Fun with error messages

[tinakell...@gmail.com]

I thought the “[key] doesn’t do anything!” messages in ErgoEmacs were a bit… brusque. So, I made them brusque and funny.

(defun tina/angry-police-captain (&optional prefix)

  (let ((buffer (ignore-errors (url-retrieve-synchronously "http://theangrypolicecaptain.com/" t t 2))))

    (when buffer

      (with-current-buffer buffer

        (goto-char (point-min))

        (let* ((begin-string "<a href=\"http://theangrypolicecaptain.com\">\n")

               (end-string "\n</a>")

               (begin (when (search-forward begin-string nil t)

                        (point)))

               (end (when (and begin (search-forward end-string nil t))

                      (- (point) (length end-string))))

               (bufstr (when (and begin end) (buffer-substring begin end))))

          (if (and prefix begin end)

              (concat prefix (substring bufstr 24))

            bufstr)))))

(defun tina/angry-police-key (args)

    (if (and (fboundp 'tina/angry-police-captain)

             (member (car args) '("%s does not do anything!"

                                  "Key %s doesn't do anything.")))

        (cons (tina/angry-police-captain "%s") (cdr args))

      args))

(dolist (message-function '(ergoemacs-command-loop--message

                            ergoemacs-command-loop--temp-message))

  (advice-add message-function :filter-args 'tina/angry-police-key))

Now you can enjoy such gems as “Ctrl+F7 wonders just what the hell happened to this town” and “Ctrl+C Ctrl+) knew your father, and he doesn’t want you to end up the same way.” Messing up keyboard input is now much more entertaining!

This was inspired by the “angry-police-captain.el” package, but doesn’t require it. It’s written such that, if there’s no Internet connection or the site takes too long, you get the regular error message instead. I hope you like my silly little diversion.