This is embark.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.1.1 from
embark.texi.

INFO-DIR-SECTION Emacs misc features
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Embark: (embark).     Emacs Mini-Buffer Actions Rooted in Keymaps.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY


File: embark.info,  Node: Top,  Next: Overview,  Up: (dir)

Embark: Emacs Mini-Buffer Actions Rooted in Keymaps
***************************************************

* Menu:

* Overview::
* Quick start::
* Advanced configuration::
* How does Embark call the actions?::
* Embark, Marginalia and Consult::
* Related Packages::
* Resources::
* Contributions::
* Acknowledgments::

-- The Detailed Node Listing --

Overview

* Acting on targets::
* The default action on a target::
* Working with sets of possible targets::
* Switching to a different command without losing what you've typed::

Working with sets of possible targets

* Selecting some targets to make an ad hoc candidate set::
* embark-live a live-updating variant of embark-collect::

Advanced configuration

* Showing information about available targets and actions::
* Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings::
* Quitting the minibuffer after an action::
* Recording acted-on minibuffer candidates in minibuffer history::
* Running some setup after injecting the target::
* Running hooks before, after or around an action::
* Creating your own keymaps::
* Defining actions for new categories of targets::

Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings

* Selecting commands via completion outside of Embark::

Defining actions for new categories of targets

* New minibuffer target example - tab-bar tabs::
* New target example in regular buffers - short Wikipedia links::

How does Embark call the actions?

* Non-interactive functions as actions::

Embark, Marginalia and Consult

* Marginalia::
* Consult::



File: embark.info,  Node: Overview,  Next: Quick start,  Prev: Top,  Up: Top

1 Overview
**********

Embark makes it easy to choose a command to run based on what is near
point, both during a minibuffer completion session (in a way familiar to
Helm or Counsel users) and in normal buffers.  Bind the command
‘embark-act’ to a key and it acts like prefix-key for a keymap of
_actions_ (commands) relevant to the _target_ around point.  With point
on an URL in a buffer you can open the URL in a browser or eww or
download the file it points to.  If while switching buffers you spot an
old one, you can kill it right there and continue to select another.
Embark comes preconfigured with over a hundred actions for common types
of targets such as files, buffers, identifiers, s-expressions,
sentences; and it is easy to add more actions and more target types.
Embark can also collect all the candidates in a minibuffer to an
occur-like buffer or export them to a buffer in a major-mode specific to
the type of candidates, such as dired for a set of files, ibuffer for a
set of buffers, or customize for a set of variables.

* Menu:

* Acting on targets::
* The default action on a target::
* Working with sets of possible targets::
* Switching to a different command without losing what you've typed::


File: embark.info,  Node: Acting on targets,  Next: The default action on a target,  Up: Overview

1.1 Acting on targets
=====================

You can think of ‘embark-act’ as a keyboard-based version of a
right-click contextual menu.  The ‘embark-act’ command (which you should
bind to a convenient key), acts as a prefix for a keymap offering you
relevant _actions_ to use on a _target_ determined by the context:

   • In the minibuffer, the target is the current top completion
     candidate.
   • In the ‘*Completions*’ buffer the target is the completion at
     point.
   • In a regular buffer, the target is the region if active, or else
     the file, symbol, URL, s-expression or defun at point.

   Multiple targets can be present at the same location and you can
cycle between them by repeating the ‘embark-act’ key binding.  The type
of actions offered depend on the type of the target.  Here is a sample
of a few of the actions offered in the default configuration:

   • For files you get offered actions like deleting, copying, renaming,
     visiting in another window, running a shell command on the file,
     etc.
   • For buffers the actions include switching to or killing the buffer.
   • For package names the actions include installing, removing or
     visiting the homepage.
   • For Emacs Lisp symbols the actions include finding the definition,
     looking up documentation, evaluating (which for a variable
     immediately shows the value, but for a function lets you pass it
     some arguments first).  There are some actions specific to
     variables, such as setting the value directly or though the
     customize system, and some actions specific to commands, such as
     binding it to a key.

   By default when you use ‘embark-act’ if you don't immediately select
an action, after a short delay Embark will pop up a buffer showing a
list of actions and their corresponding key bindings.  If you are using
‘embark-act’ outside the minibuffer, Embark will also highlight the
current target.  These behaviors are configurable via the variable
‘embark-indicators’.  Instead of selecting an action via its key
binding, you can select it by name with completion by typing ‘C-h’ after
‘embark-act’.

   Everything is easily configurable: determining the current target,
classifying it, and deciding which actions are offered for each type in
the classification.  The above introduction just mentions part of the
default configuration.

   Configuring which actions are offered for a type is particularly easy
and requires no programming: the variable ‘embark-keymap-alist’
associates target types with variables containing keymaps, and those
keymaps containing bindings for the actions.  (To examine the available
categories and their associated keymaps, you can use ‘C-h v
embark-keymap-alist’ or customize that variable.)  For example, in the
default configuration the type ‘file’ is associated with the symbol
‘embark-file-map’.  That symbol names a keymap with single-letter key
bindings for common Emacs file commands, for instance ‘c’ is bound to
‘copy-file’.  This means that if you are in the minibuffer after running
a command that prompts for a file, such as ‘find-file’ or ‘rename-file’,
you can copy a file by running ‘embark-act’ and then pressing ‘c’.

   These action keymaps are very convenient but not strictly necessary
when using ‘embark-act’: you can use any command that reads from the
minibuffer as an action and the target of the action will be inserted at
the first minibuffer prompt.  After running ‘embark-act’ all of your key
bindings and even ‘execute-extended-command’ can be used to run a
command.  For example, if you want to replace all occurrences of the
symbol at point, just use ‘M-%’ as the action, there is no need to bind
‘query-replace’ in one of Embark's keymaps.  Also, those action keymaps
are normal Emacs keymaps and you should feel free to bind in them
whatever commands you find useful as actions and want to be available
through convenient bindings.

   The actions in ‘embark-general-map’ are available no matter what type
of completion you are in the middle of.  By default this includes
bindings to save the current candidate in the kill ring and to insert
the current candidate in the previously selected buffer (the buffer that
was current when you executed a command that opened up the minibuffer).

   Emacs's minibuffer completion system includes metadata indicating the
_category_ of what is being completed.  For example, ‘find-file’'s
metadata indicates a category of ‘file’ and ‘switch-to-buffer’'s
metadata indicates a category of ‘buffer’.  Embark has the related
notion of the _type_ of a target for actions, and by default when
category metadata is present it is taken to be the type of minibuffer
completion candidates when used as targets.  Emacs commands often do not
set useful category metadata so the Marginalia
(https://github.com/minad/marginalia) package, which supplies this
missing metadata, is highly recommended for use with Embark.

   Embark's default configuration has actions for the following target
types: files, buffers, symbols, packages, URLs, bookmarks, and as a
somewhat special case, actions for when the region is active.  You can
read about the default actions and their key bindings
(https://github.com/oantolin/embark/wiki/Default-Actions) on the GitHub
project wiki.


File: embark.info,  Node: The default action on a target,  Next: Working with sets of possible targets,  Prev: Acting on targets,  Up: Overview

1.2 The default action on a target
==================================

Embark has a notion of default action for a target:

   • If the target is a minibuffer completion candidate, then the
     default action is whatever command opened the minibuffer in the
     first place.  For example if you run ‘kill-buffer’, then the
     default action will be to kill buffers.
   • If the target comes from a regular buffer (i.e., not a minibuffer),
     then the default action is whatever is bound to ‘RET’ in the keymap
     of actions for that type of target.  For example, in Embark's
     default configuration for a URL found at point the default action
     is ‘browse-url’, because ‘RET’ is bound to ‘browse-url’ in the
     ‘embark-url-map’ keymap.

   To run the default action you can press ‘RET’ after running
‘embark-act’.  Note that if there are several different targets at a
given location, each has its own default action, so first cycle to the
target you want and then press ‘RET’ to run the corresponding default
action.

   There is also ‘embark-dwim’ which runs the default action for the
first target found.  It's pretty handy in non-minibuffer buffers: with
Embark's default configuration it will:

   • Open the file at point.
   • Open the URL at point in a web browser (using the ‘browse-url’
     command).
   • Compose a new email to the email address at point.
   • In an Emacs Lisp buffer, if point is on an opening parenthesis or
     right after a closing one, it will evaluate the corresponding
     expression.
   • Go to the definition of an Emacs Lisp function, variable or macro
     at point.
   • Find the file corresponding to an Emacs Lisp library at point.


File: embark.info,  Node: Working with sets of possible targets,  Next: Switching to a different command without losing what you've typed,  Prev: The default action on a target,  Up: Overview

1.3 Working with sets of possible targets
=========================================

Besides acting individually on targets, Embark lets you work
collectively on a set of target _candidates_.  For example, while you
are in the minibuffer the candidates are simply the possible completions
of your input.  Embark provides three main commands to work on candidate
sets:

   • The ‘embark-act-all’ command runs the same action on each of the
     current candidates.  It is just like using ‘embark-act’ on each
     candidate in turn.  (Because you can easily act on many more
     candidates than you meant to, by default Embark asks you to confirm
     uses of ‘embark-act-all’; you can turn this off by setting the user
     option ‘embark-confirm-act-all’ to ‘nil’.)

   • The ‘embark-collect’ command produces a buffer listing all the
     current candidates, for you to peruse and run actions on at your
     leisure.  The candidates are displayed as a list showing additional
     annotations.  If any of the candidates contain newlines, then
     horizontal lines are used to separate candidates.

     The Embark Collect buffer is somewhat "dired-like": you can select
     and deselect candidates through ‘embark-select’ (available as an
     action in ‘embark-act’, bound to ‘SPC’; but you could also give it
     a global key binding).  In an Embark Collect buffer ‘embark-act’ is
     bound to ‘a’ and ‘embark-act-all’ is bound to ‘A’; ‘embark-act-all’
     will act on all currently marked candidates if there any, and will
     act on all candidates if none are marked.  In particular, this
     means that ‘a SPC’ will toggle whether the candidate at point is
     selected, and ‘A SPC’ will select all candidates if none are
     selected, or deselect all selected candidates if there are some.

   • The ‘embark-export’ command tries to open a buffer in an
     appropriate major mode for the set of candidates.  If the
     candidates are files export produces a Dired buffer; if they are
     buffers, you get an Ibuffer buffer; and if they are packages you
     get a buffer in package menu mode.

     If you use the grepping commands from the Consult
     (https://github.com/minad/consult/) package, ‘consult-grep’,
     ‘consult-git-grep’ or ‘consult-ripgrep’, then you should install
     the ‘embark-consult’ package, which adds support for exporting a
     list of grep results to an honest grep-mode buffer, on which you
     can even use wgrep (https://github.com/mhayashi1120/Emacs-wgrep) if
     you wish.

   When in doubt choosing between exporting and collecting, a good rule
of thumb is to always prefer ‘embark-export’ since when an exporter to a
special major mode is available for a given type of target, it will be
more featureful than an Embark collect buffer, and if no such exporter
is configured the ‘embark-export’ command falls back to the generic
‘embark-collect’.

   These commands are always available as "actions" (although they do
not act on just the current target but on all candidates) for
‘embark-act’ and are bound to ‘A’, ‘S’ (for "snapshot"), and ‘E’,
respectively, in ‘embark-general-map’.  This means that you do not have
to bind your own key bindings for these (although you can, of course!),
just a key binding for ‘embark-act’.

   In Embark Collect or Embark Export buffers that were obtained by
running ‘embark-collect’ or ‘embark-export’ from within a minibuffer
completion session, ‘g’ is bound to a command that restarts the
completion session, that is, the command that opened the minibuffer is
run again and the minibuffer contents restored.  You can then interact
normally with the command, perhaps editing the minibuffer contents, and,
if you wish, you can rerun ‘embark-collect’ or ‘embark-export’ to get an
updated buffer.

* Menu:

* Selecting some targets to make an ad hoc candidate set::
* embark-live a live-updating variant of embark-collect::


File: embark.info,  Node: Selecting some targets to make an ad hoc candidate set,  Next: embark-live a live-updating variant of embark-collect,  Up: Working with sets of possible targets

1.3.1 Selecting some targets to make an ad hoc candidate set
------------------------------------------------------------

The commands for working with sets of candidates just described, namely
‘embark-act-all’, ‘embark-export’ and ‘embark-collect’ by default work
with all candidates defined in the current context.  For example, in the
minibuffer they operate on all currently completion candidates, or in a
dired buffer they work on all marked files (or all files if none are
marked).  Embark also has a notion of _selection_, where you can
accumulate an ad hoc list of targets for these commands to work on.

   The selection is controlled by using the ‘embark-select’ action,
bound to ‘SPC’ in ‘embark-general-map’ so that it is always available
(you can also give ‘embark-select’ a global key binding if you wish;
when called directly, not as an action for ‘embark-act’, it will select
the first target at point).  Calling this action on a target toggles its
membership in the current buffer's Embark selection; that is, it adds it
to selection if not selected and removes it from the selection if it was
selected.  Whenever the selection for a buffer is non-empty, the
commands ‘embark-act-all’, ‘embark-export’ and ‘embark-collect’ will act
on the selection.

   To deselect all selected targets, you can use the ‘embark-select’
action through ‘embark-act-all’, since this will run ‘embark-select’ on
each member of the current selection.  Similarly if no targets are
selected and you are in a minibuffer completion session, running
‘embark-select’ from ‘embark-act-all’ will select all the current
completion candidates.

   By default, whenever some targets are selected in the current buffer,
a count of selected targets appears in the mode line.  This can be
turned off or customized through the ‘embark-selection-indicator’ user
option.

   The selection functionality is supported in every buffer:

   • In the minibuffer this gives a convenient way to act on several
     completion candidates that don't follow any simple pattern: just go
     through the completions selecting the ones you want, then use
     ‘embark-act-all’.  For example, you could attach several files at
     once to an email.
   • For Embark Collect buffers this functionality enables a dired-like
     workflow, in which you mark various candidates and apply an action
     to all at once.  (It supersedes a previous ad hoc dired-like
     interface that was implemented only in Embark Collect buffers, with
     a slightly different interface.)
   • In a eww buffer you could use this to select various links you wish
     to follow up on, and then collect them into a buffer.  Similarly,
     while reading Emacs's info manual you could select some symbols you
     want to read more about and export them to an ‘apropos-mode’
     buffer.
   • You can use selections in regular text or programming buffers to do
     complex editing operations.  For example, if you have three
     paragraphs scattered over a file and you want to bring them
     together, you can select each one, insert them all somewhere and
     finally delete all of them (from their original locations).


File: embark.info,  Node: embark-live a live-updating variant of embark-collect,  Prev: Selecting some targets to make an ad hoc candidate set,  Up: Working with sets of possible targets

1.3.2 ‘embark-live’ a live-updating variant of ‘embark-collect’
---------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, there is also an ‘embark-live’ variant of the ‘embark-collect’
command which automatically updates the collection after each change in
the source buffer.  Users of a completion UI that automatically updates
and displays the candidate list (such as Vertico, Icomplete, Fido-mode,
or MCT) will probably not want to use ‘embark-live’ from the minibuffer
as they will then have two live updating displays of the completion
candidates!

   A more likely use of ‘embark-live’ is to be called from a regular
buffer to display a sort of live updating "table of contents" for the
buffer.  This depends on having appropriate candidate collectors
configured in ‘embark-candidate-collectors’.  There are not many in
Embark's default configuration, but you can try this experiment: open a
dired buffer in a directory that has very many files, mark a few, and
run ‘embark-live’.  You'll get an Embark Collect buffer containing only
the marked files, which updates as you mark or unmark files in dired.
To make ‘embark-live’ genuinely useful other candidate collectors are
required.  The ‘embark-consult’ package (documented near the end of this
manual) contains a few: one for imenu items and one for outline headings
as used by ‘outline-minor-mode’.  Those collectors really do give
‘embark-live’ a table-of-contents feel.


File: embark.info,  Node: Switching to a different command without losing what you've typed,  Prev: Working with sets of possible targets,  Up: Overview

1.4 Switching to a different command without losing what you've typed
=====================================================================

Embark also has the ‘embark-become’ command which is useful for when you
run a command, start typing at the minibuffer and realize you meant a
different command.  The most common case for me is that I run
‘switch-to-buffer’, start typing a buffer name and realize I haven't
opened the file I had in mind yet!  I'll use this situation as a running
example to illustrate ‘embark-become’.  When this happens I can, of
course, press ‘C-g’ and then run ‘find-file’ and open the file, but this
requires retyping the portion of the file name you already typed.  This
process can be streamlined with ‘embark-become’: while still in the
‘switch-to-buffer’ you can run ‘embark-become’ and effectively make the
‘switch-to-buffer’ command become ‘find-file’ for this run.

   You can bind ‘embark-become’ to a key in ‘minibuffer-local-map’, but
it is also available as an action under the letter ‘B’ (uppercase), so
you don't need a binding if you already have one for ‘embark-act’.  So,
assuming I have ‘embark-act’ bound to, say, ‘C-.’, once I realize I
haven't open the file I can type ‘C-. B C-x C-f’ to have
‘switch-to-buffer’ become ‘find-file’ without losing what I have already
typed in the minibuffer.

   But for even more convenience, ‘embark-become’ offers shorter key
bindings for commands you are likely to want the current command to
become.  When you use ‘embark-become’ it looks for the current command
in all keymaps named in the list ‘embark-become-keymaps’ and then
activates all keymaps that contain it.  For example, the default value
of ‘embark-become-keymaps’ contains a keymap
‘embark-become-file+buffer-map’ with bindings for several commands
related to files and buffers, in particular, it binds ‘switch-to-buffer’
to ‘b’ and ‘find-file’ to ‘f’.  So when I accidentally try to switch to
a buffer for a file I haven't opened yet, ‘embark-become’ finds that the
command I ran, ‘switch-to-buffer’, is in the keymap
‘embark-become-file+buffer-map’, so it activates that keymap (and any
others that also contain a binding for ‘switch-to-buffer’).  The end
result is that I can type ‘C-. B f’ to switch to ‘find-file’.


File: embark.info,  Node: Quick start,  Next: Advanced configuration,  Prev: Overview,  Up: Top

2 Quick start
*************

The easiest way to install Embark is from GNU ELPA, just run ‘M-x
package-install RET embark RET’.  (It is also available on MELPA.)  It
is highly recommended to also install Marginalia
(https://github.com/minad/marginalia) (also available on GNU ELPA), so
that Embark can offer you preconfigured actions in more contexts.  For
‘use-package’ users, the following is a very reasonable starting
configuration:

     (use-package marginalia
       :ensure t
       :config
       (marginalia-mode))

     (use-package embark
       :ensure t

       :bind
       (("C-." . embark-act)         ;; pick some comfortable binding
        ("C-;" . embark-dwim)        ;; good alternative: M-.
        ("C-h B" . embark-bindings)) ;; alternative for `describe-bindings'

       :init

       ;; Optionally replace the key help with a completing-read interface
       (setq prefix-help-command #'embark-prefix-help-command)

       ;; Show the Embark target at point via Eldoc. You may adjust the
       ;; Eldoc strategy, if you want to see the documentation from
       ;; multiple providers. Beware that using this can be a little
       ;; jarring since the message shown in the minibuffer can be more
       ;; than one line, causing the modeline to move up and down:

       ;; (add-hook 'eldoc-documentation-functions #'embark-eldoc-first-target)
       ;; (setq eldoc-documentation-strategy #'eldoc-documentation-compose-eagerly)

       ;; Add Embark to the mouse context menu. Also enable `context-menu-mode'.
       ;; (context-menu-mode 1)
       ;; (add-hook 'context-menu-functions #'embark-context-menu 100)

       :config

       ;; Hide the mode line of the Embark live/completions buffers
       (add-to-list 'display-buffer-alist
                    '("\\`\\*Embark Collect \\(Live\\|Completions\\)\\*"
                      nil
                      (window-parameters (mode-line-format . none)))))

     ;; Consult users will also want the embark-consult package.
     (use-package embark-consult
       :ensure t) ; only need to install it, embark loads it after consult if found

   About the suggested key bindings for ‘embark-act’ and ‘embark-dwim’:
   • Those key bindings are unlikely to work in the terminal, but
     terminal users are probably well aware of this and will know to
     select different bindings.
   • The suggested ‘C-.’ binding is used by default in (at least some
     installations of) GNOME to input emojis, and Emacs doesn't even get
     a chance to respond to the binding.  You can select a different key
     binding for ‘embark-act’ or use ‘ibus-setup’ to change the shortcut
     for emoji insertion (Emacs 29 uses ‘C-x 8 e e’, in case you want to
     set the same one system-wide).
   • The suggested alternative of ‘M-.’ for ‘embark-dwim’ is bound by
     default to ‘xref-find-definitions’.  That is a very useful command
     but overwriting it with ‘embark-dwim’ is sensible since in Embark's
     default configuration, ‘embark-dwim’ will also find the definition
     of the identifier at point.  (Note that ‘xref-find-definitions’
     with a prefix argument prompts you for an identifier, ‘embark-dwim’
     does not cover this case).

   Other Embark commands such as ‘embark-act-all’, ‘embark-become’,
‘embark-collect’, and ‘embark-export’ can be run through ‘embark-act’ as
actions bound to ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘S’ (for "snapshot"), and ‘E’ respectively,
and thus don't really need a dedicated key binding, but feel free to
bind them directly if you so wish.  If you do choose to bind them
directly, you'll probably want to bind them in ‘minibuffer-local-map’,
since they are most useful in the minibuffer (in fact, ‘embark-become’
only works in the minibuffer).

   The command ‘embark-dwim’ executes the default action at point.
Another good keybinding for ‘embark-dwim’ is ‘M-.’ since ‘embark-dwim’
acts like ‘xref-find-definitions’ on the symbol at point.  ‘C-.’ can be
seen as a right-click context menu at point and ‘M-.’ acts like
left-click.  The keybindings are mnemonic, both act at the point (‘.’).

   Embark needs to know what your minibuffer completion system considers
to be the list of candidates and which one is the current candidate.
Embark works out of the box if you use Emacs's default tab completion,
the built-in ‘icomplete-mode’ or ‘fido-mode’, or the third-party
packages Vertico (https://github.com/minad/vertico) or Ivy
(https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper).

   If you are a Helm (https://emacs-helm.github.io/helm/) or Ivy
(https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper) user you are unlikely to want Embark
since those packages include comprehensive functionality for acting on
minibuffer completion candidates.  (Embark does come with Ivy
integration despite this.)


File: embark.info,  Node: Advanced configuration,  Next: How does Embark call the actions?,  Prev: Quick start,  Up: Top

3 Advanced configuration
************************

* Menu:

* Showing information about available targets and actions::
* Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings::
* Quitting the minibuffer after an action::
* Recording acted-on minibuffer candidates in minibuffer history::
* Running some setup after injecting the target::
* Running hooks before, after or around an action::
* Creating your own keymaps::
* Defining actions for new categories of targets::


File: embark.info,  Node: Showing information about available targets and actions,  Next: Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings,  Up: Advanced configuration

3.1 Showing information about available targets and actions
===========================================================

By default, if you run ‘embark-act’ and do not immediately select an
action, after a short delay Embark will pop up a buffer called ‘*Embark
Actions*’ containing a list of available actions with their key
bindings.  You can scroll that buffer with the mouse of with the usual
commands ‘scroll-other-window’ and ‘scroll-other-window-down’ (bound by
default to ‘C-M-v’ and ‘C-M-S-v’).

   That functionality is provided by the ‘embark-mixed-indicator’, but
Embark has other indicators that can provide information about the
target and its type, what other targets you can cycle to, and which
actions have key bindings in the action map for the current type of
target.  Any number of indicators can be active at once and the user
option ‘embark-indicators’ should be set to a list of the desired
indicators.

   Embark comes with the following indicators:

   • ‘embark-minimal-indicator’: shows a messages in the echo area or
     minibuffer prompt showing the current target and the types of all
     targets starting with the current one.

   • ‘embark-highlight-indicator’: highlights the target at point; on by
     default.

   • ‘embark-verbose-indicator’: displays a table of actions and their
     key bindings in a buffer; this is not on by default, in favor of
     the mixed indicator described next.

   • ‘embark-mixed-indicator’: starts out by behaving as the minimal
     indicator but after a short delay acts as the verbose indicator;
     this is on by default.

   • ‘embark-isearch-highlight-indicator’: this only does something when
     the current target is the symbol at point, in which case it lazily
     highlights all occurrences of that symbol in the current buffer,
     like isearch; also on by default.

   Users of the popular which-key
(https://github.com/justbur/emacs-which-key) package may prefer to use
the ‘embark-which-key-indicator’ from the Embark wiki
(https://github.com/oantolin/embark/wiki/Additional-Configuration#use-which-key-like-a-key-menu-prompt).
Just copy its definition from the wiki into your configuration and
customize the ‘embark-indicators’ user option to exclude the mixed and
verbose indicators and to include ‘embark-which-key-indicator’.

   If you use Vertico (https://github.com/minad/vertico), there is an
even easier way to get a ‘which-key’-like display that also lets you use
completion to narrow down the list of alternatives, described at the end
of the next section.


File: embark.info,  Node: Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings,  Next: Quitting the minibuffer after an action,  Prev: Showing information about available targets and actions,  Up: Advanced configuration

3.2 Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings
==============================================================

As an alternative to reading the list of actions in the verbose or mixed
indicators (see the previous section for a description of these), you
can press the ‘embark-help-key’, which is ‘C-h’ by default (but you may
prefer ‘?’ to free up ‘C-h’ for use as a prefix) after running
‘embark-act’.  Pressing the help key will prompt you for the name of an
action with completion (but feel free to enter a command that is not
among the offered candidates!), and will also remind you of the key
bindings.  You can press ‘embark-keymap-prompter-key’, which is ‘@’ by
default, at the prompt and then one of the key bindings to enter the
name of the corresponding action.

   You may think that with the ‘*Embark Actions*’ buffer popping up to
remind you of the key bindings you'd never want to use completion to
select an action by name, but personally I find that typing a small
portion of the action name to narrow down the list of candidates feels
significantly faster than visually scanning the entire list of actions.

   If you find you prefer selecting actions that way, you can configure
embark to always prompt you for actions by setting the variable
‘embark-prompter’ to ‘embark-completing-read-prompter’.

   On the other hand, you may wish to continue using key bindings for
the actions you perform most often, and to use completion only to
explore what further actions are available or when you've forgotten a
key binding.  In that case, you may prefer to use the minimal indicator,
which does not pop-up an ‘*Embark Actions*’ buffer at all, and to use
the ‘embark-help-key’ whenever you need help.  This unobtrusive setup is
achieved with the following configuration:

     (setq embark-indicators
           '(embark-minimal-indicator  ; default is embark-mixed-indicator
             embark-highlight-indicator
             embark-isearch-highlight-indicator))

   Vertico (https://github.com/minad/vertico) users may wish to
configure a grid display for the actions and key-bindings, reminiscent
of the popular package which-key
(https://github.com/justbur/emacs-which-key), but, of course, enhanced
by the use of completion to narrow the list of commands.  In order to
get the grid display, put the following in your Vertico configuration:

     (add-to-list 'vertico-multiform-categories '(embark-keybinding grid))
     (vertico-multiform-mode)

   This will make the available keys be shown in a compact grid like in
‘which-key’.  The ‘vertico-multiform-mode’ also enables keys such as
‘M-V’, ‘M-G’, ‘M-B’, and ‘M-U’ for manually switching between layouts in
Vertico buffers.

* Menu:

* Selecting commands via completion outside of Embark::


File: embark.info,  Node: Selecting commands via completion outside of Embark,  Up: Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings

3.2.1 Selecting commands via completion outside of Embark
---------------------------------------------------------

If you like this completion interface for exploring key bindings for
Embark actions, you may want to use it elsewhere in Emacs.  You can use
Embark's completion-based command prompter to list:

   • key bindings under a prefix,
   • local key bindings, or
   • all key bindings.

   To use it for key bindings under a prefix (you can use this to
replace the ‘which-key’ package, for example), use this configuration:

     (setq prefix-help-command #'embark-prefix-help-command)

   Now, when you have started on a prefix sequence such as ‘C-x’ or
‘C-c’, pressing ‘C-h’ will bring up the Embark version of the built-in
‘prefix-help-command’, which will list the keys under that prefix and
their bindings, and lets you select the one you wanted with completion,
or by key binding if you press ‘embark-keymap-prompter-key’.

   To list local or global key bindings, use the command
‘embark-bindings’.  You can bind that to ‘C-h b’, which is the default
key binding for the built-in ‘describe-bindings’ command, which this
command can replace.  By default, ‘embark-bindings’ lists local key
bindings, typically those bound in the major mode keymap; to get global
bindings as well, call it with a ‘C-u’ prefix argument.


File: embark.info,  Node: Quitting the minibuffer after an action,  Next: Recording acted-on minibuffer candidates in minibuffer history,  Prev: Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings,  Up: Advanced configuration

3.3 Quitting the minibuffer after an action
===========================================

By default, if you call ‘embark-act’ from the minibuffer it quits the
minibuffer after performing the action.  You can change this by setting
the user option ‘embark-quit-after-action’ to ‘nil’.  Having
‘embark-act’ _not_ quit the minibuffer can be useful to turn commands
into little "thing managers".  For example, you can use ‘find-file’ as a
little file manager or ‘describe-package’ as a little package manager:
you can run those commands, perform a series of actions, and then quit
the command.

   If you want to control the quitting behavior in a fine-grained manner
depending on the action, you can set ‘embark-quit-after-action’ to an
alist, associating commands to either ‘t’ for quitting or ‘nil’ for not
quitting.  When using an alist, you can use the special key ‘t’ to
specify the default behavior.  For example, to specify that by default
actions should not quit the minibuffer but that using ‘kill-buffer’ as
an action should quit, you can use the following configuration:

     (setq embark-quit-after-action '((kill-buffer . t) (t . nil)))

   The variable ‘embark-quit-after-action’ only specifies a default,
that is, it only controls whether or not ‘embark-act’ quits the
minibuffer when you call it without a prefix argument, and you can
select the opposite behavior to what the variable says by calling
‘embark-act’ with ‘C-u’.  Also note that both the variable
‘embark-quit-after-action’ and ‘C-u’ have no effect when you call
‘embark-act’ outside the minibuffer.

   If you find yourself using the quitting and non-quitting variants of
‘embark-act’ about equally often, independently of the action, you may
prefer to simply have separate commands for them instead of a single
command that you call with ‘C-u’ half the time.  You could, for example,
keep the default exiting behavior of ‘embark-act’ and define a
non-quitting version as follows:

     (defun embark-act-noquit ()
       "Run action but don't quit the minibuffer afterwards."
       (interactive)
       (let ((embark-quit-after-action nil))
         (embark-act)))


File: embark.info,  Node: Recording acted-on minibuffer candidates in minibuffer history,  Next: Running some setup after injecting the target,  Prev: Quitting the minibuffer after an action,  Up: Advanced configuration

3.4 Recording acted-on minibuffer candidates in minibuffer history
==================================================================

Confirming minibuffer input with ‘RET’ records the selected candidate in
the appropriate history list.  The user option
‘embark-record-minibuffer-history’ controls how Embark records acted-on
candidates.  This option accepts three kinds of values: ‘t’ (always
record), ‘nil’ (never record), or ‘(skip ACTIONS...)’ to record for
everything except the listed actions.  The default is a ‘skip’ form that
excludes meta commands such as ‘embark-export’.


File: embark.info,  Node: Running some setup after injecting the target,  Next: Running hooks before, after or around an action,  Prev: Recording acted-on minibuffer candidates in minibuffer history,  Up: Advanced configuration

3.5 Running some setup after injecting the target
=================================================

You can customize what happens after the target is inserted at the
minibuffer prompt of an action.  There are
‘embark-target-injection-hooks’, that are run by default after injecting
the target into the minibuffer.  The variable
‘embark-target-injection-hooks’ is an alist associating commands to
their setup hooks.  There are two special keys: if no setup hook is
specified for a given action, the hook associated to ‘t’ is run; and the
hook associated to ‘:always’ is run regardless of the action.  (This
variable used to have the less explicit name of
‘embark-setup-action-hooks’, so please update your configuration.)

   For example, consider using ‘shell-command’ as an action during file
completion.  It would be useful to insert a space before the target file
name and to leave the point at the beginning, so you can immediately
type the shell command to run on that file.  That's why in Embark's
default configuration there is an entry in
‘embark-target-injection-hooks’ associating ‘shell-command’ to a hook
that includes ‘embark--shell-prep’, a simple helper function that quotes
all the spaces in the file name, inserts an extra space at the beginning
of the line and leaves point to the left of it.

   Now, the preparation that ‘embark--shell-prep’ does would be useless
if Embark did what it normally does after it inserts the target of the
action at the minibuffer prompt, which is to "press ‘RET’" for you,
accepting the target as is; if Embark did that for ‘shell-command’ you
wouldn't get a chance to type in the command to execute!  That is why in
Embark's default configuration the entry for ‘shell-command’ in
‘embark-target-injection-hooks’ also contains the function
‘embark--allow-edit’.

   Embark used to have a dedicated variable ‘embark-allow-edit-actions’
to which you could add commands for which Embark should forgo pressing
‘RET’ for you after inserting the target.  Since its effect can also be
achieved via the general ‘embark-target-injection-hooks’ mechanism, that
variable has been removed to simplify Embark.  Be sure to update your
configuration; if you had something like:

     (add-to-list 'embark-allow-edit-actions 'my-command)

   you should replace it with:

     (push 'embark--allow-edit
           (alist-get 'my-command embark-target-injection-hooks))

   Also note that while you could abuse ‘embark--allow-edit’ so that you
have to confirm "dangerous" actions such as ‘delete-file’, it is better
to implement confirmation by adding the ‘embark--confirm’ function to
the appropriate entry of a different hook alist, namely,
‘embark-pre-action-hooks’.

   Besides ‘embark--allow-edit’, Embark comes with another function that
is of general utility in action setup hooks: ‘embark--ignore-target’.
Use it for commands that do prompt you in the minibuffer but for which
inserting the target would be inappropriate.  This is not a common
situation but does occasionally arise.  For example it is used by
default for ‘shell-command-on-region’: that command is used as an action
for region targets, and it prompts you for a shell command; you
typically do _not_ want the target, that is the contents of the region,
to be entered at that prompt!


File: embark.info,  Node: Running hooks before, after or around an action,  Next: Creating your own keymaps,  Prev: Running some setup after injecting the target,  Up: Advanced configuration

3.6 Running hooks before, after or around an action
===================================================

Embark has three variables, ‘embark-pre-action-hooks’,
‘embark-post-action-hooks’ and ‘embark-around-action-hooks’, which are
alists associating commands to hooks that should run before or after or
as around advice for the command when used as an action.  As with
‘embark-target-injection-hooks’, there are two special keys for the
alists: ‘t’ designates the default hook to run when no specific hook is
specified for a command; and the hook associated to ‘:always’ runs
regardless.

   The default values of those variables are fairly extensive, adding
creature comforts to make running actions a smooth experience.  Embark
comes with several functions intended to be added to these hooks, and
used in the default values of ‘embark-pre-action-hooks’,
‘embark-post-action-hooks’ and ‘embark-around-action-hooks’.

   For pre-action hooks:

‘embark--confirm’
     Prompt the user for confirmation before executing the action.  This
     is used be default for commands deemed "dangerous", or, more
     accurately, hard to undo, such as ‘delete-file’ and ‘kill-buffer’.

‘embark--unmark-target’
     Unmark the active region.  Use this for commands you want to act on
     the region contents but without the region being active.  The
     default configuration uses this function as a pre-action hook for
     ‘occur’ and ‘query-replace’, for example, so that you can use them
     as actions with region targets to search the whole buffer for the
     text contained in the region.  Without this pre-action hook using
     ‘occur’ as an action for a region target would be pointless: it
     would search for the the region contents _in the region_,
     (typically, due to the details of regexps) finding only one match!

‘embark--beginning-of-target’
     Move to the beginning of the target (for targets that report
     bounds).  This is used by default for backward motion commands such
     as ‘backward-sexp’, so that they don't accidentally leave you on
     the current target.

‘embark--end-of-target’
     Move to the end of the target.  This is used similarly to the
     previous function, but also for commands that act on the last
     s-expression like ‘eval-last-sexp’.  This allow you to act on an
     s-expression from anywhere inside it and still use ‘eval-last-sexp’
     as an action.

‘embark--xref-push-markers’
     Push the current location on the xref marker stack.  Use this for
     commands that take you somewhere and for which you'd like to be
     able to come back to where you were using ‘xref-pop-marker-stack’.
     This is used by default for ‘find-library’.

   For post-action hooks:

‘embark--restart’
     Restart the command currently prompting in the minibuffer, so that
     the list of completion candidates is updated.  This is useful as a
     post action hook for commands that delete or rename a completion
     candidate; for example the default value of
     ‘embark-post-action-hooks’ uses it for ‘delete-file’,
     ‘kill-buffer’, ‘rename-file’, ‘rename-buffer’, etc.

   For around-action hooks:

‘embark--mark-target’
     Save existing mark and point location, mark the target and run the
     action.  Most targets at point outside the minibuffer report which
     region of the buffer they correspond to (this is the information
     used by ‘embark-highlight-indicator’ to know what portion of the
     buffer to highlight); this function marks that region.  It is
     useful as an around action hook for commands that expect a region
     to be marked, for example, it is used by default for
     ‘indent-region’ so that it works on s-expression targets, or for
     ‘fill-region’ so that it works on paragraph targets.

‘embark--cd’
     Run the action with ‘default-directory’ set to the directory
     associated to the current target.  The target should be of type
     ‘file’, ‘buffer’, ‘bookmark’ or ‘library’, and the associated
     directory is what you'd expect in each case.

‘embark--narrow-to-target’
     Run the action with buffer narrowed to current target.  Use this as
     an around hook to localize the effect of actions that don't already
     work on just the region.  In the default configuration it is used
     for ‘repunctuate-sentences’.

‘embark--save-excursion’
     Run the action restoring point at the end.  The current default
     configuration doesn't use this but it is available for users.


File: embark.info,  Node: Creating your own keymaps,  Next: Defining actions for new categories of targets,  Prev: Running hooks before, after or around an action,  Up: Advanced configuration

3.7 Creating your own keymaps
=============================

All internal keymaps are defined with the standard helper macro
‘defvar-keymap’.  For example a simple version of the file action keymap
could be defined as follows:

     (defvar-keymap embark-file-map
       :doc "Example keymap with a few file actions"
       :parent embark-general-map
       "d" #'delete-file
       "r" #'rename-file
       "c" #'copy-file)

   These action keymaps are perfectly normal Emacs keymaps.  You may
want to inherit from the ‘embark-general-map’ if you want to access the
default Embark actions.  Note that ‘embark-collect’ and ‘embark-export’
are also made available via ‘embark-general-map’.


File: embark.info,  Node: Defining actions for new categories of targets,  Prev: Creating your own keymaps,  Up: Advanced configuration

3.8 Defining actions for new categories of targets
==================================================

It is easy to configure Embark to provide actions for new types of
targets, either in the minibuffer or outside it.  I present below two
very detailed examples of how to do this.  At several points I'll
explain more than one way to proceed, typically with the easiest option
first.  I include the alternative options since there will be similar
situations where the easiest option is not available.

* Menu:

* New minibuffer target example - tab-bar tabs::
* New target example in regular buffers - short Wikipedia links::


File: embark.info,  Node: New minibuffer target example - tab-bar tabs,  Next: New target example in regular buffers - short Wikipedia links,  Up: Defining actions for new categories of targets

3.8.1 New minibuffer target example - tab-bar tabs
--------------------------------------------------

As an example let us take a look at the tab bars
(https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Tab-Bars.html).
I'll explain how to configure Embark to offer tab-specific actions when
you use the tab-bar-mode commands that mention tabs by name.  The
configuration explained here is now built-in to Embark (and Marginalia),
but it's still a good self-contained example.  In order to setup up tab
actions you would need to: (1) make sure Embark knows those commands
deal with tabs, (2) define a keymap for tab actions and configure Embark
so it knows that's the keymap you want.

  1. Telling Embark about commands that prompt for tabs by name

     For step (1), it would be great if the ‘tab-bar-mode’ commands
     reported the completion category ‘tab’ when asking you for a tab
     with completion.  (All built-in Emacs commands that prompt for file
     names, for example, do have metadata indicating that they want a
     ‘file’.)  They do not, unfortunately, and I will describe a couple
     of ways to deal with this.

     Maybe the easiest thing is to configure Marginalia
     (https://github.com/minad/marginalia) to enhance those commands.
     All of the ‘tab-bar-*-tab-by-name’ commands have the words "tab by
     name" in the minibuffer prompt, so you can use:

          (add-to-list 'marginalia-prompt-categories '("tab by name" . tab))

     That's it!  But in case you are ever in a situation where you don't
     already have commands that prompt for the targets you want, I'll
     describe how writing your own command with appropriate ‘category’
     metadata looks:

          (defun my-select-tab-by-name (tab)
            (interactive
             (list
              (let ((tab-list (or (mapcar (lambda (tab) (cdr (assq 'name tab)))
                                          (tab-bar-tabs))
                                  (user-error "No tabs found"))))
                (completing-read
                 "Tabs: "
                 (lambda (string predicate action)
                   (if (eq action 'metadata)
                       '(metadata (category . tab))
                     (complete-with-action
                      action tab-list string predicate)))))))
            (tab-bar-select-tab-by-name tab))

     As you can see, the built-in support for setting the category
     meta-datum is not very easy to use or pretty to look at.  To help
     with this I recommend the ‘consult--read’ function from the
     excellent Consult (https://github.com/minad/consult/) package.
     With that function we can rewrite the command as follows:

          (defun my-select-tab-by-name (tab)
            (interactive
             (list
              (let ((tab-list (or (mapcar (lambda (tab) (cdr (assq 'name tab)))
                                          (tab-bar-tabs))
                                  (user-error "No tabs found"))))
                (consult--read tab-list
                               :prompt "Tabs: "
                               :category 'tab))))
            (tab-bar-select-tab-by-name tab))

     Much nicer!  No matter how you define the ‘my-select-tab-by-name’
     command, the first approach with Marginalia and prompt detection
     has the following advantages: you get the ‘tab’ category for all
     the ‘tab-bar-*-bar-by-name’ commands at once, also, you enhance
     built-in commands, instead of defining new ones.

  2. Defining and configuring a keymap for tab actions

     Let's say we want to offer select, rename and close actions for
     tabs (in addition to Embark general actions, such as saving the tab
     name to the kill-ring, which you get for free).  Then this will do:

          (defvar-keymap embark-tab-actions
            :doc "Keymap for actions for tab-bar tabs (when mentioned by name)."
            :parent embark-general-map
            "s" #'tab-bar-select-tab-by-name
            "r" #'tab-bar-rename-tab-by-name
            "k" #'tab-bar-close-tab-by-name)

          (add-to-list 'embark-keymap-alist '(tab . embark-tab-actions))

     What if after using this for a while you feel closing the tab
     without confirmation is dangerous?  You have a couple of options:

       1. You can keep using the ‘tab-bar-close-tab-by-name’ command,
          but have Embark ask you for confirmation:
               (push #'embark--confirm
                     (alist-get 'tab-bar-close-tab-by-name
                                embark-pre-action-hooks))

       2. You can write your own command that prompts for confirmation
          and use that instead of ‘tab-bar-close-tab-by-name’ in the
          above keymap:
               (defun my-confirm-close-tab-by-name (tab)
                 (interactive "sTab to close: ")
                 (when (y-or-n-p (format "Close tab '%s'? " tab))
                   (tab-bar-close-tab-by-name tab)))

          Notice that this is a command you can also use directly from
          ‘M-x’ independently of Embark.  Using it from ‘M-x’ leaves
          something to be desired, though, since you don't get
          completion for the tab names.  You can fix this if you wish as
          described in the previous section.


File: embark.info,  Node: New target example in regular buffers - short Wikipedia links,  Prev: New minibuffer target example - tab-bar tabs,  Up: Defining actions for new categories of targets

3.8.2 New target example in regular buffers - short Wikipedia links
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Say you want to teach Embark to treat text of the form
‘wikipedia:Garry_Kasparov’ in any regular buffer as a link to Wikipedia,
with actions to open the Wikipedia page in eww or an external browser or
to save the URL of the page in the kill-ring.  We can take advantage of
the actions that Embark has preconfigured for URLs, so all we need to do
is teach Embark that ‘wikipedia:Garry_Kasparov’ stands for the URL
‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kasparov’.

   You can be as fancy as you want with the recognized syntax.  Here, to
keep the example simple, I'll assume the link matches the regexp
‘wikipedia:[[:alnum:]_]+’.  We will write a function that looks for a
match surrounding point, and returns a dotted list of the form ‘'(url
URL-OF-THE-PAGE START . END)’ where ‘START’ and ‘END’ are the buffer
positions bounding the target, and are used by Embark to highlight it if
you have ‘embark-highlight-indicator’ included in the list
‘embark-indicators’.  (There are a couple of other options for the
return value of a target finder: the bounding positions are optional and
a single target finder is allowed to return multiple targets; see the
documentation for ‘embark-target-finders’ for details.)

     (defun my-short-wikipedia-link ()
       "Target a link at point of the form wikipedia:Page_Name."
       (save-excursion
         (let* ((start (progn (skip-chars-backward "[:alnum:]_:") (point)))
                (end (progn (skip-chars-forward "[:alnum:]_:") (point)))
                (str (buffer-substring-no-properties start end)))
           (save-match-data
             (when (string-match "wikipedia:\\([[:alnum:]_]+\\)" str)
               `(url
                 ,(format "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s"
                          (match-string 1 str))
                 ,start . ,end))))))

     (add-to-list 'embark-target-finders 'my-short-wikipedia-link)


File: embark.info,  Node: How does Embark call the actions?,  Next: Embark, Marginalia and Consult,  Prev: Advanced configuration,  Up: Top

4 How does Embark call the actions?
***********************************

Embark actions are normal Emacs commands, that is, functions with an
interactive specification.  In order to execute an action, Embark calls
the command with ‘call-interactively’, so the command reads user input
exactly as if run directly by the user.  For example the command may
open a minibuffer and read a string (‘read-from-minibuffer’) or open a
completion interface (‘completing-read’).  If this happens, Embark takes
the target string and inserts it automatically into the minibuffer,
simulating user input this way.  After inserting the string, Embark
exits the minibuffer, submitting the input.  (The immediate minibuffer
exit can be disabled for specific actions in order to allow editing the
input; this is done by adding the ‘embark--allow-edit’ function to the
appropriate entry of ‘embark-target-injection-hooks’).  Embark inserts
the target string at the first minibuffer opened by the action command,
and if the command happens to prompt the user for input more than once,
the user still interacts with the second and further prompts in the
normal fashion.  Note that if a command does not prompt the user for
input in the minibuffer, Embark still allows you to use it as an action,
but of course, never inserts the target anywhere.  (There are plenty of
examples in the default configuration of commands that do not prompt the
user bound to keys in the action maps, most of the region actions, for
instance.)

   This is how Embark manages to reuse normal commands as actions.  The
mechanism allows you to use as Embark actions commands that were not
written with Embark in mind (and indeed almost all actions that are
bound by default in Embark's action keymaps are standard Emacs
commands).  It also allows you to write new custom actions in such a way
that they are useful even without Embark.

   Emacs has a variable ‘y-or-n-p-use-read-key’, which when set to ‘t’
causes ‘y-or-n-p’ to use ‘read-key’ instead of ‘read-from-minibuffer’.
Setting ‘y-or-n-p-use-read-key’ to ‘t’ is recommended for Embark users
because it keeps Embark from attempting to insert the target at a
‘y-or-n-p’ prompt, which would almost never be sensible.  Also consider
this as a warning to structure your own action commands so that if they
use ‘y-or-n-p’, they do so only after the prompting for the target.

   Here is a simple example illustrating the various ways of reading
input from the user mentioned above.  Bind the following commands to the
‘embark-symbol-map’ to be used as actions, then put the point on some
symbol and run them with ‘embark-act’:

     (defun example-action-command1 ()
       (interactive)
       (message "The input was `%s'." (read-from-minibuffer "Input: ")))

     (defun example-action-command2 (arg input1 input2)
       (interactive "P\nsInput 1: \nsInput 2: ")
       (message "The first input %swas `%s', and the second was `%s'."
                (if arg "truly " "")
                input1
                input2))

     (defun example-action-command3 ()
       (interactive)
       (message "Your selection was `%s'."
                (completing-read "Select: " '("E" "M" "B" "A" "R" "K"))))

     (defun example-action-command4 ()
       (interactive)
       (message "I don't prompt you for input and thus ignore the target!"))

     (keymap-set embark-symbol-map "X 1" #'example-action-command1)
     (keymap-set embark-symbol-map "X 2" #'example-action-command2)
     (keymap-set embark-symbol-map "X 3" #'example-action-command3)
     (keymap-set embark-symbol-map "X 4" #'example-action-command4)

   Also note that if you are using the key bindings to call actions, you
can pass prefix arguments to actions in the normal way.  For example,
you can use ‘C-u X2’ with the above demonstration actions to make the
message printed by ‘example-action-command2’ more emphatic.  This
ability to pass prefix arguments to actions is useful for some actions
in the default configuration, such as ‘embark-shell-command-on-buffer’.

* Menu:

* Non-interactive functions as actions::


File: embark.info,  Node: Non-interactive functions as actions,  Up: How does Embark call the actions?

4.1 Non-interactive functions as actions
========================================

Alternatively, Embark does support one other type of action: a
non-interactive function of a single argument.  The target is passed as
argument to the function.  For example:

     (defun example-action-function (target)
       (message "The target was `%s'." target))

     (keymap-set embark-symbol-map "X 4" #'example-action-function)

   Note that normally binding non-interactive functions in a keymap is
useless, since when attempting to run them using the key binding you get
an error message similar to "Wrong type argument: commandp,
example-action-function".  In general it is more flexible to write any
new Embark actions as commands, that is, as interactive functions,
because that way you can also run them directly, without Embark.  But
there are a couple of reasons to use non-interactive functions as
actions:

  1. You may already have the function lying around, and it is
     convenient to simply reuse it.

  2. For command actions the targets can only be simple string, with no
     text properties.  For certain advanced uses you may want the action
     to receive a string _with_ some text properties, or even a
     non-string target.


File: embark.info,  Node: Embark, Marginalia and Consult,  Next: Related Packages,  Prev: How does Embark call the actions?,  Up: Top

5 Embark, Marginalia and Consult
********************************

Embark cooperates well with the Marginalia
(https://github.com/minad/marginalia) and Consult
(https://github.com/minad/consult) packages.  Neither of those packages
is a dependency of Embark, but both are highly recommended companions to
Embark, for opposite reasons: Marginalia greatly enhances Embark's
usefulness, while Embark can help enhance Consult.

   In the remainder of this section I'll explain what exactly Marginalia
does for Embark, and what Embark can do for Consult.

* Menu:

* Marginalia::
* Consult::


File: embark.info,  Node: Marginalia,  Next: Consult,  Up: Embark, Marginalia and Consult

5.1 Marginalia
==============

Embark comes with actions for symbols (commands, functions, variables
with actions such as finding the definition, looking up the
documentation, evaluating, etc.)  in the ‘embark-symbol-map’ keymap, and
for packages (actions like install, delete, browse url, etc.)  in the
‘embark-package-keymap’.

   Unfortunately Embark does not automatically offers you these keymaps
when relevant, because many built-in Emacs commands don't report
accurate category metadata.  For example, a command like
‘describe-package’, which reads a package name from the minibuffer, does
not have metadata indicating this fact.

   In an earlier Embark version, there were functions to supply this
missing metadata, but they have been moved to Marginalia, which augments
many Emacs command to report accurate category metadata.  Simply
activating ‘marginalia-mode’ allows Embark to offer you the package and
symbol actions when appropriate again.  Candidate annotations in the
Embark collect buffer are also provided by the Marginalia package:

   • If you install Marginalia and activate ‘marginalia-mode’, Embark
     Collect buffers will use the Marginalia annotations automatically.

   • If you don't install Marginalia, you will see only the annotations
     that come with Emacs (such as key bindings in ‘M-x’, or the unicode
     characters in ‘C-x 8 RET’).


File: embark.info,  Node: Consult,  Prev: Marginalia,  Up: Embark, Marginalia and Consult

5.2 Consult
===========

The excellent Consult package provides many commands that use minibuffer
completion, via the ‘completing-read’ function; plenty of its commands
can be considered enhanced versions of built-in Emacs commands, and some
are completely new functionality.  One common enhancement provided in
all commands for which it makes sense is preview functionality, for
example ‘consult-buffer’ will show you a quick preview of a buffer
before you actually switch to it.

   If you use both Consult and Embark you should install the
‘embark-consult’ package which provides integration between the two.  It
provides exporters for several Consult commands and also tweaks the
behavior of many Consult commands when used as actions with ‘embark-act’
in subtle ways that you may not even notice, but make for a smoother
experience.  You need only install it to get these benefits: Embark will
automatically load it after Consult if found.

   The ‘embark-consult’ package provides the following exporters:

   • You can use ‘embark-export’ from ‘consult-line’, ‘consult-outline’,
     or ‘consult-mark’ to obtain an ‘occur-mode’ buffer.  As with the
     built-in ‘occur’ command you use that buffer to jump to a match and
     after that, you can then use ‘next-error’ and ‘previous-error’ to
     navigate to other matches.  You can also press ‘e’ to activate
     ‘occur-edit-mode’ and edit the matches in place!

   • You can export from any of the Consult asynchronous search
     commands, ‘consult-grep’, ‘consult-git-grep’, or ‘consult-ripgrep’
     to get a ‘grep-mode’ buffer.  Here too you can use ‘next-error’ and
     ‘previous-error’ to navigate among matches, and, if you install the
     wgrep
     (http://github.com/mhayashi1120/Emacs-wgrep/raw/master/wgrep.el)
     package, you can use it to edit the matches in place.

   In both cases, pressing ‘g’ will rerun the Consult command you had
exported from and re-enter the input you had typed (which is similar to
reverting but a little more flexible).  You can then proceed to
re-export if that's what you want, but you can also edit the input
changing the search terms or simply cancel if you see you are done with
that search.

   The ‘embark-consult’ also contains some candidates collectors that
allow you to run ‘embark-live’ to get a live-updating table of contents
for your buffer:

   • ‘embark-consult-outline-candidates’ produces the outline headings
     of the current buffer, using ‘consult-outline’.
   • ‘embark-consult-imenu-candidates’ produces the imenu items of the
     current buffer, using ‘consult-imenu’.
   • ‘embark-consult-imenu-or-outline-candidates’ is a simple
     combination of the two previous functions: it produces imenu items
     in buffers deriving from ‘prog-mode’ and otherwise outline
     headings.

   The way to configure ‘embark-live’ (or ‘embark-collect’ and
‘embark-export’ for that matter) to use one of these function is to add
it at the end of the ‘embark-candidate-collectors’ list.  The
‘embark-consult’ package by default adds the last one, which seems to be
the most sensible default.

   Besides those exporters and candidate collectors, the
‘embark-consult’ package provides many subtle tweaks and small
integrations between Embark and Consult.  Some examples are:

   • When used as actions, the asynchronous search commands will search
     only the files associated to the targets: if the targets _are_
     files, it searches those files; for buffers it will search either
     the associated file if there is one, else all files in the buffer's
     ‘default-directory’; for bookmarks it will search the file they
     point to, same for Emacs Lisp libraries.  This is particularly
     powerful when using ‘embark-act-all’ to act on multiple files at
     once, for example you can use ‘consult-find’ to search among file
     _names_ and then ‘embark-act-all’ and ‘consult-grep’ to search
     within the matching files.

        • For all other target types, those that do not have a sensible
          notion of associated file, a Consult search command
          (asynchronous or not) will search for the text of the target
          but leave the minibuffer open so you can interact with the
          Consult command.

   • ‘consult-imenu’ will search for the target and take you directly to
     the location if it matches a unique imenu entry, otherwise it will
     leave the minibuffer open so you can navigate among the matches.


File: embark.info,  Node: Related Packages,  Next: Resources,  Prev: Embark, Marginalia and Consult,  Up: Top

6 Related Packages
******************

There are several packages that offer functionality similar to Embark's.

Acting on minibuffer completion candidates
     The popular Ivy and Helm packages have support for acting on the
     completion candidates of commands written using their APIs, and
     there is an extensive ecosystem of packages meant for Helm and for
     Ivy (the Ivy ones usually have "counsel" in the name) providing
     commands and appropriate actions.
Acting on things at point
     The built-in ‘context-menu-mode’ provides a mouse-driven
     context-sensitive configurable menu.  The ‘do-at-point’ package by
     Philip Kaludercic (available on GNU ELPA), on the other hand is
     keyboard-driven.
Collecting completion candidates into a buffer
     The Ivy package has the command ‘ivy-occur’ which is similar to
     ‘embark-collect’.  As with Ivy actions, ‘ivy-occur’ only works for
     commands written using the Ivy API.


File: embark.info,  Node: Resources,  Next: Contributions,  Prev: Related Packages,  Up: Top

7 Resources
***********

If you want to learn more about how others have used Embark here are
some links to read:

   • Fifteen ways to use Embark
     (https://karthinks.com/software/fifteen-ways-to-use-embark/), a
     blog post by Karthik Chikmagalur.
   • Protesilaos Stavrou's dotemacs (https://protesilaos.com/dotemacs/),
     look for the section called "Extended minibuffer actions and more
     (embark.el and prot-embark.el)"

   And some videos to watch:

   • Embark and my extras
     (https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2021-01-09-emacs-embark-extras/)
     by Protesilaos Stavrou.
   • Embark - Key features and tweaks (https://youtu.be/qpoQiiinCtY) by
     Raoul Comninos on the Emacs-Elements YouTube channel.
   • Livestreamed: Adding an Embark context action to send a stream
     message (https://youtu.be/WsxXr1ncukY) by Sacha Chua.
   • System Crafters Live!  - The Many Uses of Embark
     (https://youtu.be/qk2Is_sC8Lk) by David Wilson.
   • Using Emacs Episode 80 - Vertico, Marginalia, Consult and Embark
     (https://youtu.be/5ffb2at2d7w) by Mike Zamansky.


File: embark.info,  Node: Contributions,  Next: Acknowledgments,  Prev: Resources,  Up: Top

8 Contributions
***************

Contributions to Embark are very welcome.  There is a wish list
(https://github.com/oantolin/embark/issues/95) for actions, target
finders, candidate collectors and exporters.  For other ideas you have
for Embark, feel free to open an issue on the issue tracker
(https://github.com/oantolin/embark/issues).  Any neat configuration
tricks you find might be a good fit for the wiki
(https://github.com/oantolin/embark/wiki).

   Code contributions are very welcome too, but since Embark is now on
GNU ELPA, copyright assignment to the FSF is required before you can
contribute code.


File: embark.info,  Node: Acknowledgments,  Prev: Contributions,  Up: Top

9 Acknowledgments
*****************

While I, Omar Antolín Camarena, have written most of the Embark code and
remain very stubborn about some of the design decisions, Embark has
received substantial help from a number of other people which this
document has neglected to mention for far too long.  In particular,
Daniel Mendler has been absolutely invaluable, implementing several
important features, and providing a lot of useful advice.

   Code contributions:

   • Daniel Mendler (https://github.com/minad)
   • Clemens Radermacher (https://github.com/clemera/)
   • José Antonio Ortega Ruiz (https://codeberg.org/jao/)
   • Itai Y.  Efrat (https://github.com/iyefrat)
   • a13 (https://github.com/a13)
   • jakanakaevangeli (https://github.com/jakanakaevangeli)
   • mihakam (https://github.com/mihakam)
   • Brian Leung (https://github.com/leungbk)
   • Karthik Chikmagalur (https://github.com/karthink)
   • Roshan Shariff (https://github.com/roshanshariff)
   • condy0919 (https://github.com/condy0919)
   • Damien Cassou (https://github.com/DamienCassou)
   • JimDBh (https://github.com/JimDBh)

   Advice and useful discussions:

   • Daniel Mendler (https://github.com/minad)
   • Protesilaos Stavrou (https://gitlab.com/protesilaos/)
   • Clemens Radermacher (https://github.com/clemera/)
   • Howard Melman (https://github.com/hmelman/)
   • Augusto Stoffel (https://github.com/astoff)
   • Bruce d'Arcus (https://github.com/bdarcus)
   • JD Smith (https://github.com/jdtsmith)
   • Karthik Chikmagalur (https://github.com/karthink)
   • jakanakaevangeli (https://github.com/jakanakaevangeli)
   • Itai Y.  Efrat (https://github.com/iyefrat)
   • Mohsin Kaleem (https://github.com/mohkale)



Tag Table:
Node: Top222
Node: Overview1832
Node: Acting on targets3138
Node: The default action on a target8668
Node: Working with sets of possible targets10569
Node: Selecting some targets to make an ad hoc candidate set14833
Node: embark-live a live-updating variant of embark-collect18280
Node: Switching to a different command without losing what you've typed19967
Node: Quick start22529
Node: Advanced configuration27542
Node: Showing information about available targets and actions28144
Node: Selecting commands via completions instead of key bindings30963
Node: Selecting commands via completion outside of Embark34044
Node: Quitting the minibuffer after an action35574
Node: Recording acted-on minibuffer candidates in minibuffer history38040
Node: Running some setup after injecting the target38876
Node: Running hooks before, after or around an action42501
Node: Creating your own keymaps47366
Node: Defining actions for new categories of targets48273
Node: New minibuffer target example - tab-bar tabs49040
Ref: Telling Embark about commands that prompt for tabs by name49935
Ref: Defining and configuring a keymap for tab actions52788
Node: New target example in regular buffers - short Wikipedia links54575
Node: How does Embark call the actions?56833
Node: Non-interactive functions as actions61146
Node: Embark, Marginalia and Consult62496
Node: Marginalia63223
Node: Consult64726
Node: Related Packages69484
Node: Resources70575
Node: Contributions71768
Node: Acknowledgments72478

End Tag Table


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