Boxes Installation

This section assumes you already have a working binary of boxes. Binaries for some platforms can be obtained through the download page. Should your platform be missing from the list, please download the source distribution and compile yourself. It is quite easy, really.

Although boxes can be useful when used on the command line, the more frequent use case will be as a filter tied to your editor. So, how can boxes be tied to your editor?

Editor Integration

Example config file entries are featured so far for vim, jed, and emacs. If you know how to to this in other editors, please drop me a line!

Integration with Vim

To call filters from vim, you need to press '!' in visual mode or '!!' in normal mode. So the easiest way to tie in boxes with vim is by adding the following four lines to your .vimrc: vmap ,mc !boxes -d c-cmt<CR> nmap ,mc !!boxes -d c-cmt<CR> vmap ,xc !boxes -d c-cmt -r<CR> nmap ,xc !!boxes -d c-cmt -r<CR> "<CR>" should be there literally; just paste the lines directly from your browser window. This would comment out the current line or the lines you have marked when you press ",mc" (for make comment). Comments can be removed in the same way by pressing ",xc". Should you feel that ",mc" is too long a combination to type, feel free to choose a shorter one. The above example assumes you are using the standard boxes config file, which features the c-cmt design. Of course, the same technique works for any other designs.

While the above example is nice, it does not offer much convenience when you are editing different languages a lot, because you need to remember the hotkey for each different box design. Fortunately, vim has a feature called autocommands. They can be used to automatically change the meaning of a key combination depending on what file you edit (any many other things too, of course). Autocommand syntax is

au[tocmd] [group] {event} {pat} [nested] {cmd} We can leave out the group. For {event}, we choose BufEnter, which is generated every time you enter a new buffer, e.g. when starting vim or when switching between open files. {pat} is a file glob, and {cmd} is our call to boxes.

The lines below are from the author's .vimrc. They can be pasted directly from your browser window. Their effect is that ,mc and ,xc always generate the correct comments for many languages, including C, C++, HTML, Java, lex, yacc, shell scripts, Perl, etc. The default key binding is to generate shell comments using a pound sign (file glob of * at the start).

autocmd BufEnter * nmap ,mc !!boxes -d pound-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter * vmap ,mc !boxes -d pound-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter * nmap ,xc !!boxes -d pound-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter * vmap ,xc !boxes -d pound-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.html nmap ,mc !!boxes -d html-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.html vmap ,mc !boxes -d html-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.html nmap ,xc !!boxes -d html-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.html vmap ,xc !boxes -d html-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.[chly],*.[pc]c nmap ,mc !!boxes -d c-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.[chly],*.[pc]c vmap ,mc !boxes -d c-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.[chly],*.[pc]c nmap ,xc !!boxes -d c-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.[chly],*.[pc]c vmap ,xc !boxes -d c-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.C,*.cpp,*.java nmap ,mc !!boxes -d java-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.C,*.cpp,*.java vmap ,mc !boxes -d java-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.C,*.cpp,*.java nmap ,xc !!boxes -d java-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter *.C,*.cpp,*.java vmap ,xc !boxes -d java-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter .vimrc*,.exrc nmap ,mc !!boxes -d vim-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter .vimrc*,.exrc vmap ,mc !boxes -d vim-cmt<CR> autocmd BufEnter .vimrc*,.exrc nmap ,xc !!boxes -d vim-cmt -r<CR> autocmd BufEnter .vimrc*,.exrc vmap ,xc !boxes -d vim-cmt -r<CR> nmap ,bf !!~/junk/boxes-dev/boxes -d tjc -s 75<CR> vmap ,bf !~/junk/boxes-dev/boxes -d tjc -s 75<CR>

Integration with Jed

Andreas Heiduk kindly submitted the following excerpt from his .jedrc: %!% Ripped from "pipe.sl" variable Last_Process_Command = Null_String; define do_process_region(cmd) { variable tmp; tmp = make_tmp_file ("/tmp/jedpipe"); cmd = strncat (cmd, " > ", tmp, " 2>&1", 4); !if (dupmark ()) error ("Mark not set."); if (pipe_region (cmd)) { error ("Process returned a non-zero exit status."); } del_region (); () = insert_file (tmp); () = delete_file (tmp); } define process_region () { variable cmd; cmd = read_mini ("Pipe to command:", Last_Process_Command, ""); !if (strlen (cmd)) return; Last_Process_Command = cmd; do_process_region(cmd); } %----------------------------------------------------------------------- if( BATCH == 0 ){ setkey("process_region", "\e|"); % ESC-Pipe :-) add_completion("process_region"); % define some often used filters setkey("do_process_region(\"tal\")", "\et") % tal on esc-t } I think it calls tal when you press ESC-t (second but last line). Thus, you would have to add a similar line to call boxes.

Integration with Emacs

Jason L. Shiffer kindly submitted the following information on integrating boxes with Emacs:

The simple interface (only a single box style, but easy):

(defun boxes-create () (interactive) (shell-command-on-region (region-beginning) (region-end) "boxes -d c-cmt2" nil 1 nil)) (defun boxes-remove () (interactive) (shell-command-on-region (region-beginning) (region-end) "boxes -r -d c-cmt2" nil 1 nil)) Jason also wrote a boxes mode for Emacs. Remember to update the design list when you add new designs to your config file.
boxes ©1999 by Thomas Jensen <boxes(at)thomasjensen.com>
Page created April 06, 1999, last touched: 25-Mar-2006. All rights reserved.