Emacs 23.2 in emacs-starter-kit v1 has C-x C-i
(or ido-imenu
) (similar to Sublime Text's Cmd+R). Emacs24 in emacs-starter-kit v2 lacks this function. I found this github issue and a fix, which try to recreate the functionality. While this ido-imenu
works in elisp-mode
, it stopped working in ruby-mode
. I get:
imenu--make-index-alist: No items suitable for an index found in this buffer
So I finally figured it out, after reading the Defining an Imenu Menu for a Mode section on emacs-wiki again.
Short answer: you need to add this bit to your customization. Feel free to add more types to the list (I am happy with just methods).
(add-hook 'ruby-mode-hook
(lambda ()
(set (make-local-variable imenu-generic-expression)
'(("Methods" "^\\( *\\(def\\) +.+\\)" 1)
))))
Longer answer: I first tried to define a ruby-imenu-generic-expression
function and set that to imenu-generic-expression
by using the ruby-mode-hook
:
(defvar ruby-imenu-generic-expression
'(("Methods" "^\\( *\\(def\\) +.+\\)" 1))
"The imenu regex to parse an outline of the ruby file")
(defun ruby-set-imenu-generic-expression ()
(make-local-variable 'imenu-generic-expression)
(make-local-variable 'imenu-create-index-function)
(setq imenu-create-index-function 'imenu-default-create-index-function)
(setq imenu-generic-expression ruby-imenu-generic-expression))
(add-hook 'ruby-mode-hook 'ruby-set-imenu-generic-expression)
This however did not work (I would get the same error as before). More reading of the Defining an Imenu Menu for a Mode section showed me the way. Now, I'm not an elisp
expert, so here's my hypothesis: basically, the above method works for modes where the
major mode supports a buffer local copy of the “real” variable, ‘imenu-generic-expression’. If your mode doesn’t do it, you will have to rely on a hook.
The example for foo-mode
made it clear how to do it for ruby-mode
. So it appears that ruby-mode
does not have a buffer-local copy of the real imenu-generic-expression
variable. I still can't explain why it worked in Emacs 23.2 (with ESK v1) but does not on Emacs24, but hey at least I found a working solution.