Open a recent directory in dired: revisited

I wrote recently about how to use the command diredp-dired-recent-dirs from dired+ to open a recently used directory in dired. It turns out I had misunderstood what that command was for – it is intended to create a dired buffer containing a list of recently used directories, which is not exactly what I wanted.

Here is a function to give you a list of recent directories, using ivy (part of swiper) to narrow it dynamically, and then open the selected one in dired.

;; open recent directory, requires ivy (part of swiper)
;; borrows from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23328037/in-emacs-how-to-maintain-a-list-of-recent-directories
(defun bjm/ivy-dired-recent-dirs ()
  "Present a list of recently used directories and open the selected one in dired"
  (interactive)
  (let ((recent-dirs
         (delete-dups
          (mapcar (lambda (file)
                    (if (file-directory-p file) file (file-name-directory file)))
                  recentf-list))))

    (let ((dir (ivy-read "Directory: "
                         recent-dirs
                         :re-builder #'ivy--regex
                         :sort nil
                         :initial-input nil)))
      (dired dir))))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-x C-d") 'bjm/ivy-dired-recent-dirs)

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Org-mode: Start a numbered list from any number

This trick is in the org-mode manual but it’s worth a quick mention in its own right. If you want to start a numbered list in org-mode from a number other than 1, then put [@N] at the start of the first item, where N is the number you want to start with. So for example,

 1) item 1
 2) item 2

This text would interrupt the list and the next item would be 1) on a
new list

 3) [@3] This will be item 3 thanks to [@3]
 4) and this will be item 4

Email attachment reminders in mu4e

Continuing my series of posts on using mu4e for emails in emacs, I wanted to duplicate the functionality of other email clients that warn you if you appear to have forgotten an attachment when you send an email.

My solution is decidedly lo-fi, but it does the trick. It is based on this post (coincidentally by the author of mu4e), which shows how to create highlighting for arbitrary keywords in emacs. This is a versatile trick and with the simple code below, any strings in a mu4e composition buffer that match “attach”, “pdf” or “file” get a nice red on yellow highlight.

;; attachment reminder based on
;; http://emacs-fu.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/highlighting-todo-fixme-and-friends.html
(set-face-attribute 'font-lock-warning-face nil :foreground "red" :weight 'bold :background "yellow")
(add-hook 'mu4e-compose-mode-hook
          (defun bjm/mu4e-highlight-attachment ()
            "Flag attachment keywords"
            (font-lock-add-keywords nil
                                    '(("\\(attach\\|pdf\\|file\\)" 1 font-lock-warning-face t)))))

It’s not pretty but it works for me! I’d prefer something that checked my email to see if it actually had an attachment and then warned me when I tried to send if there was no attachement there. I’ve not had time to work on that though, but if you know of anything similar, let me know!

Update

There were some helpful suggestions in the comments for improved methods that prompt the user if they try to send a mail without an attachment. mbork has a nice clear example on their website.