Dear DIALOG2 popup developer,
I have a problem ;)
I want to insert a character which could have several names like
↓ arrow down ← arrow left ↑ arrow up α greek alpha β greek beta
My aim is to write e.g. "arrow" and the popup dialog shows all arrow matches (only the glyph). Then I want to choose one and instead of inserting "arrow" it should insert the chosen glyph. Fine. I tried it and I had partly success.
#### First problem: for the suggestions I have to write: {display="↓";match=down;},{display="↓";match=arrow;}
this leads, of course, to having two ↓ in the list. Why not write: {display="↓";matches=("down","arrow");}
In other words to allow more than one match.
#### Second problem: If I want to do that I have to use the options -w for wait, because I want to replace e.g. "arrow" by my chosen glyph. Fine. But if I delete 5 characters to show all suggestions I do not see what I'm writing whereby the popup menu does its job perfectly.
#### Third problem: If I type e.g. "arr" the popup dialog finds all matches beginning with "arr". But it would be nice to have an option to show only those items matching exactly. E.g. I have to type "arrow" to show all 'arrow's not only "a" or "ar" etc.
########## Here's a first naïve example command: Input: Selected Text or Word Output: Replace Selected Text Command:
RES=$(echo '{suggestions=({display="↓";match=down;}, {display="↓";match=arrow;},{display="↑";match=arrow;}, {display="←";match=arrow;},{display="α";match=greek;}, {display="α";match=alpha;},{display="β";match=greek;}, {display="β";match=beta;});}' | "$DIALOG" popup -iwf "$TM_CURRENT_WORD")
RES=$(echo "$RES" | grep display | perl -Xpe 's/.*?display = "(.*?)";/ $1/;s/\U([0-9A-F]+)/chr(hex($1))/iesg;')
echo -n "$RES"
My overall aim is to provide a possibility to insert a glyph by looking for words in its Unicode name.
Or is the DIALOG2 popup dialog not the right tool for it, meaning should one write its own rountine for that? Or is there a better way to do it?
Thanks a lot for any hints in advance!
--Hans