bln-mode: A minor mode for binary line navigation in Emacs

Introduction and Usage

Navigating the cursor across long lines of text by keyboard in Emacs can be cumbersome, since commands like forward-char, backward-char, forward-word, and backward-word move the cursor linearly, and potentially require a lot of repeated executions to arrive at the desired position. bln-mode addresses this issue. It defines the commands bln-forward-half and bln-backward-half that allow for navigating from any position in a line to any other position in that line by recursive binary subdivision.

For instance, if the cursor is at position K, invoking bln-backward-half will move the cursor to position K/2. Successively invoking bln-forward-half will move the cursor to K/2 + K/4, whereas a second invocation of bln-backward-half would move the cursor to K/2 - K/4.

Below is an illustration of how you can use binary line navigation to reach character e at column 10 from character b at column 34 in four steps:

                 +----------------+       bln-backward-half
                 |
        +--------+                        bln-backward-half
        |
        +---+                             bln-forward-half
            |
          +-+                             bln-backward-half
          |
..........e.......................b.....

This approach requires at most log(N) invocations to move from any position to any other position in a line of N characters. Note that when you move in the wrong direction---by mistakenly invoking bln-backward-half instead of bln-forward-half or vice versa---you can interrupt the current binary navigation sequence by moving the cursor away from its current position (for example, by forward-char). You can then start the binary navigation again from that cursor position.

Installation

Install the ELPA package from MELPA

M-x package-install bln-mode

Download and install with package.el manually

Download the HEAD of repository and install with:

M-x package-install-file.

Keybindings

The default keybindings are as follows:

Command	Key
bln-backward-half	C-c . j
bln-forward-half	C-c . k
bln-backward-half-v	C-c , j
bln-forward-half-v	C-c , k
bln-backward-half-b	C-c . h
bln-forward-half-b	C-c . l

Navigation using thse keybindings is rather cumbersome however. Using the hydra package, the following bindings provide a much more convenient interface:

(defhydra hydra-bln ()
  "Binary line navigation mode"
  ("j" bln-backward-half "Backward in line")
  ("k" bln-forward-half "Forward in line")
  ("u" bln-backward-half-v "Backward in window")
  ("i" bln-forward-half-v "Forward in window")
  ("h" bln-backward-half-b "Backward in buffer")
  ("l" bln-forward-half-b "Forward in buffer"))
(define-key bln-mode-map (kbd "M-j") ’hydra-bln/body)

In this setup you press M-j to start the navigation, and press any sequence of j, k, u, i, h, l to navigate. Any other key will terminate the navigation.