An Emacs Minor Mode

An open source (MIT-0), GNU Emacs, minor mode for Tcl/Tk.

The Tcl Digraphs Minor Mode makes it easier to edit Tcl by mapping some two-stroke key combinations to frequently used notation. Although Tcl has a simple syntax (the Dodekalogue) and a small number of special characters, that syntax and those characters often involve multiple, sometimes shifted, keystrokes. Shortcuts are faster.

The Emacs describe-minor-mode function lists the twenty-plus digraphs.

Installation and Use

• copy tcl-digraphs.el into a directory on the Emacs load-path
• add (require 'tcl-digraphs) to your init.el
• add (add-hook 'tcl-mode-hook 'tcl-digraph-minor-mode)
• M-x tcl-digraph-minor-mode as needed

Customization

• tcl-digraph-prefix customizes the first character of a digraph.
  By default it is the semicolon (;), which is convenient on typical U.S. keyboards, but other language layouts have better choices, e.g., hyphen (‑) on the US Dvorak-, asterisk (*) on the French-, number-sign (#) on the German-, dollar-sign ($) on the Swiss-, or masculine-ordinal-indicator (º) on the Portuguese- layout.

Bibliography

• EuroTcl2019: Tcl Digraphs, Emacs Tcl Minor Mode, Michael Kaelbling, EuroTcl2019, Munich, Germany, June 2019. Video ca. 7 min. Version 3.4, Slides

• Code by Voice a tangential topic. Voice-coding also uses shortcuts, and this might be a fruitful area for co-operative work.

Acknowledgments

• Matthias Saft – for comments on the interface and presentation.
• Peter Spjuth – for suggestions on Emacs integration.