification to look
like the rest of the Helm buffer identifications in my mode-line:
(proc (concat " HELM " proc-name))
I am going to use only ripgrep for my searches, so proc-name is usually rg
here, but one never knows what will come next.
When there are no results to be shown, I don’t want a message in the Helm buffer, just a clean feedback:
(setq mode-line-format
`((:eval mu-mode-line-bar)
" "
(:eval
(propertize
(format "%s [no results]" ,proc)
'face 'helm-grep-finish))))
The same goes for one or more results:
(setq mode-line-format
`((:eval mu-mode-line-bar)
" "
(:eval
(propertize
(format "%s [%s results]"
,proc
(helm-get-candidate-number))
'face 'helm-grep-finish))))
mu-mode-line-bar is what makes my mode-line bigger and I borrowed it from
doom-mode-line, so go check its fantastic code to find out about this magic
trick.
Finally, this is how the mode-line looks after M-? when the
ripgrep process finishes:
And for the sake of completeness, this is how it looks when I move through the
results with C-p and C-n:
By the way, the colours are courtesy of modus-vivendi, a great theme by Protesilaos Stavrou I’ve recently switched to.