11

Right now, this is a task I find a lot easier in something like gedit, because I can just replace "\n" (the line break) with "</li>\n<li>" and then I have a list.

One of the few little things I don't seem to be able to in Emacs quickly, but something I use a lot.

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4 Answers 4

Reset to default
7

The most direct way of doing this would be to

  • Mark the region of text lines to become a list
  • Press M-% (query-replace)
  • Type C-q C-j RET </li> C-q C-j <li> RET (C-q C-j inserts a quoted newline character)
  • Press ! to replace all occurrences
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1
  • i had to change around the opening and closing tags, but this works, and i think i can make myself remember C-q C-j.
    – mattl
    Sep 24, 2014 at 5:55
10

Alternatively to query replace you can go with multiple-cursors:

enter image description here

Also consider using something like this:

(defun wrap-html-tag (tagName)
  "Add a tag to beginning and ending of current word or text selection."
  (interactive "sEnter tag name: ")
  (let (p1 p2 inputText)
    (if (use-region-p)
        (progn
          (setq p1 (region-beginning) )
          (setq p2 (region-end) )
          )
      (let ((bds (bounds-of-thing-at-point 'symbol)))
        (setq p1 (car bds) )
        (setq p2 (cdr bds) ) ) )

    (goto-char p2)
    (insert "</" tagName ">")
    (goto-char p1)
    (insert "<" tagName ">")
    ))

source

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3
  • If you find yourself doing this sort of editing on a regular basis then I highly recommend the multiple-cursors package. Sometimes I wonder how I ever got along without it.
    – nispio
    Sep 24, 2014 at 0:02
  • @welldan97 How did you create that GIF? Just curious…
    – user227
    Sep 24, 2014 at 13:02
  • @lunaryorn, via LICEcap for OS X. I've heard Quicktime can be better, though I didn't try yet.
    – welldan97
    Sep 24, 2014 at 22:48
8

You can use query-replace-regexp (C-M-%). Replace ^\(.*\)$ with <li>\1</li>.

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1

For a full-featured solution, convert your text into an org-mode list and export to HTML. Prefix lines with '* ', active org-mode, and run org-html-export-to-html.

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5
  • "You really shouldn't be generating HTML using text manipulations"--I can think of many reasons one might want to do that (you can't always control your input).
    – shosti
    Sep 23, 2014 at 23:21
  • Prefixing input lines with an '* ' isn't asking too much, is it?
    – artagnon
    Sep 23, 2014 at 23:23
  • I believe org-mode export is excellent for an automated solution, but I don't think discouraging basic text manipulation for html generation is helpful.
    – dgtized
    Sep 23, 2014 at 23:24
  • If you want to add that as an answer (prefix all lines with '*', activate org-mode, then export to HTML) then that's fine, but I don't think it makes sense to scold people for wanting "quick-and-dirty" HTML generation.
    – shosti
    Sep 23, 2014 at 23:25
  • Fair enough; I've reworded it.
    – artagnon
    Sep 23, 2014 at 23:25

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