Wrap Region is a minor mode for Emacs that wraps a region with punctuations. For "tagged" markup modes, such as HTML and XML, it wraps with tags.

I recommend installing via ELPA, but manual installation is simple as well:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/wrap-region")
(require 'wrap-region)

Start wrap-region-mode using.

(wrap-region-mode t)

or

M-x wrap-region-mode

Now try selecting a region and press any of the following keys: ", ', (, {, [.

The above are the default wrappers. You can add more yourself:

(wrap-region-add-wrapper "$" "$")
(wrap-region-add-wrapper "{-" "-}" "#")
(wrap-region-add-wrapper "/" "/" nil 'ruby-mode)
(wrap-region-add-wrapper "/* " " */" "#" '(java-mode javascript-mode css-mode))
(wrap-region-add-wrapper "`" "`" nil '(markdown-mode ruby-mode))

The same can be done with:

(wrap-region-add-wrappers
 '(("$" "$")
   ("{-" "-}" "#")
   ("/" "/" nil ruby-mode)
   ("/* " " */" "#" (java-mode javascript-mode css-mode))
   ("`" "`" nil (markdown-mode ruby-mode))))

For more information, see comments in wrap-region.el.

In some modes, such as calc-mode and dired-mode, you don't want to have wrap region active since the key bindings will conflict. Wrap region stores a list of modes (see wrap-region-except-modes) in which wrap region will be inactive.

Some modes are added to the except list by default. See the list with:

(describe-variable 'wrap-region-except-modes)

To add a new mode, do this:

(add-to-list 'wrap-region-except-modes 'conflicting-mode)

Contribution is much welcome! Wrap region is tested using Ecukes. When adding new features, please write tests for them!

Install cask if you haven't already, then:

$ cd /path/to/wrap-region
$ cask

Run all tests with:

$ make