/Emacs_Tutorial

Emacs is a powerful platform for text object manipulation using Lisp programming

What Emacs can do as an efficient text editor and IDE

  • Text editing by VIM (yes, VIM as a text editor is very efficient)

  • Text searching (grep)

  • Find files in a project

  • Code completion

  • Code navigation

  • Spell checking

  • Syntax checking

  • Debugging

  • Find and replace cross several files

  • File management

  • Version control

Here is the place to show the power of Emacs

Rule #1: Don't make Emacs too powerful at the begining. Don't drive an airplane when you can only drive a car.

Rule #2: Don't use start up kit unless you know everything there. You can easily get lost in the complicated settings and key bindings.

The best way to use Emacs is to make it usable and build up its functions later.

Emacs installation on MacOS

brew tap d12frosted/emacs-plus

brew install emacs-plus

Learn a little bit Emacs-lisp

Building emacs configuration file from scratch (not by yourself

resources:

https://huytd.github.io/emacs-from-scratch.html

the best:

https://alhassy.github.io/init/

absolutely new:

https://medium.com/@suvratapte/configuring-emacs-from-scratch-intro-3157bed9d040

advanced:

https://justin.abrah.ms/dotfiles/emacs.html

others:

http://aaronbedra.com/emacs.d/

Get familiar with well known emacs configurations and people

Spacemacs

Spacemacs incorparate lots of useful plugins and settings (almost every good plugins).

https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs

Doom-emacs

ready to use, out of box, Very fast, with spacemacs key bindings, nice UI

https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs

Centar emacs

ready to use, out of box, nice UI

https://github.com/seagle0128/.emacs.d

M-emacs

has everything you need, full features

https://github.com/MatthewZMD/.emacs.d

prelude

https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude

purcell

https://github.com/purcell/emacs.d

EgroEmacs

https://ergoemacs.github.io/

Chen Bin

https://github.com/redguardtoo

LazyCat

https://github.com/manateelazycat/lazycat-emacs

Mike Zamansky

https://cestlaz.github.io/stories/emacs/

General Emacs sites

https://emacs.zeef.com/ehartc

http://tuhdo.github.io/

Build your own configuration file and setup your own workflow for using emacs

People got scared away from Emacs because of the complex key bindings. But you really don't need to remember them.

start everything by using M-x

 Inside Emacs, your input is your text. Emacs execute lots of functions to modify your text. Every modification on your text is realized by a function. Emacs has about 8000 functions to do text editing. We have to admit it is very powerful. The only shortcoming for Emacs is that it is too powerful. People get eaisly lost in all these functions.

query anything by M-x apropos

This command will pop up an blank region for you to input your search item. It will return the related information.
This is a must-have command for Emacs user.

Major mode and Minor mode

The hundreds of functions bundled together based on the programming languages or tasks are collectively called Major mode; The functions bundled together based on more general editorial task like jumping around, searching, etc.

Help yourself using Ctrl + h

You can image that it is hard to find the right functions to do the right thing. Using Ctrl + h to get the information about the functions, variables, documentations.

Lisp programming (To learn Emacs, you need to learn Lisp language. But it is easy to learn)

https://github.com/caiorss/Emacs-Elisp-Programming/blob/master/Elisp_Programming.org

Starts Here

;;; Please add the following code in you .emacs.d/init.el file
(require 'cl)
(when (>= emacs-major-version 24)
    (require 'package)
    (package-initialize)
    (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/") t)
    ;;(setq package-archives '(("gnu"   . "http://elpa.emacs-china.org/gnu/")
    ;;			      ("melpa" . "http://elpa.emacs-china.org/melpa/")))
    )



 ;; Add Packages
(defvar my/packages '(
                company
                hungry-delete
                swiper
                counsel
                smartparens
                js2-mode
                nodejs-repl
                exec-path-from-shell
		popwin
		reveal-in-osx-finder
		web-mode
		js2-refactor
		expand-region
		iedit
		org-pomodoro
		helm-ag
		flycheck
		auto-yasnippet
		monokai-theme
		evil
		evil-leader
		window-numbering
		evil-surround
		evil-nerd-commenter
		which-key
		powerline
		powerline-evil
		ivy
		smartparens
		pallet
		;; my own packages
		solarized-theme
		helm
		helm-gtags
		ggtags
		;;for python
		ein
		elpy
		py-autopep8
		websocket
		request
		dash
		s
		skewer-mode
		request-deferred
		smartrep
		org
		magit
		;;for latex
		auctex
		auctex-latexmk
		auctex-lua
		company-auctex
		cdlatex
		latex-preview-pane
               ) "Default packages")

(setq package-selected-packages my/packages)

(defun my/packages-installed-p ()
    (loop for pkg in my/packages
          when (not (package-installed-p pkg)) do (return nil)
          finally (return t)))

(unless (my/packages-installed-p)
    (message "%s" "Refreshing package database...")
    (package-refresh-contents)
    (dolist (pkg my/packages)
      (when (not (package-installed-p pkg))
        (package-install pkg))))

or start with a basic package installation script

;; Set up package.el to work with MELPA
(require 'cl)
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
             '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))
(package-initialize)
(package-refresh-contents)

(defvar my/packages '(
		evil
                company
                hungry-delete
                swiper
                counsel
                smartparens
                js2-mode))

(defun my/packages-installed-p ()
    (loop for pkg in my/packages
          when (not (package-installed-p pkg)) do (return nil)
          finally (return t)))

(unless (my/packages-installed-p)
    (message "%s" "Refreshing package database...")
    (package-refresh-contents)
    (dolist (pkg my/packages)
      (when (not (package-installed-p pkg)) ;; package-installed-p is a function to check if a package or newer version of a package is installed.
        (package-install pkg))))

;; Enable Evil
(require 'evil)
(evil-mode 1)

Packages installed

Emacs packages:

  1. Package Use-package

  2. Programming related 1.0 general Company: text completion; complete anything Company-box Ivy: another text completion from abo-abo Auto-yasnippet Flycheck Fill-column-indicator highlight-symbol projectile

1.1 javascript and web Js2-mode Nodes-Real Js2-refactor skewer-mode 1.2 lisp lispy dash s 1.3 python ein elpy elpygen py-autopep8 request-deferred ob-ipython indent-tools pyimport

1.4 latex auctex auctex-latexmk auctex-lua company-auctex cdlatex latex-preview-pane latex-pretty-symbols latex-unicode-math-mode

1.5 org Org Org-pomodoro

  1. Text editing Hungry-delete: delete more space Smartparens: automatically insert pairs Expand-region: Expand region increases the selected region by semantic units iedit: edit multple occurrences Evil: vim simulator Evil-leader: set leader key Evil-surround: Evil-nerd-commenter: Brow-kill-ring multiple-cursors smartrep

  2. Text search Swiper: Helm Helm-ag occur

  3. Navigation 4.1 window navigate Window-numbering popwin 4.2 buffer navigate 4.3 text navigate ggtags Helm-gtags avy 4.4 command navigate Which-key

  4. UI Molokai-theme solarized-theme moe-theme Doom-theme Doom-modeline Powerline Powerline-evil All-the-icons All-the-icons-ivy Dashboard Beacon Nyan-mode neotree Ivy-posframe Awesome-tab

  5. Utilizes Exec-path-from-shell Reveal-in-osx-finder websocket request magit ztree

The basic organization of the emacs configuration folder

init.el

lisp folder

packages.el
ui.edl
custom.el
python.el

Setup a pretty UI

Great utilies