Action, target finder, target collector and exporter wishlist

[oantolin]

I think I might be missing many opportunities for target finders, target collectors and exporters. Let's list some here in this issue:

Target finders

• in eww buffers, the link at point could be targeted as a url.

Target collectors

• in eww buffers, all the links could be collected as urls. Or a new type weblink could be introduced which has both a url and a title.

Enhancements to existing collectors:

• the collect collector, when the region is active could collect only the candidates in the region
• the dired collector could collect only the marked files
• similarly, the ibuffer collector could collect only the marked buffers

Exporters

• bookmark should export to bookmark-bmenu-mode. Done.
• line should export to occur-mode. line was renamed consult-location and it does export to occur mode now!
• url or weblink if introduced could export to eww-bookmark-mode, which seems like a reasonable mode for a list of links even if they are not actually bookmarks. (I'm not sure about this.)

Actions

• url could use a download action (I'm thinking I'd only use this outside of eww buffers).
• kill-ring could use a "remove from kill-ring" action.

[oantolin]

We should also think about exporters run from non-mini buffers. One that has been suggested is that in an eww buffer, export could make a list of all the links. I'm not so sure about that, probably a consult-link command is better and you can always run embark export from inside that hypothetical consult-link.

But I'm sure there are some good opportunities for export from regular buffers I'm missing. Currently the only ones are kind of boring: dired buffers export their files, ibuffers export their buffers, *Completions* buffers export their completions. Of course, dired and ibuffer are full-featured and you can also act on completions in a *Completions* buffer, so all of these exports are kind of pointless ---although I guess you do gain grid and zebra views in all cases, and the direct action minor mode might be useful for *Completions*.

[minad]

Is there also a target finder wishlist? Or is the list already exhautive?

[oantolin]

The target finder list is not exhaustive at all! Should I make a separate issue for that or just broaden this one?

[minad]

I would use one wishlist as I have in consult. I think this works quite well as some kind of general discussion thread before the details are then discussed in a separate dedicated issue.

[oantolin]

Earlier when I mentioned eww links I was really talking about just collecting them and forgot to say what kind of buffer they should export to: maybe an eww-bookmark-mode buffer is reasonable, even though they aren't bookmarks.

[oantolin]

OK, I've broadened this issue on your advice @minad. (I don't want the wishlist to also cover new commands, since in fact, I'm pretty skeptical about adding any new top-level commands to Embark at this point, except possibly the resume functionality, if we think it fits better in Embark.)

[oantolin]

Oh, I just remembered some actions for variables I often miss: set-variable and customize-set-variable, maybe even customize-variable.

[oantolin]

Good news: now consult-line, consult-outline, consult-mark and consult-global-mark export to occur mode buffers and e (for occur-edit-mode) works in them!

[minad]

@oantolin This is amazing! I already have it mentioned here: https://github.com/minad/consult#integration-with-embark. Now I can remove the work in progress note 🥳

[oantolin]

Oh, I just remembered some actions for variables I often miss: set-variable and customize-set-variable, maybe even customize-variable.

I added these for variables, and for commands I added execute-extended-command, global-set-key and local-set-key. 846cfbd

[protesilaos]

I am just sharing this good idea for targeting video links: https://jao.io/blog/2021-01-09-embarking-videos.html. Natural complements are audio files and an action to yt-dl the target (audio could call mpv with the --no-video flag).

Maybe this is something that can be of use.