selected.el

selected.el provides the selected-minor-mode for Emacs. When selected-minor-mode is active, the keybindings in selected-keymap will be enabled when the region is active. This is useful for commands that operates on the region, which you only want bound to a key when the region is active. selected.el also provides selected-global-mode, if you want selected-minor-mode in every buffer.

selected-keymap has no default bindings. Bind it yourself:

(require 'selected)
(define-key selected-keymap (kbd "q") #'selected-off)
(define-key selected-keymap (kbd "u") #'upcase-region)
(define-key selected-keymap (kbd "d") #'downcase-region)
(define-key selected-keymap (kbd "w") #'count-words-region)
(define-key selected-keymap (kbd "m") #'apply-macro-to-region-lines)

It is cleaner with use-package:

(use-package selected
  :ensure t
  :commands selected-minor-mode
  :bind (:map selected-keymap
              ("q" . selected-off)
              ("u" . upcase-region)
              ("d" . downcase-region)
              ("w" . count-words-region)
              ("m" . apply-macro-to-region-lines)))

Then activate it with M-x selected-minor-mode. It can be a good idea to add selected-minor-mode to the hooks of the major-modes where you want it activated. selected-off is a function which deactivates the keybindings until the next time the region becomes active. This is useful when you want to execute a command on the region, but then disable selected-minor-mode in favour of other commands like multiple-cursors.

You might have other minor-modes which conflict with selected, such as worf, lispy or ryo. In that case you can use (setq selected-minor-mode-override t).

Major mode specific bindings

You may want some keybindings to operate on the region, but only if you’re in a certain major-mode. This is possible if you create a keymap named selected-<major-mode>-map (for instance selected-org-mode-map) and add the mode-specific bindings there. Here’s an example, using use-package:

(use-package selected
  :ensure t
  :commands selected-minor-mode
  :init
  (setq selected-org-mode-map (make-sparse-keymap))
  :bind (:map selected-keymap
              ("q" . selected-off)
              ("u" . upcase-region)
              ("d" . downcase-region)
              ("w" . count-words-region)
              ("m" . apply-macro-to-region-lines)
              :map selected-org-mode-map
              ("t" . org-table-convert-region)))

If the major-mode specific keymap isn’t found, derived from modes will be searched. For instance if you open an org-mode file, don’t have selected-org-mode-map but do have a selected-text-mode-map then selected-text-mode-map will be used.

Installation and setup

selected.el is on MELPA, so the easiest way is to install it from there using M-x package-install. MELPA needs to be in your package-archives:

(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/") t)

If you add (selected-global-mode) to your init-file, or if you add selected-minor-mode to a hook, please do so towards the end of your init-file. This is in order to prioritize the bindings in selected-keymap over other minor-modes.

Recommended resources

Here’s some functions and packages that are useful with selected.el:

• expand-region
• multiple-cursors
• move-text
• randomize-region
• highlight
• google-this or lookup-word-on-internet

Feel free to suggest additions to this list!

Changelog

1.01

Added selected-global-mode.

1.02

Derived modes now searches up the hierarchy for selected-<major-mode>-map.