So, for the past 3 days, I have been using GNU Emacs as a text editor.
Table of contents
Open Table of contents
What is Emacs?
Emacs is one of the oldest and most sofisticated programs that can be used to edit text. The Emacs editor allows for very fast editing of files, without looking overly cluttered. Emacs allows you to customize everything you want, and allows you to install plugins written in elisp, it’s own programming language.
What are modes?
Emacs can be extended with plugins, which can do a lot. The biggest functionality a plugin can provide is (in my opinion) a mode.
Emacs has two types of modes, Major and Minor modes. A major mode is the mode in which the file you’re editing is displayed.
For example, there is a markdown mode, which I’ve used for editing this file. A mode can also do more than just provide intelligence
for a programming language. For example, the dired mode can be used to display files in a folder. A major mode can completely
modify what is visible on your screen. There can, however, only be one major mode active at a time. Luckily, minor modes also exist.
A minor mode only changes small things. For example, minibar shows the date in the bar at the bottom, which is otherwise doing nothing.
What are the keybindings?
Emacs has unique keybindings. The keybindings look nothing like the xwin or windows or gnome or … keymap. Instead, the Emacs keymap is made with it’s own unique design and philosophy. The basics however are extremely simple:
| key | does |
|---|---|
| C-n | Next line |
| C-p | Previous line |
| C-b | 1 character Back |
| C-f | 1 character Forwards |
| C-x C-s | save |
| C-s | Forward I-search |
| - | - |
| C-x C-b | list of all Buffers |
| C-x b | go to buffer |
| C-x 0 | Close window |
| C-x 2 | split window vertically |
| C-x 3 | split window horizontally |
| C-x C-f | find file (open a file) |
| C-g | Abort whatever is currently going on |
| M-x (alt x) | run a command |
I have mail, now I’ll have to leave emacs, right?
Nope. Emacs has a built in e-mail client. In fact, emacs even comes with a Tetris emulator.
Org
Org is one of the best parts of emacs. It is a custom note taking format, the base functions already built-in to emacs. It works a bit like markdown, but instead of hashes it uses asterisks. These headings can be stacked very deep, and each heading can be closed whilst editing the file so the file doesn’t look very cluttered. As emacs is emacs, org and org-mode can be extended with packages.
What more goodies are in Emacs?
The following things are already installed on emacs: (not limited to)
- a semi-functional webbrowser
- a bunch of games
- a news reader
- a mail reader
- full IDE support for C / C++
- a terminal emulator
- a tool to quickly edit your configuration without having to write elisp.
- TWO calculators
- pong
- snake
- a graphical package manager
Do I reccommend Emacs
If you are a normie who uses MS Windows, I wouldn’t reccommend it. If you, however, use linux, need to type a lot, and have the time to set up emacs, yes, I’d reccommend you’d use emacs. I wrote this post in Emacs, and I think I’ll write a lot more posts with emacs, as it is a very nice editor and I’ve already went through the troubles (minimal) of installing and configurating Emacs.