xtip 0.2.0

Run commands on selected text quickly

Xtip

A semi-clone of tanin47's tip but for X11 (i.e. Linux).

Alpha stage, anything may change at any time.

Customised in python (but it's very easy to run shell commands from python if you prefer another language).

Installation and setup

• Install the core dependencies: zenity, dmenu, xclip
  • e.g. on Debian-based OS: sudo apt install zenity xclip suckless-tools
• Install xtip from pypi, e.g. pip3 install xtip
• Bind a hotkey to run the xtip command using your preferred method.
  • I use sxhkd, but I think most desktop environments have a hotkey binding system.
• Optionally install dependencies for any individual commands that you want to use:
  • GoogleTranslate requires the python googtrans library
  • Emacsclient requires emacs (obviously)

Writing your own commands

For most customisation of commands you should probably just write your own (because it only takes a few lines of python). You can write new commands in ~/.config/xtip/custom_commands.py.

To do so: write a new class derived from Command and decorate it with @command, for example:

from typing import Optional
from subprocess import run

from xtip.commands import Command, command


@command
class Emacsclient(Command):
    unique_name = "Open in emacsclient"

    def run(self, text: str) -> Optional[str]:
        # TODO(david): Figure out a way to get the absolute path... maybe by
        # guessing from a few possible prefixes?
        run(["emacsclient", "-c", "-n", text])

        # Return text from here to output it to the screen and clipboard
        return None

    def accepts(self, text: str) -> bool:
        # TODO: only accept things that look like valid paths?
        Return True

TODO: Do we need both inheritence and a decorator? Probably not!

TODO

• Write some tests
• CI builds
• Try to display useful outputs in dmenu completion (e.g. converted datetimes)
• Something better than dmenu? Better mouse support, popup at cursor.
• Figure out how to construct an absolute path from a relative one