Improvements to dwim-shell-command

Álvaro Ramírez has been busy making improvements to his excellent dwim-shell-command package. I’ve written a lot about this package recently but that’s okay because it’s something most Irreal readers would want to know about. The TL;DR is that the package provides a DWIM interface between Emacs and the shell making it easy to invoke various utilities from Emacs that would normally be started from the shell.

The new version allows dwim-shell-command to operate on a set of files in a region rather than having to be marked in dired. There’s also a marker to insert the contents of the clipboard into a command. That’s perfect for inserting a URL that you’ve clipped from, say, the browser and using it in a shell command.

Finally, Ramírez has added numeric and alphabetic counters that allow for names that are the same except for the counter value. That works just as you’d think it would. The package is, after all, meant to provide do what I mean actions.

As far as I can see, this package started out as a quick hack that allowed Ramírez to create an easy way of invoking frequent but complex shell commands. Once he’d laid down the framework, new applications kept suggesting themselves to him and the project has grown.

As I wrote the other day, the package is now available on Melpa so it’s easy to try it out if you’re interested.

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