Postcards from the Bleeding Edge: Getting more screen... with emacs

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Getting more screen... with emacs

I have tried, and tried, and tried, to adopt one of the whizzy new editors out there, like eclipse. I get by on vi for small jobs, but always, when the job gets big, I fall back on emacs with etags, ecb and a few other tools. I can generally crash eclipse just by looking at it in situations when emacs chugs along nicely.

I've been staring at emacs for a few too many hours lately.

It really bothers me that emacs is the only tool left, it seems, that doesn't use anti-aliased fonts. There's been code in cvs for it for forever that moves it up to 2008 standards, but they aren't compiled in by default on most Linux distributions, so for years now I've had to compile my own emacs. I meant to do it for this machine on day one but never got around to it til this morning. Now, there's a package that does it for ubuntu that you can just install.

I just installed it.

Yea! Pretty emacs!

My joy lasted about 30 seconds.

I don't willingly do development on my laptop, my old eyes vastly prefer an 18 or even 20 pt font on a huge 22 inch screen, but that's what I'm stuck with... worse, I left my superduper customized .emacs file in Nicaragua....

I'd been running emacs out of a terminal window in sheer frustration, even then my eyes getting blurry after only 10 hrs of coding, and I loathe the emacs menu bars, the icons, and especially, the scrollbars. I don't want scrollbars - I have cursor keys, page up/page down keys, a mouse with a scrollwheel, why the hell do I need scrollbars?

;Die, scrollbars and screen fluff

(menu-bar-mode -1)
(toggle-scroll-bar -1)

Then there's this sorta half character gutter thing that offsets each window - I don't want that... and I can't remember how to turn it off right now.

Then there's maximizing my window to fill up my whole screen. I don't know how to do that from within Emacs, so I use devilspie for that... (There's some really good magic stuff on how X really works, here -

Then there's all these extra keys I have on my keyboard, the duplicated left and right alt keys, the !@#! microsoft key, I used to map those to useful stuff...

Then there's function keys. Why nobody uses function keys for anything anymore is beyond me. I am so carpal that I can't hit a control key in it's default location, but hitting F is EASY...

There's just something about green that brings out the programmer in me. Can't remember how to do green... All that time spent in front of easy to read green terminals in my youth, the code printouts on green paper... And butterflies! I need butterflies to fetch me my .emacs file!

Labels: emacs, programming

¶ 2:14 PM

Comments:

I'm SO about to get shot ... here goes :

Nano/Pico works fine for most things under 8k. Vi for everything else.

If Emacs (or Vi) were supposed to be "pretty", they'd...oh wait, kvim...(Ducks and runs like hell.)

[Route all flames to /dev/null]

# posted by

`Da Elf : 11:32 PM

ACK!!!! I used elm/emacs back in 1991 coz that's what the amazing michael (different amazing michael) taught me how to use. It's a foreign language I have totally forgotten.

I am not a computer geek, but this brings back fond memories.

# posted by

kittent : 5:21 AM

Miners don't need emacs, or vi for that matter. Imagine life without writing code.

# posted by

cpm : 7:08 AM

I hate it when people recommend fixing minor problem A with random failing software replacement B. it makes me think they weren't listening to the problem.

And a life without writing code, cpm, without creating things, is potentially a life without life! Unimaginable!

Those menu bar and title bar tweaks are SO going into my .emacs.

# posted by

Lunchbox : 8:59 AM

Dunno there Lunchbox, I'd take the state of general creativity Pre-Emacs (or computers in general) of the state of general creativity post-Emacs.

We went to the moon on slide-rule math. What have we done now that we all have unix super computers on our desks and more computing power in a single cellphone than the entire space industry of that day ?

I concur with your general point concerning creativity, but I think the interface on a piano or guitar is pretty well thought out, as is the pen and journal book.

# posted by

cpm : 11:22 AM

If you use multiple Emacs frames (C-x 5 2), which I find myself using *all* the time, these two .emacs statements work a lot better at eliminating scroll bars from ALL your frames:

(add-to-list 'initial-frame-alist '(vertical-scroll-bars . nil))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(vertical-scroll-bars . nil))

# posted by

Unknown : 12:05 PM

Brian: Thx, though I'm not using multiple frames a lot lately, given that my laptop's screen is 1280x800. I find myself using ^X3 a lot more than multiple frames.
Those little gutter thingis are bugging me. I wish I could point at them with my mouse and ask WTF is this screen element?

I am really missing my 3 big screens; it's actually becoming a good reason to go back to Nicaragua...

I am gradually re-evolving the darn .emacs file back to where it

Stupid things - like COMPLETELY turning off the beep, are beating me....

Rebuilding the file looks like this:
(menu-bar-mode -1)
(toggle-scroll-bar -1)
(tool-bar-mode -1)
(set-background-color "Black")
(set-foreground-color "ForestGreen")
(setq visual-beep t) ;; not good enough!
;; EDITOR=emacsclient rules
(server-start)

(define-key global-map [f8] 'compile)
(define-key global-map [f9] 'bookmark-jump)
(define-key global-map [f10] 'bookmark-set)
;; F11 used to be maximize, but I can't remember how to bind that
(define-key global-map [f12] 'save-buffer)

;; git is great
(require 'git)
(add-to-list 'vc-handled-backends 'GIT)

;;A couple of things related to rss for my (newsticker ) ;; etc

;;Only about 2000 lines left to recreate. ;ecb and related tools left to compile from cvs...

# posted by

David Täht : 2:30 PM

I've been using Emacs for so long that I don't know what I'd do if I lost my personal ELISP library. (My .emacs has morphed into a directoy full of ELISP files.)

You keep your .emacs in a revision control system, right? :-)

# posted by

Unknown : 2:47 PM

My personal revision control system for .emacs is living in a storage unit in california, on a box in Nicaragua, in a zillion corporate machines I've worked on, and nowhere else.

In other words, it's unavailable.

Yea, losing my .emacs file is like having a stroke.

I can't believe how much I'm tempted to get on a plane to get to my storage unit, to get my .emacs file....

It's under git now...

On the plus side, it's reminding me of looking for updates of all the tools I used to use in emacs (newsreading/rss/email, etc)

For example, last night i was really frustrated with blogger (captcha and authorization), generating valid html when offline, etc, etc, so much so I was ready to start writing my own darn blogging software (As if I didn't have anything better to do)...

this morning I find a client for emacspeak that
speaks the new atom API, which also supports an xml validator... yea!

Then I remember how I used to use emacspeak with cepstral when I was having trouble reading - or late in the ay, when I didn't want to read anymore - I have this great sexy Cepstral voice that I bought, called Amy... She used to tell me stories...

Thing is, I don't need a heavy duty .emacs file when I'm not working, it's just that when I'm working, all the gloss and fluff of browsers, graphical chat clients, etc, get in the way...

# posted by

David Täht : 3:10 PM

Mike,

When you get your .emacs set up, you must post it. The emacsclient stuff alone is compelling. I've drooled often about it.

I understand the bereft feeling of no .emacs : it's the first thing I scp over to a new system, unless I can pull it out of CVS. I'd share mine, but it's a really bad mash of cargo gathered from back to the uni days.

CPM,

I'm in sad agreement with you. Western civilization has traded its pioneering spirit for something other than accountability or ingenuity, I think.

With all our .emacs hackery, I'm surprised no one scratched that itch, yet, and built a good upgrade or replacement for emacs. I'm looking forward, but I'm content with what I have, when I do -- and nano/pico can help me avoid vi when sed has no -i, for now!

# posted by

Lunchbox : 6:12 PM

Wow. I hadn't realized. EMacs people really *are* crazy. CVSing your editor's config file? What?!? (Shudder).

Now I've never been in a vi vs emacs flame war (and I prefer to skip one today). It just strikes me kinda scary how you guys wax silly over this editor. No don't get me wrong, please : I of all people understand the Zeal in which one can fall in love with a tool, and the passion one can share with others who also love the tool. I am laughing With you.

I for one wouldn't mind a good macro language in my editor but I have had so little Need for it that I get by without, and I freely admit it's a heck of a nice feature. Just, wow.

{Pets .vi, tells it that it's ok ; It's good enough, smart enough, and golly people like it.}

# posted by

`Da Elf : 10:28 AM

Um--why not put the ELISP files under revision control? They're code. And it's nice to be able to go back to a previous version of one of them if I inadvertently f$@% it up. It boggles my mind that someone would find that odd or weird. All my shell startup files in are Subversion, too.

A few years back, I read of someone who kept his entire home directory--all of it--in CVS. While that initially sounded like overkill, it had one huge advantage for him: To start using a new box, he simply checked out his home directory, and off he went.

As for Emacs, my personal reasons for continuing to use it have less to do with zeal than with other things, such as:

Muscle memory. I've been using Emacs for nearly 20 years. My fingers are highly accustomed to "thinking" in Emacs, and I'm a more efficient typist when my fingers are happy than when they're not.

Configurability. While LISP is not my favorite programming language, the fact that Emacs has a full LISP interpreter built into it means I (or others) can customize it to do whatever task needs to be done. The editor doesn't need to do everything out of the box, because it can be customized later to do nearly anything. The same is true of other editors, of course; one example is JEdit, a Java-based editor that can be customized using Bean Shell. Same principle.

Power. Emacs is very powerful. So are vim, JEdit, and any number of other editors; I just happen to be accustomed to Emacs. (See above.) I categorically refuse to use a crippled editor, to the point where it constrains my choice of other applications. I use the Thunderbird email client, for instance, because the External Editor plug-in allows me to launch my editor of choice to compose message. I find Thunderbird's built-in editor to be crippled and painful, and I find that to be true of a lot of editors.

Do I use other editors? Sometimes. Sometimes it's faster to fire up vi for a quick edit. But for anything serious, I want something powerful and customizable. In my case, that's Emacs. That doesn't mean other editors aren't just as suitable, merely that I am accustomed to this particular one.

I don't try to convert other people to The Emacs Way; I don't frankly care what editor someone uses. I do care very much, however, about the tools I choose to use. Some hammers just feel better in my hand than others.

# posted by

Unknown : 10:51 AM

I think that if Emacs was merely an editor, and if it did't permit such wild and fine tunings, I would have no interest and need in storing my favourite setup in cvs -- there'd be nothing to store! It'd also be a very small app; is that what ZILE is?

Emacs is an IDE, really, and it's the rich add-ons (bundled or third-party) that really make it a relative joy* to use, in my books. This from a guy who can't be bothered to fix the time display on the microwave.

(Joy, that is, Aside from some really annoying years with xemacs and font-lock on unixware and openserver -- that wasn't anything like a joy, but I suspect it was just a really pessimal .emacs .)

# posted by

Lunchbox : 11:27 AM

I have fallen in love with org-mode.

# posted by

David Täht : 9:15 AM

Contributors