autoscratch - solve the scratch buffer problem

I use emacs for more than 20 years now. I love it, I am addicted, I can't even do anything productive without it. However, there was one problem left: the *scratch* buffer. This is a non-file buffer, which always exists always in emacs. By default it has emacs-lisp-mode enabled and you can use it to hack short elisp sexps for testing. In fact I use it for exactly this purpose.

But sometimes I hate it as well! I get a phone call and need to take a note quickly, *scratch* is already open, so I use this. But the mode doesn't really fit. So I switch to text-mode and then enter the notes. I did it this way almost since day one of my emacs usage.

A couple of months ago I came up with a "solution", I just create a *text* buffer on startup with text-mode already enabled in my .emacs. But I still need to switch to it everytime I need it. Still too annoying!

So now, here's my final solution, which tries to fix this mess once and for all: autoscratch.

This major mode is really simple. Basically it consits of an alist with instructions on how to automatically switch the *scratch* buffer mode. Enter an "(" and it switches to emacs-lisp-mode, enter "*" and it switches to org-mode, enter some letter a-z, and it switches to text-mode. You get the idea.

It also solves another problem I (and many other users according to google) have: once I set the *scratch* buffer mode to, say, *text-mode* with some text in there, I don't have an elisp *scratch* buffer left anymore. I'd need another one, but how to create a second *scratch* buffer? Obviously you'll need to rename the current text-mode buffer first and then create a new empty buffer. The emacs wiki contains lots of suggestions for this kind of solution.

No more of this! Autoscratch can just "fork" the buffer, if enabled (set autoscratch-fork-after-trigger to t which is the default). Here's how it works: type a "(" into the empty autoscratch-enabled *scratch* buffer. Autoscratch renames this buffer to *emacs-lisp-scratch*, enables emacs-lisp-mode and creates a new *scratch* buffer in the background. So, if you need some *scratch* space, it'll be there for you waiting bravely for input.

Here's the default trigger list telling autoscratch how to switch modes:

'(("[(;]"         . (emacs-lisp-mode))
  ("#"            . (autoscratch-select
                     '(("perl"   . (cperl-mode))
                       ("ruby"   . (ruby-mode))
                       ("python" . (python-mode))
                       ("conf"   . (conf-unix-mode))
                       ("shell"  . (shell-script-mode)))))
  ("[-a-zA-Z0-9]" . (text-mode))
  ("/"            . (c-mode))
  ("*"            . (progn (insert " ") (org-mode)))
  ("."            . (fundamental-mode)))

Now if you configure autoscratch like this:

(require 'autoscratch-mode)
(setq initial-major-mode 'autoscratch-mode)
(setq initial-scratch-message "")
(setq inhibit-startup-screen t)

then emacs will start with an empty *scratch* buffer as always, but with autoscratch mode enabled. Type in a "(" and emacs-lisp-mode will be started, the *scratch* buffer will be renamed and a new *scratch* created in the background. Or, type in a "#" and you'll be asked what to switch (the autoscratch-select function does this). You can configure almost anything here.

Oh, and just in case you need to manually create a new scratch buffer, just execute "M-x autoscratch-buffer".

Update 2018-08-02:

There was an issue with autoscratch in combination with magit, the original scratch buffer has the same problem as well. The buffer did not alter the default-directory variable. It is buffer-local and inherits the contents of the same global variable, if set to something. So, if you have some file open in a buffer and start a new autoscratch buffer from there, default-directory of this buffer will then be set to the directory of the file visited in the buffer which was last active. Now, if you close all files, except the scratch buffer, and start magit-status AND if the directory is inside of a git repo, then magit will open this repo instead of asking you which repo to open.

This is not the behavior I expect from a scratch buffer, so I modified autoscratch-mode to reset the default-directory (if enabled) to $HOME.

Update 2017-07-17:

You can complete this scratch buffer setup with the great persistent-scratch.el mode. Here’s my config for it:

(require ‘persistent-scratch)
(setq persistent-scratch-save-file
(expand-file-name “scratches.el” user-init-dir))
(persistent-scratch-setup-default)
(defun tvd-autoscratch-p ()
“Return non-nil if the current buffer is a scratch buffer”
(string-match “scratch*" (buffer-name)))
(setq persistent-scratch-scratch-buffer-p-function ‘tvd-autoscratch-p)

With this setup, scratch buffers will be saved on exit and restored on startup, so you never loose any cool snippet or note you have in a scratch buffer.

#emacs

↷ 17.07.2017 ⤒

autoscratch - solve the *scratch* buffer problem

autoscratch - solve the scratch buffer problem