dynamic-spaces - Don't move text separated by multiple spaces

Author: Anders Lindgren
Version: 0.0.1
URL: https://github.com/Lindydancer/dynamic-spaces

When editing a text, and dynamic-spaces-mode is enabled, text separated by more than one space doesn't move, if possible. Concretely, end-of-line comments stay in place when you edit the code and you can edit a field in a table without affecting other fields.

For example, this is the content of a buffer before an edit (where * represents the cursor):

alpha*gamma         delta
one two             three

When inserting "beta" without dynamic spaces, the result would be:

alphabeta*gamma         delta
one two             three

However, with dynamic-spaces-mode enabled the result becomes:

alphabeta*gamma     delta
one two             three

Usage

To enable dynamic spaces for all supported modes, add the following to a suitable init file:

    (dynamic-spaces-global-mode 1)

Or, activate it for a specific major mode:

    (add-hook 'example-mode-hook 'dynamic-spaces-mode)

Alternatively, use M-x customize-group RET dynamic-spaces RET.

Space groups

Two pieces of text are considered different (and dynamic-spaces-mode tries to keep then in place) if they are separated by a "space group". The following is, by default, considered space groups:

• A TAB character.
• Two or more whitespace characters.

However, the following are not considered space groups:

• whitespace in a quoted string.
• Two spaces, when preceded by a punctuation character and sentence-end-double-space is non-nil.
• Two spaces, when preceded by a colon and colon-double-space is non-nil.

Configuration

You can use the following variables to modify the behavior or dynamic-spaces-mode:

• dynamic-spaces-mode-list - List of major modes where dynamic spaces mode should be enabled by the global mode.
• dynamic-spaces-avoid-mode-list - List of major modes where dynamic spaces mode should not be enabled.
• dynamic-spaces-global-mode-ignore-buffer - When non-nil in a buffer, dynamic-spaces-mode will not be enabled in that buffer when dynamic-spaces-global-mode is enabled.
• dynamic-spaces-commands - Commands that dynamic spaces mode should adjust spaces for.
• dynamic-spaces-keys - Keys, in kbd format, that dynamic spaces mode should adjust spaces for. (This is needed as many major modes define electric command and bind them to typical edit keys.)
• dynamic-spaces-find-next-space-group-function - A function that would find the next dynamic space group.

Notes

By default, this is disabled for org-mode since it interferes with the org mode table edit system.

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Converted from dynamic-spaces.el by el2markdown.