yequake

This package provides configurable, drop-down Emacs frames, similar to drop-down terminal windows programs, like Yakuake. Each frame can be customized to display certain buffers in a certain way, at the desired height, width, and opacity. The idea is to call the yequake-toggle command from outside Emacs, using emacsclient, by binding a shell command to a global keyboard shortcut in the desktop environment. Then, with a single keypress, the desired Emacs frame can be toggled on and off, showing the desired buffers.

There are many options to configure yequake-frames, but the customization UI makes it easy. Try M-x customize-option RET yequake-frames RET

Screenshots

Note that the animation of the Emacs frame in this example is provided by the window manager. Yequake simply displays the frame.

That animation was produced with this yequake-frames configuration:

(setq yequake-frames
      '(("Yequake & scratch" .
         ((width . 0.75)
          (height . 0.5)
          (alpha . 0.95)
          (buffer-fns . ("~/src/emacs/yequake/yequake.el"
                         split-window-horizontally
                         "*scratch*"))
          (frame-parameters . ((undecorated . t)))))))

To activate it, call this command from a shell, e.g. by binding it to a global keyboard shortcut:

emacsclient -n -e '(yequake-toggle "Yequake & scratch")'

Installation
Usage
Changelog
Credits

Installation

Quelpa

quelpa-use-package makes installation easy:

(use-package yequake
  :quelpa (yequake :fetcher github :repo "alphapapa/yequake"))

MELPA

If you installed from MELPA, you’re done!

Manual

Put yequake.el in your load-path, and this in your init file:

(require 'yequake)

Usage

Start an Emacs daemon (e.g. with emacs --daemon, or M-x server-start RET).
Configure yequake-frames, e.g. with M-x customize-option RET yequake-frames RET.
Call yequake-toggle:
- From inside Emacs, it can be called as an interactive command with M-x yequake-toggle RET, and will prompt for a Yequake frame.
- From outside Emacs, call emacsclient and eval the command with the name of a Yequake frame, like:

emacsclient -n -e '(yequake-toggle "FRAME-NAME")'

You’ll probably want to bind that to a global keyboard shortcut in your desktop environment.

Call yequake-toggle again to hide the frame.

Tips

You can customize settings in the yequake group.
The yequake-retoggle command toggles the most recently toggled frame.

Org Capture

The yequake-org-capture function is suitable for use in a Yequake frame used for Org Capture. It calls org-capture and sets org-capture-after-finalize-hook to close the Yequake frame after the capture is finalized or canceled. (Note that if another Yequake frame is toggled before the capture is finalized, when the capture is finalized, the wrong Yequake frame will be toggled.) For example, with this configuration:

(use-package yequake
  :quelpa (yequake :fetcher github :repo "alphapapa/yequake")

  :custom
  (yequake-frames
   '(("org-capture" 
      (buffer-fns . (yequake-org-capture))
      (width . 0.75)
      (height . 0.5)
      (alpha . 0.95)
      (frame-parameters . ((undecorated . t)
                           (skip-taskbar . t)
                           (sticky . t)))))))

You could then run:

emacsclient -n -e '(yequake-toggle "org-capture")'

And after the capture is finalized or canceled, the frame will be closed, like this:

Changelog

0.1

First tagged release.

Credits

This package was inspired by Benjamin Slade’s equake package, and by good ol’ Yakuake.
The animations were created with Bashcaster and GIMP.

Development

Bug reports, feature requests, suggestions — oh my!

License

GPLv3