path: root/2022/captions/emacsconf-2022-buttons--linking-personal-info-with-hyperbole-implicit-buttons--mats-lidell--main.vtt

WEBVTT captioned by sachac

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Hi everyone! I'm Mats Liddell.

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In this talk, I will show

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how you can link to personal data

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using Hyperbole's support for implicit button types.

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Before starting, a few words about me.

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I work as a software engineer,

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and in my spare time

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I'm co-maintaining the Hyperbole package

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together with the package author Bob Weiner.

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Hyperbole dates back to 1993,

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and have had some inactive years in the past,

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but work is now active again.

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The package is available

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through the GNU ELPA package archive.

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The talk will focus on

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creation of implicit button types.

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For more info on Hyperbole,

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listen to other presentations

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and check out the package documentation.

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What I want you to take with you from this talk is

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that the implicit button types

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can make patterns in your files into buttons;

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and that new implicit button types

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can quickly be created by using

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the `defil` and the `defal` macros.

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So what is an implicit button type?

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I think of it as a text pattern

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that has some extended meaning.

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When you see the pattern in the text,

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you can think of it as a button type.

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When you press the button,

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something related to that meaning happens.

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It can be jumping to some place,

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opening an external tool, doing some computation.

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So there can be some action

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associated with the pattern.

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To make it clear, let's look at some examples.

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Let's start with something that is maybe so obvious

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that you don't even think of it as a pattern: a file name.

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When you see such a string in text,

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you will naturally associate it with a file on disk,

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and if you would click on it,

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you would probably expect that file to open.

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In the first sentence on the slide,

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you might recognize the file name

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for the bash initialization file, ~/.bashrc.

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Hyperbole comes with built-in support

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for recognizing files and directory path names

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as implicit button types in text.

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For Hyperbole to take action on the button type,

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you move the cursor within the button

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and press M-RET or use a mouse click.

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So let's try that.

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Similar for the path, /usr/local in the next sentence.

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That will open the corresponding

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directory using dired-mode.

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Other examples of built-in implicit button types

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that Hyperbole recognizes are email addresses,

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web addresses, requests for comment documents

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in the form of RFC followed by a number,

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GNU debbugs issues, plus many more.

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These are some examples

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of implicit button types with built-in support.

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I list them here to give you an idea

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how the text pattern in itself is enough

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for the system to recognize it

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as something actionable.

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So as shown, Hyperbole has built-in support

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for implicit buttons.

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There's only one problem here.

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The behavior is predefined.

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There is of course a trade off.

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It is convenient to get

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many button types out of the box

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with likely good standard behavior

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and that works in many places.

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But what if you would want to create

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your own completely new mapping,

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possibly to your own data?

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It is here that Hyperbole's support for creating

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new implicit button types comes in.

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For the full pattern matching button type,

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like for the filename and examples we just looked at,

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you need to define the implicit button

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using the macro, `defib`.

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The downside of that is

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you need to code at the elisp level.

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However, if you are creating a new pattern

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that has well-defined delimiters,

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there is support for that in an easier way.

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These support functions, or rather macros,

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are `defil` and `defal`.

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We will look at those macros soon,

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but first, my definition of personal data.

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I think of personal data as something

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that you would like to link to,

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but it's not necessarily in a form

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supported by any known tool.

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It might be stored on a web server, local storage,

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or could even be some computation

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rather than a link.

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What all these cases have in common is that

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you want to be able to reference it

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in a short, and for you, descriptive way.

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So when you write text, you can use

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a new implicit type to create the connection.

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This might be a bit abstract,

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so let's look at an example.

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Suppose you have a flat file structure

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with some notes in each file.

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It can look like this.

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In the data folder, we have two files

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that represents the notes we have taken.

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We now want to be able to link to these notes

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from outside of the data folder.

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Let's make an implicit button type

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that opens a file in this structure.

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To make the pattern stand out in text,

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we use double braces as start and stop delimiters.

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An implicit button instance

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would then look like this.

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We can create that using the `defil` macro like this.

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This invocation of the field

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creates a button type "demo-link-to-file"

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with the start delimiter of "{{"

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and then delimiters of "}}",

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the regular expression ".*" pattern

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to match everything between the delimiters,

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and finally, the action defined by the link expression.

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Pattern substitution is performed

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on the link expression before evaluation

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so that the text that is in between the delimiters

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is inserted where the "\\&" is in the link expression.

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So all in all, implicit type instance will result in

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the link expression of "~/data/FileA",

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which we recognize as a file path.

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With a single-line expression,

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we have created our own hyperbutton syntax

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that we can use in any Emacs buffer

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to link to this custom set of data.

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So let's evaluate the defil and use it.

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I have prepared the files so that they already

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contain some text and implicit links.

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So from the presentation, we can go to FileA,

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and from there to fileB.

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Since the Hyperbole path expression

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supports outline structures, we can,

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as an extra bonus, reference directly

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the headers in the files,

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so we can, for example, link directly

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to "More Notes" in FileB.

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We have now created a simple info system.

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Looking deeper at the link expression,

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it can be of four different types:

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A file path expression,

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as we have already looked at;

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a brace-delimited key series,

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that is, a series of command keys

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for performing some action,

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much like a keyboard macro;

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An URL; or a function that takes one argument,

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which will be given the button text as input.

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The URL link expression allows you

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to link to web pages.

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So if the data you want to link to

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is accessible through the Web

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and the URL can be constructed

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from the button text in a meaningful way,

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it is possible to do that.

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Let's create the button type

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that links to GNU software.

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The URL to the GNU software catalog

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is www.gnu.org/software,

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and with what we know about the field,

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it is easy to create the button type for that.

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It can look like this.

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And here are two possible buttons

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linking to Emacs and Hyperbole.

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So let's again evaluate the defil and use it.

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Please note that not all GNU software

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is under that URL,

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so this simple definition will not work

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to link to everything.

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To highlight the fact that the button action

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does not have to be a link,

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but can be any action,

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let's look at a math example.

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Here is the button type that does some math

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and writes the result in the message area.

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Let's evaluate and use it.

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Before ending, I would like to mention

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the defal macro.

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It is similar to the defil macro,

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but simpler, since it uses a form

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of the implicit button type with no delimiters.

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It is simply <TYPE LINK-EXPR>.

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So the implicit button type contains the link type

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in clear text.

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Our recent FSF software button

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would be created like this.

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And it would be instantiated in text like this.

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I have shown how you,

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with the help of the defil macro in Hyperbole,

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quickly can create implicit buttons.

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With those buttons, you can link

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to your personal information

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in the form it may have.

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By the nature of the implicit buttons,

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those can be used from any file in Emacs.

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The button types can be

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created to be used long term,

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but even short term use within the session is possible,

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since the creation is simple and quick.

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Inspired by this, I hope you will find ways

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to create implicit buttons

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that will support you getting to your information.

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For the simplest cases,

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the field and the file macros might be enough.

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For more complicated cases,

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using a tailor-made function can be an option.

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If you know Elisp, use the defib macro

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which gives you full control over the button type.

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Thank you.