Re: Edit region in different mode

[Mathias Dahl]

Albert Reiner <areiner@tph.tuwien.ac.at> writes:

> ...I would like to get a new buffer with everything between point
> and mark (or maybe some other positions found by searching), set a
> different editing mode in that new buffer, and have the editing take
> effect in the original buffer when I am done.  I suspect this should
> be possible by some combination of clone-indirect-buffer and
> narrowing but I don't quite know how to go about this.


You could create two macros that helps you out, one that copies the
region and pastes it into a temporary buffer and enter some mode:

M-w                     ;; kill-ring-save
C-x b                   ;; iswitchb-buffer
tempo                   ;; self-insert-command * 5
RET                     ;; newline
C-y                     ;; yank
M-x                     ;; execute-extended-command
text                    ;; self-insert-command * 4
SPC                     ;; self-insert-command
mode                    ;; self-insert-command * 4
RET                     ;; newline

And a macro that copies all text in the temp buffer, kills the buffer,
goes back to the previous buffer, deletes the region and pastes what
was copied:

<C-home>                ;; beginning-of-buffer
C-SPC                   ;; set-mark-command
<C-end>                 ;; end-of-buffer
M-w                     ;; kill-ring-save
C-x k                   ;; kill-buffer
RET                     ;; newline
M-x                     ;; execute-extended-command
delete                  ;; self-insert-command * 6
SPC                     ;; self-insert-command
reg                     ;; self-insert-command * 3
TAB                     ;; indent-for-tab-command
RET                     ;; newline
C-y                     ;; yank

For your convenience, should you decide to use them, here they are for
pasting into your .emacs:

(fset 'edit-region-in-tempo
   [?\M-w ?\C-x ?b ?t ?e ?m ?p ?o ?\C-m ?\C-y ?\M-x ?t ?e ?x ?t ?  ?m ?o ?d ?e 
?\C-m])

(fset 'edit-region-in-tempo-go-back
   [C-home ?\C-  C-end ?\M-w ?\C-x ?k return ?\M-x ?d ?e ?l ?e ?t ?e ?  ?r ?e 
?g tab return ?\C-y])

Ah, the wonders of keyboard macros!

Of course, neither of these macros are very hard to write in some
lines of elisp.

/Mathias