invoking unbound functions

[Sven Guckes]

Is there any way to invoke an Unbound function in mutt,
say one I'd want to use too rarely to assign a key to?
I know you can bind it for the current session,
but is there a way to just invoke it directly?

(1) just hit the "dwim" key - and mutt will guess what you want.
(2) no. you cannot invoke a command which is not bound to a key.

Sven

[Dave Pearson]

Post by Sven Guckes
(2) no. you cannot invoke a command which is not bound to a key.

:push <are-you-really-sure-about-that> RET

. o O ( For standing bindings of <enter-command> )

[Dave Pearson]

Post by Sven Guckes
(2) no. you cannot invoke a command which is not bound to a key.

:push <are-you-really-sure-about-that> RET

. o O ( For standard bindings of <enter-command> )

[Sven Guckes]

Post by Sven Guckes
you cannot invoke a command which is not bound to a key.
:push <are-you-really-sure-about-that> RET
. o O ( For standard bindings of <enter-command> )

yep, you'd have to use ':' to issue the "enter-command" command.
but using "push" is indeed a nice workaround. then again, this
means typing a lot more keys than giving it a binding right away.
i think most users overlook that they can bind more
than just one key to a command using "macro":

macro index ,, "<command-name>"

there are quite a few commands which are unbound by default.
here are some of them:

unbound by default in the index and pager menu:
decrypt-copy decrypt-save imap-fetch-mail
next-new next-unread
previous-new previous-unread search-opposite

unbound by default in the index menu:
current-bottom current-middle current-top end-cond
tag-prefix-cond tag-subthread what-key

unbound by default in the pager menu:
half-down half-up previous-new-then-unread

i suppose that most of this is not really documented well.
maybe i'll start writing a help file which can be used with
vim's built-in help command. it's just too bad that the
"info" command is missing such a lot of features. :-/

Sven

[Rocco Rutte]

* Sven Guckes <***@guckes.net>:

[unbound functions]

i suppose that most of this is not really documented well. maybe i'll
start writing a help file which can be used with vim's built-in help
command.

Why wasting time? Do you really think that people who don't read the
help screen in mutt (a) use vim and (b) read the help screen in vim?

bye, Rocco

[Ben Finney]

Post by Rocco Rutte

Post by Rocco Rutte
[unbound functions]
i suppose that most of this is not really documented well. maybe
i'll start writing a help file which can be used with vim's built-in
help command.

Why wasting time? Do you really think that people who don't read the
help screen in mutt (a) use vim and (b) read the help screen in vim?

A Vim help file is plain text, with certain natural-looking markup
sequences recognised by the Vim help system. Such a file could be used
by anyone, even those not running Vim.

Mind you, I'd prefer it was written in something such as DocBook that
can be more easily translated to multiple documentation formats
(including Vim help format).

I don't go so far as to suggest that Sven is "wasting time". Its his
time, he can spend it how he sees fit; and if the result is a
contribution of useful documentation, I don't think it's a waste.

[Sven Guckes]

Post by Rocco Rutte

Post by Sven Guckes
i suppose that most of this is not really documented
well. maybe i'll start writing a help file which can
be used with vim's built-in help command.

Why wasting time? Do you really think that
people who don't read the help screen in mutt
(a) use vim and (b) read the help screen in vim?

well, if "info" was better then i'd use it.
and a ":help whatever" is much easier to use
than "rtfm, section foo, paragraph four".
besides, once you are in vim you could also
just read the mutt help, too, and copy the
text into the edit buffer when answering
questions on mutt, see? of course, this
is also possible with the current manual:

map ## :view /usr/share/doc/mutt/manual.txt

but docbook as the source might be nicer.
does anyone care to change
the manual.sgml to docbook?

i wonder what it takes to produce a
vim help text format from docbook..

Sven

[Rocco Rutte]

Post by Sven Guckes

Do you really think that people who don't read the help screen in
mutt (a) use vim and (b) read the help screen in vim?

well, if "info" was better then i'd use it.

"info" still exists? ;-)

Post by Sven Guckes
and a ":help whatever" is much easier to use than "rtfm, section foo,
paragraph four". besides, once you are in vim you could also just
read the mutt help, too, and copy the text into the edit buffer when
answering questions on mutt, see?

Okay, your point. I didn't mean that it's completely useless to have
a mutt manual in vim's help format; I think it's overkill to manually
write one.

Post by Sven Guckes
i wonder what it takes to produce a vim help text format from
docbook..

Work someone has to do? ;-)

But I still think there's plenty of documentation in plenty of formats;
those who need help will find it. But every user has the option to
improve it even more (for whatever reason and whatever audience).

bye, Rocco

[Sven Guckes]

Post by Rocco Rutte

Post by Sven Guckes

Do you really think that people who don't read the help screen in
mutt (a) use vim and (b) read the help screen in vim?

well, if "info" was better then i'd use it.

"info" still exists? ;-)

so they say. *grin*

Post by Rocco Rutte

Post by Sven Guckes
i wonder what it takes to produce a
vim help text format from docbook..

Work someone has to do? ;-)

yep - "someone".. exactly.

Post by Rocco Rutte
But I still think there's plenty of documentation in
plenty of formats; those who need help will find it.
But every user has the option to improve it even
more (for whatever reason and whatever audience).

i would like to see some effort on creating a "user manual"
as vim is getting now. one big summary of documentation
from which you can create several formats.
one think most formats are missing are "tags" or "bookmarks"
which allows to point to specific parts in the documentation.
adding those tags and structuring the text is one
of the hardest tasks with creating documentation..

but obviously this topic isn't too hot with people here..

Sven

[Peter H. Coffin]

Post by Sven Guckes

Post by Rocco Rutte

Post by Sven Guckes

Do you really think that people who don't read the help screen in
mutt (a) use vim and (b) read the help screen in vim?

well, if "info" was better then i'd use it.

"info" still exists? ;-)

so they say. *grin*

Post by Rocco Rutte

Post by Sven Guckes
i wonder what it takes to produce a
vim help text format from docbook..

Work someone has to do? ;-)

yep - "someone".. exactly.

Post by Rocco Rutte
But I still think there's plenty of documentation in
plenty of formats; those who need help will find it.
But every user has the option to improve it even
more (for whatever reason and whatever audience).

i would like to see some effort on creating a "user manual"
as vim is getting now. one big summary of documentation
from which you can create several formats.

vim's got a great manual, yes, but vim's also got the facilities to
display a great manual including doing classic hypertext tricks.

Post by Sven Guckes
one think most formats are missing are "tags" or "bookmarks"
which allows to point to specific parts in the documentation.
adding those tags and structuring the text is one
of the hardest tasks with creating documentation..

True enough, but I think a bigger drawback is simply that the current
documentation isn't completely sucky. It's not well indexed and linked,
but it's not hard for someone familiar with the manual to find things.
It's just a scramble for someone that's not read through it before.

Post by Sven Guckes
but obviously this topic isn't too hot with people here..

It's not horrid documentation, and the people with fixing boiling in
their blood can find a lot of things that need work a lot more.

[Gary Johnson]

Is there any way to invoke an Unbound function in mutt,
say one I'd want to use too rarely to assign a key to?
I know you can bind it for the current session, but is
there a way to just invoke it directly?

Sure, use the ":exec" command followed by the function name, e.g.,

:exec current-top

See the section in the mutt manual on "Executing functions".

Gary