4. Message and Input Bar

Command: echo string

Display string in the message bar.

Command: colon &optional initial-input

Read a command from the user. initial-text is optional. When supplied, the text will appear in the prompt.

4.1 Customizing The Bar

The bar’s appearance and behavior can be modified with the following functions and variables.

Function: set-fg-color color

Set the foreground color for the message bar and input bar. color can be any color recognized by X.

Function: set-bg-color color

Set the background color for the message bar and input bar. color can be any color recognized by X.

Function: set-border-color color

Set the border color for the message bar and input bar. color can be any color recognized by X.

Function: set-msg-border-width width

Set the border width for the message bar and input bar.

Function: set-font font

Set the font for the message bar and input bar.

Variable: *message-window-padding*

The number of pixels that pad the text in the message window.

Variable: *message-window-gravity*

This variable controls where the message window appears. The follow are valid values.

:top-left

:top-right

:bottom-left

:bottom-right

:center

Variable: *timeout-wait*

Specifies, in seconds, how long a message will appear for. This must be an integer.

Variable: *input-window-gravity*

This variable controls where the input window appears. The follow are valid values.

:top-left

:top-right

:bottom-left

:bottom-right

:center

4.2 Using The Input Bar

The following is a list of keybindings for the Input Bar. Users of Emacs will recognize them.

DEL

Delete the character before point (delete-backward-char).

M-DEL

Kill back to the beginning of the previous word (backward-kill-word).

C-d

Delete

Delete the character after point (delete-forward-char).

M-d

Kill forward to the end of the next word (forward-kill-word).

C-f

Right

Move forward one character (forward-char).

M-f

Move forward one word (forward-word).

C-b

Left

Move backward one character (backward-char).

M-b

Move backward one word (backward-word).

C-a

Home

Move to the beginning of the current line (move-beginning-of-line).

C-e

End

Move to the end of the current line (move-end-of-line).

C-k

Kill to the end of the line (kill-line).

C-u

Kill to the beginning of the line (kill-to-beginning), the same as C-a C-k.

C-p

Up

Move to the next earlier entry saved in the command history (history-back).

C-n

Down

Move to the next later entry saved in the command history (history-forward).

RET

Submit the entered command (submit).

C-g

Abort the current action by closing the Input Bar (abort).

C-y

Paste text from clipboard into the Input Bar (yank-selection).

TAB

Clockwise tab complete the current string, if possible. Press TAB again to cycle through completions.

S-TAB

Counter-clockwise tab complete the current string, if possible. Press S-TAB again to cycle through completions.

4.3 Programming The Message Bar

Function: echo-string screen msg

Display string in the message bar on screen. You almost always want to use message.

Function: message fmt &rest args

run FMT and ARGS through ‘format’ and echo the result to the current screen.

Variable: *input-history-ignore-duplicates*

Do not add a command to the input history if it’s already the first in the list.

Command: copy-last-message

Copy the last message displayed into the X selection

4.4 Programming the Input Bar

New input behavior can be added to the input bar by creating editing functions and binding them to keys in the *input-map* using define-key, just like other key bindings.

An input function takes 2 arguments: the input structure and the key pressed.

Function: read-one-line screen prompt &key (initial-input ) require-match

Read a line of input through stumpwm and return it. returns nil if the user aborted.

Function: read-one-char screen

Read a single character from the user.

Function: completing-read screen prompt completions &key (initial-input ) require-match

Read a line of input through stumpwm and return it with TAB completion. completions can be a list, an fbound symbol, or a function. if its an fbound symbol or a function then that function is passed the substring to complete on and is expected to return a list of matches. If require-match argument is non-nil then the input must match with an element of the completions.

Function: input-insert-string input string

Insert string into the input at the current position. input must be of type input-line. Input functions are passed this structure as their first argument.

Function: input-insert-char input char

Insert char into the input at the current position. input must be of type input-line. Input functions are passed this structure as their first argument.

Variable: *input-map*

This is the keymap containing all input editing key bindings.

This document was generated by David Bjergaard on November 1, 2014 using texi2html 1.82.