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Customizing Leo

This chapter discusses how to customize Leo using the plugins and other means. See Using settings for a description of how to change Leo's settings.

Using settings​

Leo stores options in @settings trees, outlines whose headline is @settings. When opening a .leo file, Leo looks for @settings trees not only in the outline being opened but also in various leoSettings.leo files. This scheme allows for the following kinds of settings:

  • Per-installation or per-machine settings.
  • Per-user settings.
  • Per-folder settings.
  • Per-file settings.

There are two kinds of settings files:

  1. Default settings files, named leoSettings.leo. Although they can be used in other ways, they typically contain default settings.

  2. Personal settings files, named myLeoSettings.leo. They provide a way of ensuring that your customized settings are not altered when updating Leo from git or while installing a new version of Leo. myLeoSettings.leo will never be part of any Leo distribution, and it will never exist in Leo's repository. This solution is much better than trying to update leoSettings.leo.

The following sections describe the kinds of nodes in @settings trees.

Configuration directories​

Settings files can be found in the following directories:

  • homeDir, the HOME/.leo directory. HOME is given by Python's HOME environment variable, or by g.os_path_expanduser('~') if no HOME environment variable exists.

  • configDir, Leo's configuration directory: leo/config.

  • machineDir, the HOME/.leo/MACHINE directory. MACHINE is given by Python's HOSTNAME environment variable, or by Python's COMPUTERNAME environment variable if there is no HOSTNAME variable, or by the value returned by socket.gethostname() if neither environment variable exists.

  • localDir, the directory containing the .leo file being loaded.

Leo reports in the Log pane window on startup and when opening .leo files what HOME dir is used and which settings files are read.

Search order for settings files​

When reading a .leo file, Leo looks for settings in default settings files first, then settings in personal settings files, and finally settings in local settings files. The exact search order is:

First: Default settings files:

configDir/leoSettings.leo
homeDir/leoSettings.leo
localDir/leoSettings.leo

Second: Personal settings files:

configDir/myLeoSettings.leo
homeDir/myLeoSettings.leo
homeDir/<machine-name>LeoSettings.leo (note capitalization)
localDir/myLeoSettings.leo

Last: Local settings files: the file being loaded.

Settings that appear later in this list override settings that appear earlier in this list. This happens on a setting-by-setting basis, not on a file-by-file basis. In other words, each individual setting overrides only the corresponding setting in previously-read files. Reading a setting file does not reset all previous settings. Note that the same file might appear several times in the search list. Leo detects such duplicate file names and only loads each settings file once. Leo remembers all the settings in settings files and does not reread those settings when reading another .leo file.

Caution: This search order offers almost too much flexibility. This can be confusing, even for power users. It's important to choose the "simplest configuration scheme that could possibly work". Something like:

  • Use a single leoSettings.leo file for installation-wide defaults.
  • Use a single myLeoSettings.leo files for personal defaults.
  • Use local settings sparingly.

📌 NOTE
it is good style to limit settings placed in myLeoSettings.leo to those settings that differ from default settings.

Safe rules for local settings​

You should use special care when placing default or personal settings files in local directories, that is, directories other than homeDir, configDir or machineDir. In particular, the value of localDir can change when Leo reads additional files. This can result in Leo finding new default and personal settings files. The values of these newly-read settings files will, as always, override any previously-read settings.

Let us say that a setting is volatile if it is different from a default setting. Let us say that settings file A.leo covers settings file if B.leo if all volatile settings in B.leo occur in A.leo.

💡 TIP
Settings files in local directories should cover all other settings files.

Following this rule will ensure that the per-directory defaults specified in the local settings file will take precedence over all previously-read default and personal settings files. Ignore this principle at your peril.

Organizer nodes​

Organizer nodes have headlines that do no start with @. Organizer nodes may be inserted freely without changing the meaning of an @setting tree.

@ignore and @if nodes​

Leo ignores any subtree of an @settings tree whose headline starts with @ignore.

You can use several other kinds of nodes to cause Leo to ignore parts of an @settings tree:

  • @ifplatform <platform-name>

    Same as @if sys.platform == "platform-name" except that it isn't necessary to import sys.

  • @ifhostname *hostA,!hostB*

    Evaluates to True if and only if: h=g.computeMachineName(); h==hostA and h!=hostB. The ! version allows matching to every machine name except the given one to allow differing settings on only a few machines.

Simple settings nodes​

Simple settings nodes have headlines of the form @<type> name = val. These settings set the value of name to val, with the indicated type:

<type>Valid values
@boolTrue, False, 0, 1
@directoryA path to a directory
@floatA floating point number of the form nn.ff.
@intAn integer
@ints[list]An integer (must be one of the ints in the list).
Example: @ints meaningOfLife[0,42,666]=42
@pathA path to a directory or file
@ratioA floating point number between 0.0 and 1.0, inclusive.
@stringA string
@strings[list]A string (must be one of the strings in the list).
Example: @strings tk_relief['flat','groove','raised']='groove'

Complex settings nodes​

Complex settings nodes have headlines of the form @<type> description:

@<type>Valid values
@buttonsChild @button nodes create global buttons.
@commandsChild @command nodes create global buttons.
@command-historyBody is a list of commands pre-loaded into history list.
@dataBody is a list of strings, one per line.
@recentfilesBody is a list of file paths.

Complex nodes specify settings in their body text. See the following sections for details.

@buttons​

An @buttons tree in a settings file defines global buttons that are created in the icon area of all .leo files. All @button nodes in the @commands tree create global buttons. All @button nodes outside the commands tree create buttons local to the settings file.

@commands​

An @commands tree in a settings file defines global commands. All @command nodes in the @commands tree create global commands. All @command nodes outside the @commands tree create commands local to the settings file.

@command-history​

The body text contains a list of commands, one per line, to be preloaded into Leo's command history. You access command history using the up and down arrow keys in Leo's minibuffer.

@data​

The body text contains a list of strings, one per line. Lines starting with # are ignored.

@rclick​

For each @button node, Leo adds sub-menu items for:

  • @rclick nodes directly following the @button.

  • @rclick nodes that are children of the @button node, provided that the @button node has no @others directive.

💡 Standard rclick items
Leo adds two context-menu items for each @button node: Remove Button and Goto Script. Leo adds an ▼ indicator only to buttons that contain right-click menu items in addition to these two standard right-click menu items.

The headline of the @rclick node gives the menu title. The body contains a Leo script to execute when the user selects the menu item.

@recentfiles​

The body text contains a list of paths of recently opened files, one path per line. Leo writes the list of recent files to .leoRecentFiles.txt in Leo's config directory, again one file per line.

Customizing the rst3 command​

This section explains how to use user filters to alter the output of the rst3 command.

Background

The rst3 command converts @rst trees containing reStructuredText (rST) or Sphinx markup to an intermediate string. Depending on user options, rst3 will:

  • write the intermediate string to an intermediate file.
  • ⚠️ NOT AVAILABLE IN LEOJS: send the intermediate string to docutils for conversion to HTML, PDF, LaTeX, etc.

User filters

Plugins or scripts may define two functions: a headline filter and a body filter:

  • rst3 calls the body filter for all nodes except descendants of @rst-ignore or @rst-ignore-tree nodes.

  • rst3 calls the headline filter for all nodes except:

    • rst-no-head nodes
    • descendants of @rst-ignore or @rst-ignore-tree nodes.

  • plugins or scripts register filters as follows:

c.rstCommands.register_body_filter(body_filter);
c.rstCommands.register_headline_filter(headline_filter);
  • The signature of all filters is filter-name (c, p) where c and p are defined as usual.

Example filters

Do-nothing filters would be defined like this:

function body_filter(c, p) {
    return p.b;
}
function headline_filter(c, p) {
    return p.h;
}

The following filters would simulate the frequently-requested "half clone" feature. That is, within any @rst tree, the following filters would skip the children of all clones:

/**
 * Return True if p has a cloned parent within the @rst tree.
 */
function has_cloned_parent(c, p) {
    const root = c.rstCommands.root;  // The @rst node.
    const p = p.parent();
    while(p.v && !p.__eq__(root)){
        if(p.isCloned()){
            return true;
        }
        p.moveToParent();
    }
    return false;
}

function body_filter(c, p) {
    return has_cloned_parent(c, p) ? '' : p.b;
}

function headline_filter(c, p) {
    return has_cloned_parent(c, p) ? '' : p.h;
}

Both filters ignore all descendants of clones in the @rst tree. We have the effect of half clones, with no changes to Leo's core!

📌 NOTE
has_cloned_parent stops the scan at the @rst node itself, ensuring that the rst3 command includes "top-level" clones themselves.

See leo/plugins/example_rst_filter.py for a complete example.

Filters can do practically anything

Filters can use the data in p.b, p.h, p.u, or p.gnx, but filters are not limited to the data in p. The has_cloned_parent filter shows that filters can access:

  • Any ancestor or descendant of node p.
  • Any data accessible from c, that is, all the data in the outline, including cached data!

Indeed, has_cloned_parent gets the current @rst node using root = c.rstCommands.root.

Moreover, filters can define special conventions, including:

  • Special-format comments embedded in p.b,
  • Special-purpose headlines.

Summary

Plugins and scripts can define headline and body filters that alter the intermediate string.

The leo/plugins/example_rst_filter.py plugin shows how to set up plugins that define custom filters.

Filters have easy access to all data within the outline, including:

  • c.rstCommands.root, the @rst node containing p.
  • All ancestors or descendants of p.
  • All data contained anywhere in the outline.

The example filters shown above simulate the often-requested "half clone" feature.

uA's: extensible attribues of nodes​

Leo's file formats, .leo and .leojs, are extensible. The basis for extending Leo files are the v.unknownAttributes ivars of vnodes, also know as user attributes, uA's for short. Leo translates between uA's and xml attributes in the corresponding <v> elements in .leo files.

For the .leoJS JSON file format, the uA's are saved as JSON strings in a uA dictionary, where the keys are the vnode's GNX.

🚨 IMPORTANT
All members of inner dictionaries should be serializable: LeoJS uses Python's Pickle module emulation, or JSON.stringify to encode all values in these dictionaries. It will discard any attributes that can not be pickled. This should not be a major problem to plugins. For example, instead of putting a tnode into these dictionaries, a plugin could put the tnode's gnx (a string) in the dictionary.

📌 NOTE
Leo does not pickle members of inner dictionaries whose name (key) starts with str_. The values of such members should be a Python string. This convention allows strings to appear in .leo files in a more readable format.

Here is how Leo associates uA's with <v> elements in .leo files:

  • Native xml attributes are the attributes of <v> elements that are known (treated specially) by Leo's read/write code. The native attributes of <v> elements are a, t, vtag, tnodeList, marks, expanded, and descendentTnodeUnknownAttributes. All other attributes of <v> and <t> elements are foreign xml attributes.

  • When reading a .leo file, Leo will create v.unknownAttributes ivars for any vnode whose corresponding <v> or <t> element contains a foreign xml attribute.

  • When writing a .leo file, Leo will write foreign xml attributes in <v> elements if the corresponding vnode contains an unknownAttributes ivar.

  • Leo performs the usual xml escapes on these strings when reading or writing the unknownAttributes ivars.