IDO/helm support for apropos

[martintrojer]

Scenario; looking for a function somewhere in the codebase. All I have is the name.

M-x cider-apropos does what I want, but I would prefer the results to feed ido/helm as I am typing. Then when a var is selected, a buffer is opened at the correct line.

Also discussed here #1059

[bbatsov]

Yeah, we should cook something like this. Btw, you can add different action keys to ido so there can be options to go to the source, view the doc, conj.io, etc.

We'll implement something using completing-read and the apropos results and people will be able to pick by themselves what completion system is used.

[xiongtx]

Proof of concept for cider-apropos using Helm:

(require 'cider-apropos)

(defun cider-def-source--apropos (query)
  (helm-build-sync-source (concat "CIDER apropos: '" query "'")
    :action '(("Lookup doc" . cider-doc-lookup))
    :candidates (mapcar (lambda (dict)
                          (nrepl-dbind-response dict (name type doc)
                            (let* ((label (capitalize (if (string= type "variable") "var" type)))
                                   (help (concat "Display doc for this " (downcase label))))
                              (with-temp-buffer                                
                                (cider-propertize-region (list 'apropos-symbol name
                                                               'action 'cider-apropos-doc
                                                               'help-echo help)
                                  (insert-text-button name 'type 'apropos-symbol)
                                  (insert "\n") 
                                  (insert-text-button label 'type (intern (concat "apropos-" type)))
                                  (insert ": ") 
                                  (let ((beg (point)))
                                    (insert doc "\n")
                                    (fill-region beg (point-max)))) 
                                (cons (buffer-string)
                                      name)))))
                        (cider-sync-request:apropos query))
    :multiline t))

(helm :sources (cider-def-source--apropos "def")
      :buffer "*Helm CIDER apropos*")

Tip: Turn on helm-follow-mode with C-c C-f to quickly view documentation as you move through the list of candidates.

Other actions (e.g. cider-grimoire-lookup) can be easily added.

What I don't understand is how "jumping to source" works. I've love to have that as an action, but cider-docview-source is hard to grok. Would it be possible to have a function that takes a name like clojure.core/defn and jump to the source file?

[bbatsov]

Would it be possible to have a function that takes a name like clojure.core/defn and jump to the source file?

It already exists - cider-find-var.

[bbatsov]

I've just added a couple of new commands - cider-apropos-select and cider-apropos-documentation-select. Play with them and let me know what you think.

[martintrojer]

This works great.

One suggestion, I'd love to give a default selection for cider-apropos-act-on-symbol. In my case find-def.

[bbatsov]

One suggestion, I'd love to give a default selection for cider-apropos-act-on-symbol. In my case find-def.

File another issue about this and I'll look into it.

[martintrojer]

#1646

[xiongtx]

Isn't cider-apropos-documentation-select exactly the same as cider-apropos-documentation?

Below is cider-apropos-documentation-select:

(defun cider-apropos-documentation-select ()
  "Shortcut for (cider-apropos-select <query> nil t)."
  (interactive)
  (cider-ensure-connected)
  (cider-ensure-op-supported "apropos")
  (cider-apropos (read-string "Search for Clojure documentation (a regular expression): ") nil t))

And cider-apropos-documentation:

(defun cider-apropos-documentation ()
  "Shortcut for (cider-apropos <query> nil t)."
  (interactive)
  (cider-ensure-connected)
  (cider-ensure-op-supported "apropos")
  (cider-apropos (read-string "Search for Clojure documentation (a regular expression): ") nil t))

[bbatsov]

Ops. I've made a silly copy-paste mistake. I've just fixed it.

Thanks for bringing this up!

[xiongtx]

@martintrojer Can you try out Helm CIDER? This issue was the motivation this (not-yet-released) package, and Helm CIDER apropos is the first feature.

[martintrojer]

I tested it with IDO and it worked fine.