+TITLE: spinner.el

Add spinners and progress-bars to the mode-line for ongoing operations.

[[file:some-spinners.gif]]

[[file:all-spinners.gif]]

• Usage

First of all, don’t forget to add ~(spinner "VERSION")~ to your package’s dependencies.

** Major-modes

1. Just call ~(spinner-start)~ and a spinner will be added to the mode-line.
2. Call ~(spinner-stop)~ on the same buffer when you want to remove it.

The default spinner is a line drawing that rotates. You can pass an argument to ~spinner-start~ to specify which spinner you want. All possibilities are listed in the ~spinner-types~ variable, but here are a few examples for you to try:

• ~(spinner-start 'vertical-breathing 10)~
• ~(spinner-start 'minibox)~
• ~(spinner-start 'moon)~
• ~(spinner-start 'triangle)~

You can also define your own as a vector of strings (see the examples in ~spinner-types~).

** Minor-modes Minor-modes can create a spinner with ~spinner-create~ and then add it to their mode-line lighter. They can then start the spinner by setting a variable and calling ~spinner-start-timer~. Finally, they can stop the spinner (and the timer) by just setting the same variable to nil.

Here’s an example for a minor-mode named ~foo~. Assuming that ~foo--lighter~ is used as the mode-line lighter, the following code will add an inactive global spinner to the mode-line.

+begin_src emacs-lisp

(defvar foo--spinner (spinner-create 'rotating-line)) (defconst foo--lighter '(" foo" (:eval (spinner-print foo--spinner))))

+end_src

1. To activate the spinner, just call ~(spinner-start foo--spinner)~. It will show up on the mode-line and start animating.
2. To get rid of it, call ~(spinner-stop foo--spinner)~. It will then disappear again.

Some minor-modes will need spinners to be buffer-local. To achieve that, just make the ~foo--spinner~ variable buffer-local and use the third argument of the ~spinner-create~ function. The snippet below is an example.

+begin_src emacs-lisp

(defvar-local foo--spinner nil) (defconst foo--lighter '(" foo" (:eval (spinner-print foo--spinner)))) (defun foo--start-spinner () "Create and start a spinner on this buffer." (unless foo--spinner (setq foo--spinner (spinner-create 'moon t))) (spinner-start foo--spinner))

+end_src

1. To activate the spinner, just call ~(foo--start-spinner)~.
2. To get rid of it, call ~(spinner-stop foo--spinner)~.

This will use the ~moon~ spinner, but you can use any of the names defined in the ~spinner-types~ variable or even define your own.

• Extra options

Both ~spinner-start~ and ~spinner-create~ take extra options to configure the spinner, these are:

• ~FPS~: The number of frames to display per second. Defaults to ~spinner-frames-per-second~.
• ~DELAY~: After starting a spinner, it still won’t be displayed for this many seconds.