I am looking for some guidance, please, to reduce the time needed to perform my custom overlay removal function. The delay of up to 0.1
seconds is caused because a plethora of variables all have values, however, not every variable is necessarily used.
My goal is to attach a second variable that can be set to non-nil
whenever the first variable is used, but I am unsure how to set this up and how to incorporate that into the overlay removal function.
Perhaps something that looks like this would be useful:
- if
(variable-one . t)
, then (remove-overlays (point-min) (point-max) 'display character)
In the following example, M-x sub-char-mode
will place an overlay over the characters 1, 2 or 3 whenever the cursor is visiting any of those characters:
1
will become |1
2
will become |2
3
will become |3
(defvar variable-one (concat
(propertize (char-to-string ?\u007C)
'face 'font-lock-warning-face
'cursor t)
(propertize "1" 'face 'highlight 'cursor t) ))
(defvar variable-one-p (cons variable-one nil))
(defvar variable-two (concat
(propertize (char-to-string ?\u007C)
'face 'font-lock-warning-face
'cursor t)
(propertize "2" 'face 'highlight 'cursor t) ))
(defvar variable-two-p (cons variable-two nil))
(defvar variable-three (concat
(propertize (char-to-string ?\u007C)
'face 'font-lock-warning-face
'cursor t)
(propertize "3" 'face 'highlight 'cursor t) ))
(defvar variable-three-p (cons variable-three nil))
(defun substitute-character ()
(cond
((eq (char-after (point)) 49)
(setq variable-one-p (cons variable-one t))
(overlay-put (make-overlay (point) (1+ (point))) 'display variable-one))
((eq (char-after (point)) 50)
(setq variable-two-p (cons variable-two t))
(overlay-put (make-overlay (point) (1+ (point))) 'display variable-two))
((eq (char-after (point)) 51)
(setq variable-three-p (cons variable-three t))
(overlay-put (make-overlay (point) (1+ (point))) 'display variable-three))))
(defun remove-sub-char ()
(dolist (character `(
,variable-one
,variable-two
,variable-three))
(remove-overlays (point-min) (point-max) 'display character))
(dolist (my-variable `(
,variable-one-p
,variable-two-p
,variable-three-p))
(setq my-variable nil)) )
(defun sub-char-post-command-hook ()
(remove-sub-char)
(substitute-character))
(define-minor-mode sub-char-mode
"A minor-mode for testing overlay-removal with cons cells."
:init-value nil
:lighter " OV-REMOVE"
:keymap nil
:global nil
:group 'lawlist
(cond
(sub-char-mode
(add-hook 'post-command-hook 'sub-char-post-command-hook nil t)
(message "Turned ON `sub-char-mode`."))
(t
(remove-hook 'post-command-hook 'sub-char-post-command-hook t)
(remove-sub-char)
(message "Turned OFF `sub-char-mode`."))))
Apologies for pasting this image here - feel free to remove it. But I couldn't paste it into a comment, to reply to your comment asking for the appearance. This is vline-style
= compose
and col-highlight-vline-face-flag
= nil
:
First Draft (August 24, 2014): The first draft answer defines the variables as a cons
cell -- the car
is a predetermined overlay string, and the cdr
is nil
. When the cursor visits the characters 1
, 2
or 3
, an overlay is placed on top of those characters and the cdr
of the applicable cons
cell is set to t
by using setcdr
. The overlay removal function contains a list of variable names and the corresponding cons
cells -- when the cdr
of the cons
cell is non-nil
(i.e., t
), the overlay is removed, and the cdr
of the applicable cons
cell is set back to nil
using setcdr
. The advantage of this type of setup is that the overlay removal function will quickly look at and then skip over variables whose cons
cell cdr
is nil
-- thus saving a substantial amount of time when dealing with large quantities of variables with predetermined overlay strings.
EDIT (August 26, 2014): Modified code to permit using the same variable names in different buffers and set buffer-local values. Related threads are: How to use `setcdr` with buffer-local variables and Incorporate variable name into `dolist` cycle and change its value .
(defvar variable-one
(cons
(concat
(propertize (char-to-string ?\u007C)
'face 'font-lock-warning-face
'cursor t)
(propertize "1" 'face 'highlight 'cursor t) )
nil))
(make-variable-buffer-local 'variable-one)
(defvar variable-two
(cons
(concat
(propertize (char-to-string ?\u007C)
'face 'font-lock-warning-face
'cursor t)
(propertize "2" 'face 'highlight 'cursor t) )
nil))
(make-variable-buffer-local 'variable-two)
(defvar variable-three
(cons
(concat
(propertize (char-to-string ?\u007C)
'face 'font-lock-warning-face
'cursor t)
(propertize "3" 'face 'highlight 'cursor t) )
nil))
(make-variable-buffer-local 'variable-three)
(defun sub-char ()
(cond
((eq (char-after (point)) 49)
(let ((newlist (copy-list variable-one)))
(setcdr newlist t)
(setq-local variable-one newlist)
(overlay-put (make-overlay (point) (1+ (point))) 'display (car variable-one))))
((eq (char-after (point)) 50)
(let ((newlist (copy-list variable-two)))
(setcdr newlist t)
(setq-local variable-two newlist)
(overlay-put (make-overlay (point) (1+ (point))) 'display (car variable-two))))
((eq (char-after (point)) 51)
(let ((newlist (copy-list variable-three)))
(setcdr newlist t)
(setq-local variable-three newlist)
(overlay-put (make-overlay (point) (1+ (point))) 'display (car variable-three))))))
(defun remove-sub-char ()
(dolist (character `(
(variable-one ,variable-one)
(variable-two ,variable-two)
(variable-three ,variable-three)))
(when (cdr (car (cdr character)))
(let* (
(var (car character))
(newlist (copy-list (car (cdr character)))) )
(remove-overlays (point-min) (point-max) 'display (car (car (cdr character))))
(setcdr newlist nil)
(set (car character) newlist)
(message "var1: %s | var2: %s | var3: %s" variable-one variable-two variable-three) ))))
(defun sub-char-post-command-hook ()
(remove-sub-char)
(sub-char))
(define-minor-mode sub-char-mode
"A minor-mode for testing overlay-removal with cons cells."
:init-value nil
:lighter " OV-REMOVE"
:keymap nil
:global nil
:group 'lawlist
(cond
(sub-char-mode
(add-hook 'post-command-hook 'sub-char-post-command-hook nil t)
(message "Turned ON `sub-char-mode`."))
(t
(remove-hook 'post-command-hook 'sub-char-post-command-hook t)
(remove-sub-char)
(message "Turned OFF `sub-char-mode`."))))
I suggest you start by getting rid of your variable-FOO-p
vars: not only their names are wrong (the "-p" suffix is meant for use with predicates which are necessarily functions, and not variables) but they're unneeded. Rather than tell remove-overlays
to remove all overlays with a particular display
property, just add a property of your own (e.g. (overlay-put <youroverlay> 'vline t)
) so you can then do a single (remove-overlays (point-min) (point-max) 'vline t)
. Of course, another approach which will work at least as well is to keep a single buffer-local variable (better yet, window-local) which holds a list of all the overlays you currently have placed. This way, you can remove those overlays with a single (mapc #'delete-overlay vline--overlays)
, which is more efficient. It can be made even more efficient by moving/reusing those overlays rather than deleting them and then creating new ones instead.