iquiw/smart-mode-line

A fixed width smart mode line for Emacs.

smart-mode-line

A fixed width smart mode line for Emacs.

Usage:

Make sure "smart-mode-line.el" is in your load path, then place this code in your .emacs file:

(require 'smart-mode-line)
(if after-init-time (sml/setup)
  (add-hook 'after-init-hook 'sml/setup))

Description

Smart Mode Line is a mode-line format that aims to be easy to read from small to large monitors by using a prefix feature and smart truncation. Its main features are:

1. Color coded:
   Highlights the most important information for you (buffer name, modified state, line number). Don't like the colors? See item 4)!

2. Fixed width (if you want):
   Lets you set a maxium width for the path name and mode names, and truncated intelligently (truncates the directory, not the buffer name).

3. Fancy features:
   Prefix feature saves a LOT of space. e.g. "~/.emacs.d/" is translated to ":ED:" in the path (open a file inside this folder to see it in action). Long path names you are commmonly working on are displayed as short abbreviations. Set your own prefixes to make best use of it (by configuring sml/replacer-regexp-list). Mousing over the abbreviated path will show you the full path. See below for examples. Hidden-modes feature saves even more space. Select which minor modes you don't want to see listed by customizing the sml/hidden-modes variable. This will filter out the modes you don't care about and unclutter the modes list (mousing over the modes list still shows the full list).

4. Very easy to configure:
   All fonts are in the smart-mode-line-faces customization group, and all other options are in smart-mode-line. Just run sml/customize and see what's in there. If you feel anything is missing send me an e-mail.

5. Compatible with battery-display-mode: Just turn the mode on to have the battery level displayed. sml uses a very short syntax for the battery. Only the battery level is displayed (with no % symbol), and green/red font means charging/discharging respectively. sml/battery-format controls this format.

Important Variables:

All variables can be edited by running sml/customize, and the documentations are mostly self explanatory, I list here only the most important ones.

Note: We use an after-init-hook in the installation because we need sml/setup to override the theme's colors for the mode-line. See the documentattion on the sml/override-theme variable for more information.

1. sml/shorten-directory and sml/shorten-modes
   Setting both of these to t garantees a fixed width mode-line (directory name and modes list will be truncated to fit). To actually define the width, see below.

2. sml/name-width and sml/mode-width
   Customize these according to the width of your emacs frame. I set them to 40 and 'full respectively, and the mode-line fits perfectly when the frame is split in two even on my laptop's small 17" monitor.

3. sml/replacer-regexp-list
   This variable is a list of (REGEXP REPLACEMENT) that is used to parse the path. The replacements are applied sequentially. This allows you to greatly abbreviate the path that's shown in the mode-line. If this abbreviation is of the form ":SOMETHING:", it is considered a prefix and get's a different color (you can change what's considered a prefix by customizing sml/prefix-regexp).
   For example, if you do a lot of work on a folder called "~/Dropbox/Projects/In-Development/" almost half the mode-line would be occupied just by the folder name, which is much less important than the buffer name. But, you can't just hide the folder name, since editting a file in "~/Dropbox/Projects/In-Development/Source" is VERY different from editting a file in "~/Dropbox/Projects/Source". By setting up a prefix for your commonly used folders, you get all that information without wasting all that space. In this example you could set the replacement to ":ProjDev:" or just ":InDev:", so the path shown in the mode-line will be ":ProjDev:Source/" (saves a lot of space without hiding information).

Here go some more useful examples:

(add-to-list 'sml/replacer-regexp-list '("^~/Dropbox/Projects/In-Development/" ":ProjDev:"))
(add-to-list 'sml/replacer-regexp-list '("^~/Documents/Work/" ":Work:"))

;; Added in the right order, they even work sequentially:
(add-to-list 'sml/replacer-regexp-list '("^:DB:Documents" ":DDocs:"))
(add-to-list 'sml/replacer-regexp-list '("^~/Dropbox/" ":DB:"))
(add-to-list 'sml/replacer-regexp-list '("^:Git:\\(.*\\)/src/main/java/" ":G/\\1/SMJ:"))
(add-to-list 'sml/replacer-regexp-list '("^~/Git-Projects/" ":Git:"))