Meta-X

Emacs-esque M-x commands for your entire OS.

  • Recommends skhd for hot-key bindings.
  • Uses clipboardy for clipboard interactions.
  • Uses choose for the command picker on macOS.

Support

  • macOS
  • Linux
  • Windows

Installation

  1. git clone https://github.com/calebmpeterson/META-x.git
  2. cd META-x
  3. yarn install

Running

Meta-x needs a hot-key launcher. skhd is recommended for macOS.

Sample .shkdrc

# ⌘SPACE to launch Meta-x on the current text selection in the active window
cmd - space : node <meta-x-root-dir>/src/launcher.js

Configuration

Meta-x config is kept in ~/.meta-x/ directory. This makes it easy to keep your config under source control.

Settings

All configuration options are contained in ~/.meta-x/config.json

Custom Commands

Custom commands are commonjs modules placed in ~/.meta-x/.

Example Command

To get a calculator capable of all operations/syntax available to you in JavaScript, create ~/.meta-x/calc.js with the following content:

module.exports = (selection) => eval(selection);

Non-transforming Commands

To create a command which does not transform the current selection simply return undefined from the command module's exported function:

module.exports = (selection) => {
  // Do something side-effect'ish here
  // ...

  // The current selection will not be transformed
  return undefined;
};

Command Not Found Fallback

If the event that your query does not match a known command, the raw query string will be passed to ~/.meta-x/fallback-handler.js if it exists:

module.exports = function (selection, query) {
  // Do something with the currently selected
  // text and/or the raw query string
};

Command Not Found Fallback Suggestions

The fallback-handler can provide suggestions:

module.exports = function (selection, query) {
  // Do something with the currently selected
  // text and/or the raw query string
};

module.exports.suggestions = function () {
  // The suggestions should be an array of strings
  return ["suggestion one", "suggestion two", "suggestion three"];
};

Command Context

In addition to the selection, each command function is invoked within the "command context".

The "command context" API includes:

  • open API ↗
  • get/put/post/patch/delete methods from axios ↗
  • ENV which is loaded from the ~/.meta-x/.env file if it exists

Using NPM Packages

You can use npm packages by simply installing them in your ~/.meta-x/ directory.

For example:

> cd ~/.meta-x/
> yarn add lodash

License

Meta-x is released under the MIT license.

Contributing

Issues and Pull Requests are welcome!

Roadmap

  • Configurable hot-key
  • Document usage instructions
  • Add built-in commands
  • Document installation instructions
  • Improve UI performance (with choose on macOS and dmenu on Linux)
  • Publish to NPM