Detecting Recently Used Words On the Fly ---------------------------------------- When writing I frequently find myself searching backward, either visually or using a reverse-find, to see if I've previously used the word that I've just used. Some words, say *furthermore* for example, just can't show up more than once per paragraph or two without looking overused. I was thinking that if my editor/word-processor had a feature wherein all instances of the word I just typed were briefly highlighted it would allow me to notice awkward repeats without having to actively watch for them. Nothing terribly intrusive, mind you, but just a quick flicker of highlight while I type. A little time spent figuring out key bindings in vim, my editor of choice, left me with this ugly looking command: :: inoremap "zyiw:let @/=@z`.a As a proof-of-concept, it works pretty much exactly how I described, though it breaks down a bit around punctuation and double spaces. I'm sure someone with stronger vim-fu could iron out the kinks, but it's good enough for me for now. Here's a mini-screenshot of the highlighting in action. |highlight.png| I'm sure the makers of real word processors, like open office, could add such a feature without much work, but maybe no one but me would ever use it. .. |highlight.png| image:: /unblog/static/attachments/2005-03-11-highlight.png .. date: 1110520800 .. tags: ideas-built,software