popup.el

Overview

popup.el is a visual popup user interface library for Emacs. This provides a basic API and common UI widgets such as popup tooltips and popup menus.

Screenshots

Tooltip	Popup Menu	Popup Cascade Menu

Installation

You can install popup.el from MELPA with package.el. popwin is tested under GNU Emacs 24 or later.

Alternatively, users of Debian 9 or later or Ubuntu 16.04 or later may simply apt-get install elpa-popup.

Popup Items

Elements of popup-list have to be popup items. A popup item is substantially a string but it may involve some text-properties. There are two ways to make popup items. One is just using strings. Another is to use the popup-make-item function, which just returns the string after adding text-properties of its keywords. Effective text-properties are:

• value -- This represents the real value of the item. This will be used when returning the value but not the item (or string) from some synchronous functions such as popup-menu*.
• face -- The background face of the item. The value of popup-face will be overridden.
• selection-face -- The selection face of the item. The value of popup-selection-face will be overridden.
• document -- The documentation string or function of the item.
• summary -- The summary string of the item. This will be shown inline with the item.
• symbol -- The symbol character of the item.
• sublist -- The sublist of the item. This is effective only with popup-cascade-menu.

All of properties can be accessed by popup-item-<property> utility function.

Function: popup-item-propertize

popup-item-propertize item &rest properties => item

Same as propertize except that this avoids overriding existed value with nil property.

Function: popup-make-item

popup-make-item name &key value popup-face selection-face sublist
document symbol summary => item

The utility function of popup-item-propertize.

Popups

This section describes the basic data structures and operations of popups.

Struct: popup

Any instance of popup structure has the following fields (some unimportant fields are not listed):

• point
• row -- The line number.
• column
• width -- Max width of popup instance.
• height -- Max height of popup instance.
• min-height
• current-height
• direction -- Positive number means forward, negative number means backward.
• parent -- The parent of popup instance.
• face -- The background face.
• selection-face
• margin-left
• margin-right
• scroll-bar -- Non-nil means popup instance has a scroll bar.
• symbol -- Non-nil means popup instance has a space for displaying symbols of item.
• cursor -- The current position of list.
• scroll-top -- The offset of scrolling.
• list -- The contents of popup instance in a list of items (strings).
• original-list -- Same as list except that this is not filtered.

All of these fields can be accessed by popup-<field> function.

Function: popup-create

popup-create point width height &key min-height max-width around face
selection-face scroll-bar margin-left margin-right symbol parent
parent-offset => popup

Create a popup instance at POINT with WIDTH and HEIGHT.

MIN-HEIGHT is the minimal height of the popup. The default value is 0.

MAX-WIDTH is the maximum width of the popup. The default value is nil (no limit). If a floating point, the value refers to the ratio of the window. If an integer, limit is in characters.

If AROUND is non-nil, the popup will be displayed around the point but not at the point.

FACE is the background face of the popup. The default value is popup-face.

SELECTION-FACE is the foreground (selection) face of the popup The default value is popup-face.

If SCROLL-BAR is non-nil, the popup will have a scroll bar at the right.

If MARGIN-LEFT is non-nil, the popup will have a margin at the left.

If MARGIN-RIGHT is non-nil, the popup will have a margin at the right.

SYMBOL is a single character which indicates the kind of the item.

PARENT is the parent popup instance. If PARENT is omitted, the popup will be a root instance.

PARENT-OFFSET is a row offset from the parent popup.

Here is an example:

(setq popup (popup-create (point) 10 10))
(popup-set-list popup '("Foo" "Bar" "Baz"))
(popup-draw popup)
;; do something here
(popup-delete popup)

Function: popup-delete

popup-delete popup

Delete the POPUP.

Function: popup-live-p

popup-live-p popup => boolean

Function: popup-set-list

popup-set-list popup list

Set the contents of the POPUP. LIST has to be popup items.

Function: popup-draw

popup-draw popup

Draw the contents of the POPUP.

Function: popup-hide

popup-hide popup

Hide the POPUP. To show again, call popup-draw.

Function: popup-hidden-p

popup-hidden-p popup

Return non-nil if the POPUP is hidden.

Function: popup-select

    popup-select popup index

Select the item of INDEX of the POPUP.

Function: popup-selected-item

popup-selected-item popup => item

Return the selected item of the POPUP.

Return non-nil if the POPUP is still alive.

Function: popup-next

popup-next popup

Select the next item of the POPUP.

Function: popup-previous

popup-previous popup

Select the next item of the POPUP.

Function: popup-scroll-down

popup-scroll-down popup n

Scroll down N items of the POPUP. This won't wrap.

Function: popup-scroll-up

popup-scroll-up popup n

Scroll up N items of the POPUP. This won't wrap.

Function: popup-isearch

popup-isearch popup &key cursor-color keymap callback help-delay
=> boolean

Enter incremental search event loop of POPUP.

Tooltips

A tooltip is an useful visual UI widget for displaying information something about what cursor points to.

Function: popup-tip

popup-tip string &key point around width height min-height max-width
truncate margin margin-left margin-right scroll-bar parent
parent-offset nowait nostrip prompt

Show a tooltip with message STRING at POINT. This function is synchronized unless NOWAIT specified. Almost all arguments are same as popup-create except for TRUNCATE, NOWAIT, NOSTRIP and PROMPT.

If TRUNCATE is non-nil, the tooltip can be truncated.

If NOWAIT is non-nil, this function immediately returns the tooltip instance without entering event loop.

If NOSTRIP is non-nil, STRING properties are not stripped.

PROMPT is a prompt string used when reading events during the event loop.

Here is an example:

(popup-tip "Hello, World!")
;; reach here after the tooltip disappeared

Popup Menus

Popup menu is an useful visual UI widget for prompting users to select an item of a list.

Function: popup-menu*

popup-menu* list &key point around width height margin margin-left
margin-right scroll-bar symbol parent parent-offset keymap
fallback help-delay nowait prompt isearch isearch-filter isearch-cursor-color
isearch-keymap isearch-callback initial-index => selected-value

Show a popup menu of LIST at POINT. This function returns the value of the selected item. Almost all arguments are same as popup-create except for KEYMAP, FALLBACK, HELP-DELAY, PROMPT, ISEARCH, ISEARCH-FILTER, ISEARCH-CURSOR-COLOR, ISEARCH-KEYMAP and ISEARCH-CALLBACK.

If KEYMAP is provided, it is a keymap which is used when processing events during event loop.

If FALLBACK is provided, it is a function taking two arguments; a key and a command. FALLBACK is called when no special operation is found on the key. The default value is popup-menu-fallback, which does nothing.

HELP-DELAY is a delay of displaying helps.

If NOWAIT is non-nil, this function immediately returns the menu instance without entering event loop.

PROMPT is a prompt string when reading events during event loop.

If ISEARCH is non-nil, do isearch as soon as displaying the popup menu.

ISEARCH-FILTER is a filtering function taking two arguments: search pattern and list of items. Returns a list of matching items.

ISEARCH-CURSOR-COLOR is a cursor color during isearch. The default value is `popup-isearch-cursor-color'.

ISEARCH-KEYMAP is a keymap which is used when processing events during event loop. The default value is popup-isearch-keymap.

ISEARCH-CALLBACK is a function taking one argument. popup-menu calls ISEARCH-CALLBACK, if specified, after isearch finished or isearch canceled. The arguments is whole filtered list of items.

If INITIAL-INDEX is non-nil, this is an initial index value for popup-select. Only positive integer is valid.

Here is an example:

(popup-menu* '("Foo" "Bar" "Baz"))
;; => "Baz" if you select Baz
(popup-menu* (list (popup-make-item "Yes" :value t)
                   (popup-make-item "No" :value nil)))
;; => t if you select Yes

Function: popup-cascade-menu

Same as popup-menu except that an element of LIST can be also a sub-menu if the element is a cons cell formed (ITEM . SUBLIST) where ITEM is an usual item and SUBLIST is a list of the sub menu.

Here is an example:

(popup-cascade-menu '(("Top1" "Sub1" "Sub2") "Top2"))

Customize Variables

popup-isearch-regexp-builder-function

Function used to construct a regexp from a pattern. You may for instance provide a function that replaces spaces by '.+' if you like helm or ivy style of completion. Default value is #'regexp-quote.

Copyright (C) 2011-2015 Tomohiro Matsuyama <[email protected]>
Copyright (C) 2020-2022 Jen-Chieh Shen <[email protected]>