lazy find/search for commands within emacs

Question

Is there a way to do a lazy find/search within EMACS, for commands using their description?

Something in the lines of:

• Say I am looking for how to add indent to org mode
• I suspect there is a commands for it
• I would like to type "org" and "indent" in any order and get some options/help buffer, based on the documentation as well as the actual commands.

In other words, I would like for emacs to suggest options/help, based on my description/keywords

This would come in handy, how can I do this?

P.S

I am a NOOB!

Answer 1

One way you can try to find such commands is to use C-h a. In vanilla Emacs this is bound to apropos-command.

For C-h a you can input words to match in the command documentation - e.g., org and indent.

C-h a org indent

This is the kind of output you get:

Type RET on an entry to view its full documentation.

org-indent-line (750)         M-x ... RET
   Indent line depending on context.
org-indent-mode (680)         M-x ... RET
   When active, indent text according to outline structure.
org-return-indent (671)       M-x ... RET
   Goto next table row or insert a newline and indent.
org-indent-region (654)       M-x ... RET
   Indent each non-blank line in the region.
org-unindent-buffer (647)     M-x ... RET
   Un-indent the visible part of the buffer.
org-indent-item (582)         M-x ... RET
   Indent a local list item, but not its children.
org-indent-block (579)        M-x ... RET
   Indent the block at point.
org-indent-drawer (573)       M-x ... RET
   Indent the drawer at point.
org-delete-indentation (567)  M-x ... RET
   Join current line to previous and fix whitespace at join.
org-indent-item-tree (564)    M-x ... RET
   Indent a local list item including its children.
org-indent-to-column (564)    M-x ... RET
   Indent from point with tabs and spaces until COLUMN is reached.
org-cdlatex-environment-indent (490)  M-x ... RET
   Execute `cdlatex-environment' and indent the inserted environment.

However, your question asks how to match against command descriptions, not just command names. C-h a cannot help with that - it matches only against command names.

---

If you use Icicles then you can match against command descriptions, i.e., doc strings.

There are several Icicles apropos commands, which can help.

You can see information about commands and other things by matching patterns incrementally: change your current minibuffer input and the set of matches changes accordingly.

In this case, you don't have a good idea about the command name, and you want to find a command whose doc string matches one or more patterns (e.g. regexps) - e.g., two simple patterns: org and indent.

Multi-command icicle-fundoc prompts you for a 2-part, multi-completion input.

• The first part is a pattern that matches the name of a function

• The second part is a pattern that matches its documentation.

If you use C-$ during completion it toggles between all functions and just commands (interactive functions).

To match both org and indent in either order, you can use progressive completion.

You use C-M-j to separate the parts of your input.

Summary:

1. M-x icicle-fundoc

2. C-$ - match only commands.

3. At the prompt:

   • .* - you don't know what the command names are (or use org.* if you know the name contains org, or use ^org.* if you it starts with org)
   • C-M-j
   • .*[iI]ndent - match indent or Indent in the doc
   • S-SPC - to provide another pattern
   • .*org - and match org

In my Emacs that shows these 12 completion candidates:

org-cdlatex-environment-indent
Execute ‘cdlatex-environment’ and indent the inserted environment.

ENVIRONMENT and ITEM are passed to ‘cdlatex-environment’.

The inserted environment is indented to current indentation
unless point is at the beginning of the line, in which the
environment remains unintended.

---

org-indent-block
Indent the block at point.

---

org-indent-drawer
Indent the drawer at point.

---

org-indent-item
Indent a local list item, but not its children.
If a region is active, all items inside will be moved.

---

org-indent-item-tree
Indent a local list item including its children.
If a region is active, all items inside will be moved.

---

org-indent-line
Indent line depending on context.

Indentation is done according to the following rules:

 - Footnote definitions, diary sexps, headlines and inline tasks
   have to start at column 0.

 - On the very first line of an element, consider, in order, the
   next rules until one matches:

   1. If there’s a sibling element before, ignoring footnote
      definitions and inline tasks, indent like its first line.

   2. If element has a parent, indent like its contents.  More
      precisely, if parent is an item, indent after the
      description part, if any, or the bullet (see
      ‘org-list-description-max-indent’).  Else, indent like
      parent’s first line.

   3. Otherwise, indent relatively to current level, if
      ‘org-adapt-indentation’ is non-nil, or to left margin.

 - On a blank line at the end of an element, indent according to
   the type of the element.  More precisely

   1. If element is a plain list, an item, or a footnote
      definition, indent like the very last element within.

   2. If element is a paragraph, indent like its last non blank
      line.

   3. Otherwise, indent like its very first line.

 - In the code part of a source block, use language major mode
   to indent current line if ‘org-src-tab-acts-natively’ is
   non-nil.  If it is nil, do nothing.

 - Otherwise, indent like the first non-blank line above.

 The function doesn’t indent an item as it could break the whole
 list structure.  Instead, use ‘<M-S-left>’ or ‘<M-S-right>’.

 Also align node properties according to ‘org-property-format’.

---

org-indent-mode
When active, indent text according to outline structure.

Internally this works by adding ‘line-prefix’ and ‘wrap-prefix’
properties, after each buffer modification, on the modified zone.

The process is synchronous.  Though, initial indentation of
buffer, which can take a few seconds on large buffers, is done
during idle time.

---

org-list-repair
Fix indentation, bullets and checkboxes in the list at point.

---

org-return-indent
Goto next table row or insert a newline and indent.
Calls ‘org-table-next-row’ or ‘newline-and-indent’, depending on
context.  See the individual commands for more information.

---

org-unindent-buffer
Un-indent the visible part of the buffer.
Relative indentation (between items, inside blocks, etc.) isn’t
modified.

---

You can continue to use S-SPC to enter other patterns to match, to narrow the list of candidates.

---

• Why did C-h a list also command org-delete-indentation, but it is missing from the list of Icicles candidates? Because we didn't try to match indent also in the command name, and indent is missing from that doc string.

• Why is command org-list-repair included among the Icicles candidates but missing from the output of C-h a? Because it contains indent only in the doc string, not in the command name. C-h a does not match against doc.

With Icicles you can match anything in the command name or the doc string, or both. With apropos-command you can match only against the command name.

Answer 2

The closest thing to that might be <M-x describe-bindings> which is generally mapped to <C-h b>. Then you can switch to that window <C-x o> and search <C-s> for the bindings available in whatever modes you have set for the given buffer.

In addition, the way I've been learning comes from the way Spacemacs does it. I'm no longer actually using Spacemacs but it bundles a package called which-key: https://github.com/justbur/emacs-which-key which will do exactly what you described which is provide a keybind and a brief description. So if you key <C-x> for example, it will put up a window with all the possible following combinations with a brief description of what it will do. I'm still using it in my current configuration and find it very helpful.

Answer 3

There is a built-in command that more or less does what you want called apropos-documentation, bound by default to C-h d. Here's its documentation:

(apropos-documentation PATTERN &optional DO-ALL)

Show symbols whose documentation contains matches for PATTERN.
PATTERN can be a word, a list of words (separated by spaces),
or a regexp (using some regexp special characters).  If it is a word,
search for matches for that word as a substring.  If it is a list of words,
search for matches for any two (or more) of those words.

Note that by default this command only searches in the file specified by
‘internal-doc-file-name’; i.e., the etc/DOC file.  With C-u prefix,
or if ‘apropos-do-all’ is non-nil, it searches all currently defined
documentation strings.

Returns list of symbols and documentation found.

A couple of points here:

• Unless you're explicitly searching for something you know is built in to Emacs, you probably want to call this as C-u C-h d or set the variable apropos-do-all. (That is, the etc/DOC file referred to above appears to contain the pre-compiled docstrings for all functions defined in Emacs itself.)

• The docs don't say it, but if you use multiple words, those words may appear in any order, but must be on the same line. When I tried searching for "org indent", for example, I didn't pull up org-cycle, in which both words appear but on separate lines.