Checklist

You can make this setup more stable
I recommend Emacs 24.3.1 or 24.4
Tested with Emacs 24.3.1, 24.4, 24.5 on ALL platforms (Linux/Windows/Cygwin/Mac)
Check section “About Emacs 23” if you uses Emacs 23.4
Please read FAQ to disable default Vim key bindings
It’s my intentional design that you can NOT install packages from melpa-unstable by default. Experienced users can modify variable melpa-include-packages in “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el” to install packages from melpa-unstable
Other issues are covered in FAQ

Features

Stable is the first priority
I do NOT re-define key bindings, so original key bindings are still there
100% usable in terminal
Popular languages are supported (C/C++/Java/Ruby/Perl/Python/C#/Lua/Javascript …)
Minimum dependency (For example, network connection is OPTIONAL to install packages)
Optimized for cross-platform C++ development

Installation

Minimum installation

Most users should follow the section “Install in normal way”.

You need read the section “Install stable version in easiest way” if and only if:

You are absolutely newbie, knowing nothing about Linux/Unix
You are living in North Korea without internet access

Install in normal way

Please remove the file ”/.emacs.d/init.el" and "~/.emacs". "” means the parent directory of your “.emacs.d” directory.

Uninstall any package not installed at “~/.emacs.d”. For example, run “apt-get autoremove emacs-w3m” on Debian/Ubuntu. If don’t know what I mean, then do nothing.

All packages should be placed at “~/.emacs.d” from now on.

There are TWO ways to install this setup:

Way 1, download latest setup and extract its content into “~/.emacs.d”, OR run command cd ~; git clone https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git .emacs.d in shell.

Way 2, use stable setup, OR run command cd ~; git clone https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git .emacs.d; cd .emacs.d; git reset --hard stable in shell.

Ensure that the init.el contained in this repo ends up at ~/.emacs.d/init.el.

By default, all packages will be installed automatically during startup. Edit ~/.emacs.d/init-elpa.el to avoid certain package be installed automatically.

Install stable version in easiest way (OPTIONAL)

You don’t need git or network any more. All you need are only two zip files.

Here are the exact steps to follow:

Remove the file “~/.emacs”.
Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d/archive/stable.zip
Extract its content into empty directory ”/.emacs.d" ("” means home directory, the environment variable HOME contains the path of home directory). After extraction, there will be a file named “init.el” in “~/.emacs.d”
Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/myelpa/archive/stable.zip
Extract the zip somewhere, say “~/projs/myelpa”.
Double check that there is a file named “archive-contents” in the directory “~/projs/myelpa”
Uncomment below code in “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el” and start Emacs now!

(setq package-archives '(("myelpa" . "~/projs/myelpa/")))

That’s it. You never need internet in the future because you are using local package repository “~/projs/melpa” now.

You can switch to the online repository like “http://elpa.gnu.org” or “http://melpa.org” by modifying “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el”.

Third party tools (OPTIONAL)

Install

You can install them in any way you like. But “OS package manager” is easier.

“OS package manager” means:

apt-cyg at Cygwin
homebrew at Mac
any package manager at Linux (apt-get at Ubuntu, yum at Redhat, pacman at Arch, emerge at Gentoo …)

Tools List

These tools are OPTIONAL.

Please ignore any related error message. For example, if aspell and hunspell are not installed, you can ignore all the flyspell error messages.

w3m (web browser in console)

needed by w3m (w3m is emacs package name written in elisp)
install through OS package manager
please note only emacs with GUI can display image

lua

required by flymake-lua
install through OS package manager

aspell or hunspell

needed by flyspell
hunspell is the alternative of aspell. So you need only one of them.
install through OS package manager
for aspell, you may need its dictionary like aspell-en
I force the dictionary to “en_US” in “~/.emacs./lisp/init-spelling.el”. You can modify it.
I recommend aspell for programmers

sbcl (lisp environment)

needed by lisp slime
install through OS package manager

tidy

needed by web-mode for syntax check and tidy.el html formatting
install through OS package manager

csslint

install node.js through OS package manager, then sudo npm install -g csslint

identify from ImageMagick

needed by org-mode to export org file to odt file when image embedded
install through OS package manager

zip and unzip

needed by org-mode to export org file to odt file
install through OS package manager

jshint

install node.js through OS package manager, then sudo npm install -g jshint
required by js-mode
by default I use js2-mode which does NOT need jshint

xsel

needed by my clipboard command copy-to-x-clipboard and paste-from-x-clipboard under Linux
install through OS package manager

CMake

needed by cpputils-cmake
install through OS package manager
Please use out-of-source build tree when using CMake

Clang

needed by cpputils-cmake, company-clang
install through OS package manager
If you use cpputils-cmake and cmake, cpputils-cmake will do all the setup for you. You don’t need read next item! But please spend a few minutes to learn the basics of cmake! There is a one minute step-by-step-guide in README of cpputils-cmake to teach you how to use cmake.
If you use company-clang, add (setq company-clang-arguments '("-I/example1/dir" "-I/example2/dir")) into ~/.emacs.d/init.el

GCC/Make

needed by flymake
install through OS package manager

CTags

it creates tags file for code navigation
needed by many tags related packages
install through OS package manager
See How to use ctags in Emacs effectively

GNU Global

needed by ggtags.el
it creates index files for code navigation
more advanced than ctags, supports references and has better performance
install through OS package manager

LibreOffice

Only one executable soffice needed when converting odt file into doc/pdf
conversion happens automatically when exporting org-mode to odt
The conversion command is in variable org-export-odt-convert-processes
Install through OS package manager

js-beautify

Beautify javascript code
Install pip through OS package manager, then pip install jsbeautifier

syntaxerl

syntax check Erlang through flymake
Install from https://github.com/ten0s/syntaxerl

jedi & flake8

Required by elpy which is python IDE
At least pip install jedi flake8. Check elpy website for more tips.

sdcv (console version of StarDict)

Required by sdcv.el
install through OS package manager
curl http://abloz.com/huzheng/stardict-dic/dict.org/stardict-dictd_www.dict.org_wn-2.4.2.tar.bz2 | tar jx -C ~/.stardict/dic to install dictionary

Tutorial (OPTIONAL)

”~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-evil.el” lists the most frequently used key bindings I use.

For example, below line means pressing “,bf” equals to M-x beginning-of-defun,

"bf" 'beginning-of-defun

Basic tutorial

Step 1, learn OS basics

Read wikipedia in order to know,

What is environment variable
What is pipe, stdout, stdin

Step 2, read official tutorial at least once

Press C-h t (“C” means Ctrl key, “M” means Alt key) to read bundled tutorial.

At minimum you need know:

How to move cursor
How to read help by pressing C-h v and C-h f.

Step 3, know org-mode basics

Org-mode is a for notes-keeping and planning.

Please watch the Carsten Dominik’s talk. It’s really simple. The only hot key to remember is Tab.

Step 4, solve your first problem

For that problem, you can visit EmacsWiki for the solution. Newbies can ask for help at http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/.

Advanced tutorial

See Master Emacs in One Year.

FAQ

To start a shell inside Emacs

Please M-x multi-term.

If you want to use Zsh instead of Bash, please modify init-term-mode.el

Use HTTPS instead of HTTP to download packages

(setq melpa-use-https-repo t). melpa-use-https-repo is defined in init-elpa.el.

Setup fonts in GUI Emacs

Non-Chinese use unicode-fonts and Chinese use chinese-fonts-setup.

Neither package is included in this setup. You need install them manually.

Synchronize setup with Git

Most people should synchronize from my stable setup which is updated every 6 months:

git pull https://redguardtoo@github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git stable

But advanced users can use latest setup:

git pull https://redguardtoo@github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git

If you don’t like my commits, you can revert them:

# always start from the latest related commit
git revert commit-2014-12-01
git revert commit-2014-11-01

Indentation

Learn basics.

Then use my solution.

Editing Lisp

Please note paredit-mode is enabled when editing Lisp. Search “paredit cheat sheet” to learn its key bindings.

Use smart-mode-line or powerline?

Comment out (require 'init-modeline) in init.el at first.

Key bindings doesn’t work?

Other software may intercept the key bindings. For example, someone reported QQ on windows 8 can intercept =M-x=.

My frequently used commands

They are listed at “lisp/init-evil”. I use evil-leader to assign hot keys.

Plugins doesn’t work?

If two plugins conflicts, the more frequently used plugin takes priority.

But there exists workaround for less used plugin. Check “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-evil.el” for the list of alternative.

For example, if which-func-mode cannot display function name at mode-line, you can use M-x popup-which-function instead.

popup-which-function is mentioned in init-evil.el.

How to use org-mode

Press M-x org-version, then read corresponding online manual.

I keep the original status of org-mode. If you find anything doesn’t work out of the box, it’s because you haven’t do the required setup yet.

For example, org-capture need your manual setup.

OS X user?

You need remove emacs 22 bundled with freshly installed OSX:

sudo rm -rf /usr/bin/emacs /usr/share/emacs

You need remove the obsolete ctags/etags too:

sudo rm /usr/bin/ctags /usr/bin/etags

To find out the version of your Emacs/Ctags, run below command in shell:

emacs --version
ctags --version

Important packages are locked

Some packages (Evil, Helm, Web-mode …) are so important to my workflow that I locked their versions.

Those packages are placed at “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp”.

They will not be upgraded through ELPA automatically unless you delete corresponding folders at “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp”.

Customize global variables

Some variables are hard coded so you cannot “M-x customize” to modify them.

Here are the steps to change their values:

Find the variable description by “M-x customize”
For text “Company Clang Insert Arguments”, search “company-clang-insert-argument” in “~/.emacs.d/lisp/”
You will find “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-company.el” and modify company-clang-insert-argument’s value

BTW, please read my comments above the code at first.

Open file with Ido

If you press C-x C-f to open a file, Ido will show the completions.

You can keep pressing C-f to ignore the completions.

Windows

I strongly suggest Cygwin version of Emacs. But native windows version is OK if you declare environment variable HOME which points to a user directory C:\Users\<username>. You need extract .emacs.d into the directory HOME points to.

Yasnippet key bindings

Instead of M-x yas-expand or press TAB key, you may press “M-j” instead.

Install packages from source

Please place the source at “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp” where some samples already exist.

Insert below lines into “~/.emacs.d/init.el”:

;; check the package's README to figure out what's the =require= line!
(require 'cool-package-name)
;; put whatever setup here

Non-English users

Your locale must be UTF-8 compatible. For example, as I type locale in shell, I got the output “zh_CN.UTF-8”.

Behind corporate firewall

Type below command in shell:

http_proxy=http://yourname:passwd@proxy.company.com:8080 emacs -nw

Government blocks the internet?

People in China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran need goagent. Run command http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:8087 emacs -nw in shell after starting goagent server.

Email

If you use Gnus for email, check init-gnus.el and read my Gnus tutorial.

Cannot download ELPA packages?

Some package cannot be downloaded automatically because of network problem.

You could

M-x list-packages to manually install it
Or M-x package-refresh-content and restart Emacs. the package will be installed automatically

Disable vim keybinding

By default EVIL (Vim emulation in Emacs) is used. You can comment out line containing “(require ‘init-evil)” in init.el to unload it.

Evil setup

It’s defined in “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-evil.el”. Press C-z to switch between Emacs and Vim key bindings.

Please reading its PDF manual before using evil-mode.

C++ auto-completion doesn’t work?

I assume you are using company-mode. Other packages have similar setup.

At minimum:

You need install clang
Make sure your code is syntax correct at the beginning
assign reasonable value into company-clang-arguments

Here is sample code:

(setq company-clang-arguments '("-I/home/myname/projs/test-cmake" "-I/home/myname/projs/test-cmake/inc"))

In “friendly” Visual C++, you need do similar setup.

Color theme

Preview color theme

Check http://emacsthemes.caisah.info/.

Write down the name of color theme (for example, molokai).

Setup color theme manually (recommended)

Insert below code into “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-color-theme.el”,

;; the color theme name "molokai"" could be replaced with other theme name
(require 'color-theme-molokai)
(color-theme-molokai)

“M-x color-theme-select” may not work because of some design flaw in Emacs.

Please note there is NO unified way to enable color theme. You need read color theme’s documentation at first.

My sample code works for most color themes.

If you insist on configuring the color theme in a different way, please,

Comment out the line containing (require 'init-color-theme) in “~/.emacs.d/init.el” at first
Read EmacsWiki

Use color theme in terminal

TERM=xterm-256color emacs -nw

Chinese Input Method Editor

Run command M-x toggle-input-method to toggle input method. A 20M Chinese dictionary is already provided.

If your personal word file “~/.eim/pyim-personal.txt” exists, it will be used.

Or else “~/.emacs.d/pyim/pyim-personal.txt” will be created.

Install Emacs elsewhere

Run below commands:

mkdir -p ~/tmp;
curl http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/emacs-24.3.tar.gz | tar xvz -C ~/tmp/emacs-24.3
cd ~/tmp/emacs-24.3;
mkdir -p ~/myemacs/24.3;
rm -rf ~/myemacs/24.3/*;
./configure --prefix=~/myemacs/24.3 --without-gtk --without-gtk3 --without-aqua --without-x --without-xpm --without-png --without-gif --without-alsa --without-tiff --without-jpeg --without-aqua --without-rsvg --without-xft --without-xaw3d --without-xim --without-xpm --without-dbus --without-makeinfo --with-x-toolkit=no --without-sound --without-sync-input --without-pop;make;make install

Feel free to replace 24.3 with other version number.

Directory structure

”~/.emacs.d/init.el” is the main file. It includes all the other *.el files.

”~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el” defines how and what packages will be installed from MELPA.

The package manager will extract packages into “~/.emacs.d/elpa/”.

I also manually download and extract some packages into “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/”. Packages in “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/” is not visible to the package manager.

My own snippets for Yasnippet is at “~/.emacs.d/snippets”.

Other directories don’t matter.

About Emacs 23

Emacs 23 support was dropped on <2015-04-21>.

The latest Emacs23 compatible version of setup is 1.2!

Here are the steps to use that setup:

Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d/archive/1.2.zip
Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/myelpa/archive/1.2.zip
Follow the section “Install stable version in easiest way” but skip the download steps

Since most third party plugins don’t support Emacs 23 any more. I strongly recommend you upgrading to Emacs 24 instead!

Emacs is portable on any platform. So you can install Emacs even when you are not root of the Linux server. Please read previous “Install Emacs at home directory” for HOW.

Tips

Never turn off any bundled mode if it’s on by default. Future version of Emacs may assume it’s on. Tweak its flag in mode hook instead!
Git skills are extremely useful for maintaining your emacs.d. The book Pro Git has everything. Please read the chapters “Git Basics”, “Git Branching”, “Git Tools” at minimum.

Report bug

Check EmacsWiki and my FAQ at first.

File bug report at https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d. Don’t email me directly!

Please contact the original developer if you find any bug from third party packages.

Bug report should include details (OS, Emacs version …) plus the output of emacs --debug-init at minimum.

alanjumpi/emacs.d