Mike Zamansky has returned from his European vacation and is jumping right back into his Learning Elisp video series. The current video is the start of a new project: automatically inserting an Emolji into an Emacs buffer.
This video is an easy introduction to the project. The idea is that the text :bird:, say, should be replaced by 🐦, the Emolji of that name. That’s not too hard. Zamansky starts with a short list of Emoljis and names arranged in an association list. The rest is easy. Simply look up the name in the association list and substitute the corresponding Emolji.
The first video is concerned with implementing a simple function to do this. Right now, you have to call the function manually to do the substitution but Zamansky plans to make this automatic by invoking a hook function. After that, he is going to use overlays to to display the Emolji but keep the underlying text the same. Finally, the plan is a capture all this in a minor mode.
You may or may not be interested in having this capability but that’s not the point. The point is to demonstrate how to do things like automating actions with hook functions, use overlays, and even implement a minor mode.
The video is 15 minutes, 32 seconds long so you’ll probably have to set aside some time but, as always, Zamansky’s videos are worth the time. If you already know some Elisp or have watched the previous Learning Elisp videos, you probably won’t learn much new from this one but it’s setting the stage for the more advanced techniques that are coming.