/emacs-setup

My emacs configuration

Primary LanguageEmacs Lisp

My emacs setup.

An old school emacs setup that uses packages. no use-package, just elpa, some config files and some extensions outside of elpa.

Chemacs

as an Emacs bootloader to allow multiple emacs configurations to exist at once.

This repo can do install the following: stable and development installs of this emacs configuration. OG for this repository, as well as doom for _doom-emacs, and space for spacemacs.

On install, the target, make chemacs-profiles will create a full ~/.emacs-profiles.el with this repo being entered as the OG profile.

The default is to use the OG install Simply because that is the only guarantee. I change it to stable.

When I modify my emacs configuration, I use the dev installation. Once dev is pushed to github and I'm happy with it I git pull a new stable installation.

Test is another entry in ~/.emacs-profiles.el. The Makefile has an install-test rule, which will remove/create/execute an install from github, it finishes with emacs -with-profile test.

Emacs-home

In the Makefile emacs-home is set to ~/Emacs this is where all of the emacs installations will be placed.

Installation

  • Fork this repository.
  • Check out your new repository.
  • cd emacs-setup

Make targets.

Currently, I would suggest a minimum install of stable. The OG install could be just fine, but the entries in ~/.emacs-profiles.el point at the stable install by default. The emacs server profiles also default to stable.

Although this is easily changed by editing ~/.emacs-profiles.el.

The file; ~/.emacs-profiles.el is installed with the make target of chemacs-profiles this will copy whatever the current .emacs-profiles.el is based upon the images installed. Each make install profile modifies the .emacs-profiles.el to enable it's self.

make install Does the following:

  • Move .emacs and .emacs.d out of the way if they exist.
  • Install Chemacs2 into ~/.emacs.d
  • Create _.emacs-profiles.el
    • OG points here,
    • gnu points at ~/Emacs/gnu.
  • Copy .emacs-profiles.el, to ~/

make finish-install Runs emacs using the installed profiles, ie. The OG chemacs profile. emacs --with-profile OG

Super Minimal install

This will result in profiles for gnu, and OG

 make install finish-install

Minimal install

This will add a stable image in ~/Emacs/stable.

make install install-stable chemacs-profiles finish-install

Minimal install with a development image

This will add a stable and dev images in ~/Emacs

 make install install-stable install-dev chemacs-profiles finish-install

Maximum install

This will install, stable, dev, doom, and space to ~/Emacs

 make install-all finish-install

Finish each configuration's install

With the exception doom which has an install script which has already run, the installs for each emacs profile need to be run in order for them to install their packages the first time. This takes a bit of extra time.

Each one will run in turn, and each may have questions. When finished be sure to exit with C-x C-c so that the rest of the emacsn will run and load their packages for the first time. The gnu profile has nothing to do.

Note: This is where things might fail if a package is missing from packages.el or a theme has been deleted from elpa.

  make finish-install

Will run Emacs here, --with-profile OG, and then with the installations that exist in emacs-home with the stable, dev and space profiles for the first time.

doom/bin/doom install is run immediately after being installed.

For rest you can do it manually as you go with:

  • emacs --with-profile stable --debug-init
  • emacs --with-profile dev
  • emacs --with-profile space
  • emacs --with-profile OG
  • emacs --with-profile prelude

or similarly:

  • emacsn -p dev

Managing elisp development

I use these installs to insure I always have a way to do work if I have broken anything. I do my elisp work in dev. When dev is working well and everything is pushed I make update-stable to do a git pull and bring it up to date with origin/master.

If I somehow break something, I can fall back to OG.

I can test a fresh installation from github with:

make test-install

Emacs boot choices

The boot profile choices are defined in ~/.emacs-profiles Currently stable is target of default, and all of the emacs daemon entries. I wonder if stable is even necessary.

If this is a minimal install there will be gnu plain vanilla emacs and this here repo as OG which will also be the default.

Installing stable changes the default to stable. If installing individually make chemacs-profiles afterward to install the changes. Or edit ~/.emacs-profiles.el to suit your desires.

Emacs profile choices are:

  • stable, default

  • dev

  • doom

  • space

  • prelude

  • gnu - Completely vanilla gnu emacs.

  • OG - This repo maybe. The original emacs-setup repo installed from.

  • test

  • Named emacs daemons

    • Using stable

      • exwm
      • mail
      • common

    • Using doom

      • doom-server

Emacs will default to OG or stable but can be redirected with

emacs --with-profile dev

or

emacsn -p dev

Running emacs client to a server

Create a new frame, connect to the socket and use vanilla emacs as fallback

emacsclient -c -s exwm -a emacs
emacsclient -c -s mail -a emacs
emacsclient -c -s doom -a emacs

or, with emacsn

emacsn -cws exwm
emacsn -cws mail
emacsn -cws doom

Use an existing emacsclient frame by omitting the w:

emacsn -cs mail

Running no name daemons

A vanilla, no-name, daemon

emacs --daemon &

or emacsn -d

Doom emacs daemon

emacs --with-profile doom --daemon &

or emacsn -dp doom

The emacsn script

I run emacs a few different ways. I use named daemons for some things. its nice to have so clients can be used for mu4e and Exwm.

To facilitate the emacs commandline I have a wrapper for emacs in my ~/bin directory. emacsn. It is a simple CLI that does all of those things.

emacsn -h will give extensive help with examples.

emacs daemons, clients, exwm, mu4e

It runs mu4e or my main-window function to set up emacs in a standard configuration for a project. It knows how to run any elisp function on startup, it can choose different Chemacs profiles. Creating multiple daemons and using them by name is easy. It's easy to add others.

Running an emacs daemon for mail looks like this.

emacsn -e --with-profile mail

Creating a new frame with emacsclient looks like this:

emacsn -ecws mail

The emacsn script has extensive help and a lot of options. It is simpler than emacs it's self.;

Emacs packages, some explanation of what is here.

There is an elisp directory full of stuff, mostly configurations and extensions which I wrote or borrowed from someone else that aren't available as packages. Initialization happens in elisp/init.el

The package list is in elisp/early-packages/mypackages.el.

The big things;

I've considered multiple cursors but have not yet tried them out.

I program lots of languages, these are the main ones. They may or may not have extended configurations from default.

  • Languages:
    • C, C++
    • Clojure
    • Clojure script
    • Python
    • Lua
    • Haskell
    • Lisps - Scheme, Guile, Rackett, etc.

Ivy, Ido, Helm, Vertico, etc.

I've used pretty much all the helpers over the years, ivy, ido, smex, helm, vertico. Currently using vertico. Configurations are still there for the others.

Key Files

Look in elisp/:

  • packages.el - lists all packages to load

  • config/ - Folder where all the real setup goes.

  • extensions/ - Folder where non-elpa custom code goes.

  • config/vars.el - miscellaneous variable setting.

  • config/keys.el - key bindings, mostly F keys.

  • config/evil-leader.el - more key bindings, vi style.

Look in packages.el if I happen to add a package through package-install I then go add it to packages.el so I won't forget and configuration is repeatable. If I forget, the next fresh install will likely fail with package not installed.

Natural Languages

I have been studying French for the last few years. Now studying Italian. I am working on replacing Anki with Org drill in my routine.

I can also see that I'll probably want to add another language or two in the future. So I've been working to tap into the language capabilities of emacs. I have a nice function to switch between input methods and dictionaries. Ispell, flyspell, and hunspell are all working together for spell checking. Google translate is there for highlighted text, current word, or sentence at point and Language Tool is there to check grammar. Take a look at the language sub-menu in evil-leader-conf.el even if you are going to turn off evil-mode. Check out elisp/extensions/language.el and elisp/config/lang-config.el and google-translate-conf.el

Mu4e - Mail

Note: Need to test pacman installation, might be super simple now.

Mu4e I use mu4e for email. I can't imagine a better email client. There is a reasonably basic mu4e configuration with multiple contexts. There is a sample mbsyncrc file that can be used to configure isync/mbsync.

This is a bit easier now than it used to be. Arch Linux seems to install it properly when mu is installed with pacman.

Everything that can be installed as packages is. The glaring exception is mu4e. see this page about (installing mu/mu-git/mu4e)[https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e/Installation.html#Installation]. There is a make rule that works to get everthing wired up on Arch Linux. YMMV.

Key mappings

I didn't mess with key mappings except for F keys. My key is currently , but I am looking to change to SPC and also to do something similar to doom-emacs and spacemacs so that everything is available outside of evil-mode.

I have an extensive menu system on Evil-leader which allows for ,w for write, ,q delete-buffer, etc. the entire Hydra subsystem is available at h.

I use which-key-posframe which is almost like hydra with all the submenus.

Mostly, the key mappings I added are non-intrusive. It is definitely a good idea to go read config/evil-leader-conf.el whether you want Evil key bindings or not. It will give you a good idea of functionality to look for or map to your own keys in keys.el

Additional packages needed

See my arch-pkgs repo for an easy way to install everything you need.

  • For email

    • mu-git - on Arch linux
    • isync (mbsync)

  • for Spelling and grammar.

    • languagetool
    • hunspell -- add dictionaries as needed.
    • hunspell dictionaries get them here! or just do pacman -Ss hunspell to see what arch has.
  • Fonts Iosevka Fonts They are here Or just install the Arch Linux packages. yay -S ttf-iosevka ttc-iosevka

Additional isync/mbsync/mu4e resources [are here:] (http://www.ict4g.net/adolfo/notes/2014/12/27/EmacsIMAP.html)

stuff, to verify and maybe chuck from here down.

This is currently not necessary it is installed with the prepare-install target. I do also wonder about the current state of the automatic install of mu4e with the package install of mu.

  • make mbsync to copy a sample .mbsyncrc for use with isync to your home directory.

  • (install mu/mu-git/mu4e)[https://www.djcbsoftware.nl/code/mu/mu4e/Installation.html#Installation] or maybe just do a yay -S mu-git if you are on Arch.

  • Possibly copy or link the newly installed mu4e elisp to elisp/extensions/mu4e. Or add it to your load path. It's probably in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp. that's where it is on Arch Linux. Alternatively you could add it to your load path. (add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/mu4e") Or it may just work. Or possibly try make mu4e it might will probably worku On Arch Linux it does.

  • install hunspell, languagetool and hunspell dictionaries as desired.

Evil Mode

I've been using emacs in some sort of Vi emulation since 1995. Evil-mode is, IMHO the best vi emulator so far. Although neovim is doing a really good job. vimscript is an unfortunate language. You can easily turn it off in setup.el . The Evil mode setup includes a few but not all of the Evil-mode extensions. For more information check out the Evil-mode documentation.

Included along with evil mode are:

CycleBufs

I don't use this anymore. I'm currently switching to perspective which works well with projectile and Exwm.

Cyclebufs is now built on top of BS - Buffer Selection. There are several bs-configurations, and extra functionality which makes switching buffers more contextual. Reusing windows for different mode groups shell, dired, and bs-show if they are visible.

Also cycling of buffers based on groups.

As an example, the shell group contains shell, eshell, ansi-term, cider, and inferior python modes. Once a buffer has one of the modes in the group, cycling will stay within that group. There is also contextual cycling based on the mode group of the current buffer, cycling through shells, *buffers, or file buffers accordingly.

Cyclebufs will open a shell buffer of your choice based on the value of cb-shell-command. The default is eshell. See vars.el.

Themes

I am using Modus Themes now. There are lots of other themes here, but I'm tempted to remove all but my custom theme extensions. They frequently are deleted from elpa and cause trouble during install with package not found errors. The name must then be removed from packages.el.

Lots of themes from packages. Additionally my own personal theme strange-deeper-blue. As well as a couple of variations on solarized. There is also a palette-themes.el which is a more general library adapted from the solarized-theme. Palette-themes allow for the creation of themes simply by defining a palette of colors. There are four different variations of the solarized themes included.