18 ms·

New GNU Emacs website

547 points by rvern 10y ago

indigo747 10y ago
The site seems to be having some trouble, so from the Wayback machine: The previous site https://web.archive.org/web/20150522051725/http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150522051725/http://www.gnu.or... The new site on the 20th of April https://web.archive.org/web/20160420170002/http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160420170002/http://www.gnu.or...
- theunamedguy 10y ago
  https:// https:// site is down, http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ is live.
  - tlb 10y ago
    URL changed to http: version, thanks.
    - jedberg 10y ago
      Heh, and now the http is down. I think HN might be the cause. :)
      - theunamedguy 10y ago
        Works for me, but it's slow
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
satysin 10y ago
Surprised to see the demo videos were captured on OS X and not GNU/Linux.
- hellofunk 10y ago
  Not too surprising, OSX is a common platform for devs who are linux/unix-oriented but want a high-level OS with all the sleek GUIs and mainstream features. OSX is a certified Unix OS, after all, so it tends to speak to emacs users in a way that you won't typically find among the Windows base. Yes Unix is not Linux, but I see OSX widely used at hackathons and conferences because of its underpinnings.
  - lqdc13 10y ago
    One of the points of FSF is to never use closed software. OSX is not GPL.
    - chris_wot 10y ago
      Makes me wonder why they have compatibility shims to allow their website show in browers like IE6... Yes, it's pedantic, but this GNU we are speaking about.
      - lqdc13 10y ago
        That would actually make sense. It might help more people see the light.
        oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
        Really? You think if I recommend emacs to someone using IE6 and they go view the site and it fails to display, that will somehow make them 'see the light'? I suspect the complete opposite is true and, hence, why gnu support browsers that aren't 100% GPLed.
        chris_wot 10y ago
        Nobody is saying that it is practical, but GNU aren't known to make their stance on practicalities alone. GNU are known for their ideological purity, and a lot of people (some even quite grudgingly) admire them for their consistent stance.
joshumax 10y ago
Hmmmm, the website seems to be taking _forever_ to load resists urge to make emacs joke about this
- chris_wot 10y ago
  You think Apache is running mod_emacs perhaps?
  - chris_wot 10y ago
    Hmmm... the instant I wrote that I realised there's no way that would ever be likely. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's an Emacs powered Apache instance. Duh. Don't know how I could have missed that.
    - elektronaut 10y ago
      I'm sure you could run elisp scripts with mod_cgi. But who needs Apache? Just M-x package-install elnode, and you've got yourself a web server.
      - chris_wot 10y ago
        I guess they could be forging the Server header...
  - mrmondo 10y ago
    Very good ;)
  - unhammer 10y ago
    https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Elnode https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Elnode more like :)
sotojuan 10y ago
Seems like GNU is going through a brand/design update. First Guile[1] then this! [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/
- xvilka 10y ago
  They also have a good project [1] of migrating Emacs codebase and plugins support on Guile - partly by adding Elisp support in Guile, partly by rewriting Emacs itself. [1] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs
  - Ericson2314 10y ago
    I followed this a bit during the GSOCs. Seems to have stalled unfortunately?
    - xvilka 10y ago
      It's unclear for now. But from outside it looks like stalled, yes.
      - Ericson2314 10y ago
        Bummer.
bitwize 10y ago
It looks real snazzy and nice. But I always liked that the GNU project did not try to look like the latest fad out of SV. Their low-fi HTML4 approach meant they could be browsed in anything and still be perfectly readable.
- masolino 10y ago
  The new site is responsive
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  The markup is very clean, and the page still works fine with css disabled.
jimjimjim 10y ago
I switched back to emacs last month after 10 years in ides, vim and sublime and my hands still remember the key combinations. It's nice, like going back to an old favorite pair of shoes. Also good to see the changes like the elpa/melpa stuff.
- rpgmaker 10y ago
  What made you leave the IDE world?
benbristow 10y ago
Since when did FOSS have good design? Joking aside, looks really nice!
- rvern 10y ago
  Guile[1], Octave[2], Guix[3] and GRUB[4] have nice designs too. [1]: https://gnu.org/software/guile/ https://gnu.org/software/guile/ [2]: https://gnu.org/software/octave/ https://gnu.org/software/octave/ [3]: https://gnu.org/software/guix/ https://gnu.org/software/guix/ [4]: https://gnu.org/software/grub/ https://gnu.org/software/grub/
  - jordigh 10y ago
    Aw, Octave? /me blushes
    - rvern 10y ago
      Yes. The website is clean and readable, makes everything important (except the manual) easy to find, doesn't require JavaScript and has acceptable markup.
xvilka 10y ago
It would be nice, if they will merge patches [1] for truecolor (16M colors) support in their console incarnation of emacs. Both Vim [2] and Neovim [3] already did this. Since most terminal emulators now support this mode [4], that will improve syntax highlighting and theme customizing to a new level. [1] http://emacs.1067599.n5.nabble.com/RFC-Add-tty-True-Color-support-td299962.html http://emacs.1067599.n5.nabble.com/RFC-Add-tty-True-Color-su... [2] https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/8a633e3427b47286869aa4b96f2bfc1fe65b25cd https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/8a633e3427b47286869aa4b96f... [3] https://github.com/neovim/neovim/commit/8dd415e887923f99ab5daaeba9f0303e173dd1aa https://github.com/neovim/neovim/commit/8dd415e887923f99ab5d... [4] https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728 https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728
- jbmorgado 10y ago
  +1 for this. It's basically impossible to get emacs colors to work correctly in the terminal.
  - cisstrd 10y ago
    And as soon as you complain you are confronted with "emacs is supposed to be run with the graphical interface, just install it with the gui and don't use -nw (no window) option"... yeah, right... no thanks.
    - hvis 10y ago
      Nobody says that. But don't complain, better submit a patch. Or help ironing out the one linked above, it's unfinished.
      - cisstrd 10y ago
        I am not saying it's an official stance or such, not saying you are someone who would say that, but don't tell me "nobody says that" when that was what I got multiple times from emacs users. If I hadn't then why would I say so?
Faaak 10y ago
Looks nice, but having a 1.1MB webpage with 7 different fonts seems somewhat wrong to me... We should start thinking about mobile clients who have to pay these MB.
- omni 10y ago
  If there's one product whose website can probably get away with not caring about mobile, it's a power-user text editor from the 1970s.
  - yangyang 10y ago
    I run Emacs under termux on my Nexus 6P. Works great with exactly the same config I use on the desktop.
    - hueving 10y ago
      What keyboard do you use? Key combos are soooo slow on a touchscreen keyboard.
      - josteink 10y ago
        I have a Logitech k480 for my TV and Nexus 9. Works nicely with termux, Emacs and similar software.
      - yangyang 10y ago
        An old HP Touchpad Bluetooth keyboard. It works fine though not having a meta key on the left is a bit of a pain.
  - epidemian 10y ago
    But the site has a responsive layout clearly designed to look nice on mobile screens (with hamburger menu and everything :), so, at least on some level, they are caring about mobile. BTW, the website looks really nice. Kudos!
    - 10y ago
benkuykendall 10y ago
Looks good in eww! http://i.imgur.com/5mLJdXb.jpg http://i.imgur.com/5mLJdXb.jpg
mrmondo 10y ago
Very slow to load on a mobile device, looking at the page size it seems quite heavy, especially for a site aimed at promoting or representing a text editor (and a lot more I know, I know).
madspindel 10y ago
What is the keyboard shortcut to exit the website?
- lfx 10y ago
  Ctrl + F4.
  - _asummers 10y ago
    Which, of course, is simply an alias for M-x close-current-tab.
hero123 10y ago
Do you really need a professional hacker on your school result to make a better grade for you and make you happy more , maybe a trial may convince you about davidtimmyhackprof@gmail.com cos he has really be a bomb in my life for this and helped me out so i have promise to promote and advertise his sense of humor about this and will surely help you out f this in all ways and make you great about having a better school grade result, all forms of hacking an account or you could also message him on # (415) 323-3542 or you can add him on his facebook I.D 'David Timothy'....Try him and thank me later.
Semiapies 10y ago
I'll help you through this, as that simple observation seems to be quite a challenge for you. 1) I'm an Emacs user and enthusiast. 2) I look into a lot of videos about Emacs. 3) I've noticed that, recently, many of these videos and screenshots are by people using OS X. 4) Someone wondered about an OS X video on the Emacs site. 5) I pointed out #3. People like you are why FSF supporters have their reputation.
- cbd1984 10y ago
  Flagged for insults.
- dang 10y ago
  > that simple observation seems to be quite a challenge for you. > people like you This comment breaks the HN guidelines by being personally abusive. Please comment civilly and substantively, or not at all. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11656193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11656193 and marked it off-topic.
justinsingh 10y ago
Just an anecdote about the older site. I was in a comp sci class at school a year ago. My classmate next to me asked what editor I use because it was a Beginning C++ class, and I said emacs. He went to the website which looked incredibly outdated to the expectations of new programmers, and just felt uncomfortable giving it a try. He opted for an editor with a more modern website. So with the new website, which looks good, maybe emacs will seem more accessible and worth giving a try to new programmers who cross paths with it. At the same time, maybe that sense of accessibility is misleading given the learning curve of emacs that isn't exactly beginner-friendly. Nonetheless, I like the site!
- flatline 10y ago
  Hey, it's not called the Editor for Middle Aged Computer Scientists for no reason!
  - iamcreasy 10y ago
    What is the benefit for an existing CS student to switch to Emacs who is already comfortable with using IDEs like Visual Studio, Eclipse or IntellijIDEA?
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      If you're working with something else than C#, Java or the like (i.e. languages that benefit hugely from features offered by IDEs (or that require IDEs to write in them and stay sane - if you're not feeling charitable)), then yes - benefits of speed, flexibility and efficiency. That's without even bringing up the topic of org-mode... :).
      - iamcreasy 10y ago
        Can you give me some example of efficiency? I've always thought IDEs are more efficient, i.e. intellij IDEA indexes everything and provides superior auto-completion.
nanory 10y ago
I think Vims website could do with a facelift too: http://www.vim.org/ http://www.vim.org/
- pwelch 10y ago
  Thats the first thing I think every time I go there.
- terda12 10y ago
  Not just the website but the icon as well.
- alain_gilbert 10y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5458874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5458874 The vim website needs an update !
milkey_mouse 10y ago
Slick
_asummers 10y ago
As someone semi-new to using emacs, (I knew basic keybindings but never bothered to set up init files, etc.) coming from the IDE world, my biggest complaint was the amount of things I had to do to get vanilla emacs to behave in a civilized way, even using the GUI version. I spent hours scouring peoples emacs files on GitHub to try and find all the things that looked "obvious in retrospect" and settings that looked silly to have turned off by default (e.g. commands that act on regions should act on lines when no region is selected). Then my second biggest complaint was the analysis paralysis of all the plugins. I'm starting to get a stable emacs file, after a few months, but there's still several pieces of functionality I miss from my IDEs that I chunk out time every now and then to research and add. I think having a "if you're coming from IDEs you may want to install X Y Z" page would be helpful, as well as package download rankings so that people can find the popular projects (e.g. helm, use-package). It should also be prominently encouraged to use something like guru-mode where it disables the arrow keys to force you to use ctrl and meta as your movement keys. Also you can pry Magit from my cold, dead hands.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  I'd suggest Spacemacs offers a better set of defaults than vanilla Emacs. Spacemacs would be a better choice for many newbies IMO. http://spacemacs.org/ http://spacemacs.org/
  - _asummers 10y ago
    See it's a tough balance. To me, the fun of emacs is getting it exactly as you like and continually optimizing little things. By not having to do SOME painful stuff, you miss out on appreciating the minutia that goes into it. At the same time, many of emacs default settings are very strange so starting with some sanity would be better for newcomers. Maybe some sort of "these are common tweaks that people make right off the bat" page would be the way to go. That way people have to do it themselves (outside of using e.g. spacemacs or prelude) but they have a common place to go to find out about those things. Or at least link to some well known emacs files for developers that code in major languages (a C guy, a Java guy, ...) to give people a place to go to read some elisp and get a feel for what people to do to their editors.
ktamura 10y ago
Another piece of "marketing" collateral that can help popularize Emacs is a "tour of Emacs" video. Awhile back, I watched Russ Cox's "Tour of Acme" video and became an Acme convert as a result. In the end, an editor is a productivity tool, and the best way to evaluate it is seeing it in action as part of a workflow: video is an excellent format to capture and share this with newcomers.
- rpgmaker 10y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Personally, that's why I can't justify spending all that time trying to figure out a text editor when I could be, I don't know, working.
typon 10y ago
This is the most beautiful thing I've seen from the GNU world. Usually all their websites and materials look like 1980s internet.
- tetheno 10y ago
  Guile is another exception. http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/
highCs 10y ago
I'm in deep love with sublime. Can someone convince me that I should use emacs instead?
- zeckalpha 10y ago
  Better bus factor.
  - yadda_who 10y ago
    Ummm, I'm not sure you know what that means. Your choice of editor doesn't in any way affect your bus factor.
- yadda_who 10y ago
  Keep using sublime, if it works for you. I tried to do the soft sell of vim with tmux to my office, because watching them Alt-Tab between everything, losing or accidentally closing windows, missing little errors because they can't have the editor and terminal up at the same time... It was hard to watch, and made for ugly cluttered demos. However, watching people try to use vim without wanting to, or taking the time to learn it, just made everyone less efficient, and even more painful to watch. If you want to learn emacs, then do it. But do it because you want to, or have a need to.
- zbobet2012 10y ago
  The biggest reason is super simple. Emacs works in terminal mode (really well) and can be <insert pkg manager here> installed pretty much everywhere. If you are ever in a situation where you are working on a remote system over SSH (possibly with low bandwidth) you will appreciate it. Also your terminal is in emacs mode by default, so all your shortcuts work there as well. Finally if you are an OSX user all of your _text fields_ understand emacs shortcuts as well :).
- sspiff 10y ago
  Learn once, use for a lifetime. Sublime or any other small team project that is closed source have a tendency to get neglected past a certain point. Other than that, emacs has first class plugins for pretty much anything, is easy to extend, and your config and extensions are easy to back up or move to another machine, and can be expected to still work.
mback00 10y ago
VI !!! ^_^
curryhowardiso 10y ago
Omg now can someone please fix the apex domain? I don't want to live in a world where I can't like formal verification and modern website design
Twirrim 10y ago
It's interesting that they used jquery (MIT licensed) for the web page, and also interesting given RMS's dislike of the use of Javascript. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.en.html. MIT is GPL compatible, admittedly, so his main concerns about Javascript probably don't really apply here.
- rekado 10y ago
  There is no problem with using free software like jquery. Free software does not mean and has never meant "GPL only".
doener 10y ago
So this is obviously an attempt to let Emacs look like a software that is not mainly developed by a guy, which eats things from his foot.^^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ
- dang 10y ago
  Personal attacks are not welcome on HN, and the internet thing of beating on Stallman like this is distinctively unsavory. Please don't do it here. (Obviously this has nothing to do with agreeing/disagreeing with his views.)
ultim8k 10y ago
Cool! Congrats guys!
tt44 10y ago
Sorry, all of this bullshit doesn't matter in the least
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't post uncivil, unsubstantive comments here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11656415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11656415 and marked it off-topic.
eulji 10y ago
Anyone have an opinion about emacs on Windows ? I am forced to work on Windows and have no idea about the setup here.
- groovy2shoes 10y ago
  It's really easy. You download a zip file and extract it somewhere. Then you launch "runemacs.exe".
- Grue3 10y ago
  I use it as my primary editor. Works pretty much out of the box, unless you need image support, in which case you have to download dozens of different dlls for each image type.
necessity 10y ago
"The best editor is not Emacs nor Vi, it's Vi + Emacs" I've discovered [evil](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil) a few days ago and I'm in love.
- topkekz 10y ago
  There is also Spacemacs which is emacs + Evil with some sweets. http://spacemacs.org/ http://spacemacs.org/
kozikow 10y ago
There is lots of IDE vs emacs discussion in this subject. I have been using primarily (IntelliJ+IdeaVim) and sometimes (Emacs+evil) for the last few years. If I want to write big, complex change in a codebase in Java/Scala/Python/Javascript I would use IntelliJ. Yet IntelliJ doesn't work well in many corner cases, like very big codebases, projects in C/C++ or languages not officially supported by Jetbrains, cross language projects (even with IJ Ultimate), remote editing or just quickly opening some github repo without spending time on any project setup. And extra emacs packages like magit and org-mode are irreplaceable. Given the emacs flexibility I was able to configure Emacs to implement majority of IntelliJ keybindings. There usually is an equivalent emacs function of package for IntelliJ behavior, e.g. M-x and IntelliJ "Find Action". Emacs helm works a lot like fuzzy matching in IntelliJ. Sometimes I only implement the "similar" behaviour, e.g. "Show usages" vs "Grep for text at point in current project" in IJ. I will be writing a blog post about it at kozikow.wordpress.com, but if you are interested now now I can send you my .emacs.d. In this setup I can just setup "fast, always works and easy to set up, but not too powerful" code navigation using ctags/ggtags, grep/ag and projectile in emacs and avoid packages like EDT, eclim-emacs or Jedi that are more powerful, but sometimes require custom per repository setup, or are slow. I usually have both emacs and IJ opened and switch between the two. I have a keybinding in both editors for "open current file in the other editor" (emacsclient + external tool in IJ). So in the spirit of motto of Spacemacs - "The best editor is neither Emacs nor Vim nor IntelliJ, it's Emacs and Vim and IntelliJ!"
- unhammer 10y ago
  I haven't had to java in a long time, but for C++ I find ymcd (based off vim's YouCompleteMe) well worth a little effort to set up. Get the daemon at https://github.com/Valloric/ycmd https://github.com/Valloric/ycmd and emacs package at https://github.com/abingham/emacs-ycmd https://github.com/abingham/emacs-ycmd It gives "intelligent" completion and code navigation, just like you'd expect from IDE's. For the per-project setup, I typically just copy-paste the config file from another project and perhaps tweak some include paths in it. Apparantly ycmd can do C#, Rust, Go, JS etc. as well now. I like this way of putting such "IDE features" (meaning the programming language-specific features) into editor-agnostic deamons; that way good completion/navigation is available to all editors. The same idea is behind eclim (as you mentioned) for Java and merlin for OCaml.
bitfox 10y ago
A lot of text editors have a 1% of emacs power but a great web site and a great interface. This help them to shine in the IDE/Editors jungle. So, this new interface, will help emacs (from a "marketing" point of view). Personally, I think that Emacs is one of the best editors. Not so simple to use (you may think if you are going to start without a tutorial), but, definely... very strong and personalizable. I prefer to not compare with IDEs. The advantages of IDEs is that they have a particular UI and a set of tools focused for a particular language/development tool. This will allow you to have an initial set of features. Ready to use. Without spending your time to work on personalization. You may think to IDEs as editors with a restricted set of features (compared with emacs).
soyuka 10y ago
shit now we need a better one for vim
apatters 10y ago
Does anyone know of a fun and engaging way to learn emacs, like VIM Adventures? I sit and stare at a list of emacs hotkeys any time I want to give it a shot and my eyes glaze over.
- rashkov 10y ago
  I'm not sure it's worth learning the emacs key bindings for text editing if you already know vim. Just turn on evil mode and use that. I could be totally wrong here but I haven't seen any real defenders of emacs key bindings. seems to me that people are used to them and they do the trick, but vim is considered more powerful for pure text editing. Using emacs is still great for a host of other reasons though.
  - rashkov 10y ago
    I did just come across this though: C-h t That'll bring up a tutorial file that's like vimtutor. Not quite vim-adventures but it's pretty helpful
howardabrams 10y ago
While the web site is nice, and the links to Emacs Rocks are great, perhaps it should also include a more comprehensive video introduction to Emacs, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6jfrrwR10k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6jfrrwR10k

547 points by rvern 10y ago

The site seems to be having some trouble, so from the Wayback machine: The previous site https://web.archive.org/web/20150522051725/http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150522051725/http://www.gnu.or... The new site on the 20th of April https://web.archive.org/web/20160420170002/http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160420170002/http://www.gnu.or...

theunamedguy 10y ago
https:// https:// site is down, http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ is live.
- tlb 10y ago
  URL changed to http: version, thanks.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    Heh, and now the http is down. I think HN might be the cause. :)
    - theunamedguy 10y ago
      Works for me, but it's slow
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

satysin 10y ago

Surprised to see the demo videos were captured on OS X and not GNU/Linux.

hellofunk 10y ago
Not too surprising, OSX is a common platform for devs who are linux/unix-oriented but want a high-level OS with all the sleek GUIs and mainstream features. OSX is a certified Unix OS, after all, so it tends to speak to emacs users in a way that you won't typically find among the Windows base. Yes Unix is not Linux, but I see OSX widely used at hackathons and conferences because of its underpinnings.
- lqdc13 10y ago
  One of the points of FSF is to never use closed software. OSX is not GPL.
  - chris_wot 10y ago
    Makes me wonder why they have compatibility shims to allow their website show in browers like IE6... Yes, it's pedantic, but this GNU we are speaking about.
    - lqdc13 10y ago
      That would actually make sense. It might help more people see the light.
      - oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
        Really? You think if I recommend emacs to someone using IE6 and they go view the site and it fails to display, that will somehow make them 'see the light'? I suspect the complete opposite is true and, hence, why gnu support browsers that aren't 100% GPLed.
        chris_wot 10y ago
        Nobody is saying that it is practical, but GNU aren't known to make their stance on practicalities alone. GNU are known for their ideological purity, and a lot of people (some even quite grudgingly) admire them for their consistent stance.

joshumax 10y ago

Hmmmm, the website seems to be taking _forever_ to load resists urge to make emacs joke about this

chris_wot 10y ago
You think Apache is running mod_emacs perhaps?
- chris_wot 10y ago
  Hmmm... the instant I wrote that I realised there's no way that would ever be likely. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's an Emacs powered Apache instance. Duh. Don't know how I could have missed that.
  - elektronaut 10y ago
    I'm sure you could run elisp scripts with mod_cgi. But who needs Apache? Just M-x package-install elnode, and you've got yourself a web server.
    - chris_wot 10y ago
      I guess they could be forging the Server header...
- mrmondo 10y ago
  Very good ;)
- unhammer 10y ago
  https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Elnode https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Elnode more like :)

sotojuan 10y ago

Seems like GNU is going through a brand/design update. First Guile[1] then this! [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/

xvilka 10y ago
They also have a good project [1] of migrating Emacs codebase and plugins support on Guile - partly by adding Elisp support in Guile, partly by rewriting Emacs itself. [1] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GuileEmacs
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  I followed this a bit during the GSOCs. Seems to have stalled unfortunately?
  - xvilka 10y ago
    It's unclear for now. But from outside it looks like stalled, yes.
    - Ericson2314 10y ago
      Bummer.

bitwize 10y ago

It looks real snazzy and nice. But I always liked that the GNU project did not try to look like the latest fad out of SV. Their low-fi HTML4 approach meant they could be browsed in anything and still be perfectly readable.

masolino 10y ago
The new site is responsive
oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
The markup is very clean, and the page still works fine with css disabled.

jimjimjim 10y ago

I switched back to emacs last month after 10 years in ides, vim and sublime and my hands still remember the key combinations. It's nice, like going back to an old favorite pair of shoes. Also good to see the changes like the elpa/melpa stuff.

rpgmaker 10y ago
What made you leave the IDE world?

benbristow 10y ago

Since when did FOSS have good design? Joking aside, looks really nice!

rvern 10y ago
Guile[1], Octave[2], Guix[3] and GRUB[4] have nice designs too. [1]: https://gnu.org/software/guile/ https://gnu.org/software/guile/ [2]: https://gnu.org/software/octave/ https://gnu.org/software/octave/ [3]: https://gnu.org/software/guix/ https://gnu.org/software/guix/ [4]: https://gnu.org/software/grub/ https://gnu.org/software/grub/
- jordigh 10y ago
  Aw, Octave? /me blushes
  - rvern 10y ago
    Yes. The website is clean and readable, makes everything important (except the manual) easy to find, doesn't require JavaScript and has acceptable markup.

xvilka 10y ago

It would be nice, if they will merge patches [1] for truecolor (16M colors) support in their console incarnation of emacs. Both Vim [2] and Neovim [3] already did this. Since most terminal emulators now support this mode [4], that will improve syntax highlighting and theme customizing to a new level. [1] http://emacs.1067599.n5.nabble.com/RFC-Add-tty-True-Color-support-td299962.html http://emacs.1067599.n5.nabble.com/RFC-Add-tty-True-Color-su... [2] https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/8a633e3427b47286869aa4b96f2bfc1fe65b25cd https://github.com/vim/vim/commit/8a633e3427b47286869aa4b96f... [3] https://github.com/neovim/neovim/commit/8dd415e887923f99ab5daaeba9f0303e173dd1aa https://github.com/neovim/neovim/commit/8dd415e887923f99ab5d... [4] https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728 https://gist.github.com/XVilka/8346728

jbmorgado 10y ago
+1 for this. It's basically impossible to get emacs colors to work correctly in the terminal.
- cisstrd 10y ago
  And as soon as you complain you are confronted with "emacs is supposed to be run with the graphical interface, just install it with the gui and don't use -nw (no window) option"... yeah, right... no thanks.
  - hvis 10y ago
    Nobody says that. But don't complain, better submit a patch. Or help ironing out the one linked above, it's unfinished.
    - cisstrd 10y ago
      I am not saying it's an official stance or such, not saying you are someone who would say that, but don't tell me "nobody says that" when that was what I got multiple times from emacs users. If I hadn't then why would I say so?

Faaak 10y ago

Looks nice, but having a 1.1MB webpage with 7 different fonts seems somewhat wrong to me... We should start thinking about mobile clients who have to pay these MB.

omni 10y ago
If there's one product whose website can probably get away with not caring about mobile, it's a power-user text editor from the 1970s.
- yangyang 10y ago
  I run Emacs under termux on my Nexus 6P. Works great with exactly the same config I use on the desktop.
  - hueving 10y ago
    What keyboard do you use? Key combos are soooo slow on a touchscreen keyboard.
    - josteink 10y ago
      I have a Logitech k480 for my TV and Nexus 9. Works nicely with termux, Emacs and similar software.
    - yangyang 10y ago
      An old HP Touchpad Bluetooth keyboard. It works fine though not having a meta key on the left is a bit of a pain.
- epidemian 10y ago
  But the site has a responsive layout clearly designed to look nice on mobile screens (with hamburger menu and everything :), so, at least on some level, they are caring about mobile. BTW, the website looks really nice. Kudos!
  - 10y ago

benkuykendall 10y ago

Looks good in eww! http://i.imgur.com/5mLJdXb.jpg http://i.imgur.com/5mLJdXb.jpg

mrmondo 10y ago

Very slow to load on a mobile device, looking at the page size it seems quite heavy, especially for a site aimed at promoting or representing a text editor (and a lot more I know, I know).

madspindel 10y ago

What is the keyboard shortcut to exit the website?

lfx 10y ago
Ctrl + F4.
- _asummers 10y ago
  Which, of course, is simply an alias for M-x close-current-tab.

hero123 10y ago

Do you really need a professional hacker on your school result to make a better grade for you and make you happy more , maybe a trial may convince you about davidtimmyhackprof@gmail.com cos he has really be a bomb in my life for this and helped me out so i have promise to promote and advertise his sense of humor about this and will surely help you out f this in all ways and make you great about having a better school grade result, all forms of hacking an account or you could also message him on # (415) 323-3542 or you can add him on his facebook I.D 'David Timothy'....Try him and thank me later.

Semiapies 10y ago

I'll help you through this, as that simple observation seems to be quite a challenge for you. 1) I'm an Emacs user and enthusiast. 2) I look into a lot of videos about Emacs. 3) I've noticed that, recently, many of these videos and screenshots are by people using OS X. 4) Someone wondered about an OS X video on the Emacs site. 5) I pointed out #3. People like you are why FSF supporters have their reputation.

cbd1984 10y ago
Flagged for insults.
dang 10y ago
> that simple observation seems to be quite a challenge for you. > people like you This comment breaks the HN guidelines by being personally abusive. Please comment civilly and substantively, or not at all. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11656193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11656193 and marked it off-topic.

justinsingh 10y ago

Just an anecdote about the older site. I was in a comp sci class at school a year ago. My classmate next to me asked what editor I use because it was a Beginning C++ class, and I said emacs. He went to the website which looked incredibly outdated to the expectations of new programmers, and just felt uncomfortable giving it a try. He opted for an editor with a more modern website. So with the new website, which looks good, maybe emacs will seem more accessible and worth giving a try to new programmers who cross paths with it. At the same time, maybe that sense of accessibility is misleading given the learning curve of emacs that isn't exactly beginner-friendly. Nonetheless, I like the site!

flatline 10y ago
Hey, it's not called the Editor for Middle Aged Computer Scientists for no reason!
- iamcreasy 10y ago
  What is the benefit for an existing CS student to switch to Emacs who is already comfortable with using IDEs like Visual Studio, Eclipse or IntellijIDEA?
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    If you're working with something else than C#, Java or the like (i.e. languages that benefit hugely from features offered by IDEs (or that require IDEs to write in them and stay sane - if you're not feeling charitable)), then yes - benefits of speed, flexibility and efficiency. That's without even bringing up the topic of org-mode... :).
    - iamcreasy 10y ago
      Can you give me some example of efficiency? I've always thought IDEs are more efficient, i.e. intellij IDEA indexes everything and provides superior auto-completion.

nanory 10y ago

I think Vims website could do with a facelift too: http://www.vim.org/ http://www.vim.org/

pwelch 10y ago
Thats the first thing I think every time I go there.
terda12 10y ago
Not just the website but the icon as well.
alain_gilbert 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5458874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5458874 The vim website needs an update !

milkey_mouse 10y ago

Slick

_asummers 10y ago

As someone semi-new to using emacs, (I knew basic keybindings but never bothered to set up init files, etc.) coming from the IDE world, my biggest complaint was the amount of things I had to do to get vanilla emacs to behave in a civilized way, even using the GUI version. I spent hours scouring peoples emacs files on GitHub to try and find all the things that looked "obvious in retrospect" and settings that looked silly to have turned off by default (e.g. commands that act on regions should act on lines when no region is selected). Then my second biggest complaint was the analysis paralysis of all the plugins. I'm starting to get a stable emacs file, after a few months, but there's still several pieces of functionality I miss from my IDEs that I chunk out time every now and then to research and add. I think having a "if you're coming from IDEs you may want to install X Y Z" page would be helpful, as well as package download rankings so that people can find the popular projects (e.g. helm, use-package). It should also be prominently encouraged to use something like guru-mode where it disables the arrow keys to force you to use ctrl and meta as your movement keys. Also you can pry Magit from my cold, dead hands.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
I'd suggest Spacemacs offers a better set of defaults than vanilla Emacs. Spacemacs would be a better choice for many newbies IMO. http://spacemacs.org/ http://spacemacs.org/
- _asummers 10y ago
  See it's a tough balance. To me, the fun of emacs is getting it exactly as you like and continually optimizing little things. By not having to do SOME painful stuff, you miss out on appreciating the minutia that goes into it. At the same time, many of emacs default settings are very strange so starting with some sanity would be better for newcomers. Maybe some sort of "these are common tweaks that people make right off the bat" page would be the way to go. That way people have to do it themselves (outside of using e.g. spacemacs or prelude) but they have a common place to go to find out about those things. Or at least link to some well known emacs files for developers that code in major languages (a C guy, a Java guy, ...) to give people a place to go to read some elisp and get a feel for what people to do to their editors.

ktamura 10y ago

Another piece of "marketing" collateral that can help popularize Emacs is a "tour of Emacs" video. Awhile back, I watched Russ Cox's "Tour of Acme" video and became an Acme convert as a result. In the end, an editor is a productivity tool, and the best way to evaluate it is seeing it in action as part of a workflow: video is an excellent format to capture and share this with newcomers.

rpgmaker 10y ago
My thoughts exactly. Personally, that's why I can't justify spending all that time trying to figure out a text editor when I could be, I don't know, working.

typon 10y ago

This is the most beautiful thing I've seen from the GNU world. Usually all their websites and materials look like 1980s internet.

tetheno 10y ago
Guile is another exception. http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/ http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/

highCs 10y ago

I'm in deep love with sublime. Can someone convince me that I should use emacs instead?

zeckalpha 10y ago
Better bus factor.
- yadda_who 10y ago
  Ummm, I'm not sure you know what that means. Your choice of editor doesn't in any way affect your bus factor.
yadda_who 10y ago
Keep using sublime, if it works for you. I tried to do the soft sell of vim with tmux to my office, because watching them Alt-Tab between everything, losing or accidentally closing windows, missing little errors because they can't have the editor and terminal up at the same time... It was hard to watch, and made for ugly cluttered demos. However, watching people try to use vim without wanting to, or taking the time to learn it, just made everyone less efficient, and even more painful to watch. If you want to learn emacs, then do it. But do it because you want to, or have a need to.
zbobet2012 10y ago
The biggest reason is super simple. Emacs works in terminal mode (really well) and can be <insert pkg manager here> installed pretty much everywhere. If you are ever in a situation where you are working on a remote system over SSH (possibly with low bandwidth) you will appreciate it. Also your terminal is in emacs mode by default, so all your shortcuts work there as well. Finally if you are an OSX user all of your _text fields_ understand emacs shortcuts as well :).
sspiff 10y ago
Learn once, use for a lifetime. Sublime or any other small team project that is closed source have a tendency to get neglected past a certain point. Other than that, emacs has first class plugins for pretty much anything, is easy to extend, and your config and extensions are easy to back up or move to another machine, and can be expected to still work.

mback00 10y ago

VI !!! ^_^

curryhowardiso 10y ago

Omg now can someone please fix the apex domain? I don't want to live in a world where I can't like formal verification and modern website design

Twirrim 10y ago

It's interesting that they used jquery (MIT licensed) for the web page, and also interesting given RMS's dislike of the use of Javascript. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.en.html. MIT is GPL compatible, admittedly, so his main concerns about Javascript probably don't really apply here.

rekado 10y ago
There is no problem with using free software like jquery. Free software does not mean and has never meant "GPL only".

doener 10y ago

So this is obviously an attempt to let Emacs look like a software that is not mainly developed by a guy, which eats things from his foot.^^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ

dang 10y ago
Personal attacks are not welcome on HN, and the internet thing of beating on Stallman like this is distinctively unsavory. Please don't do it here. (Obviously this has nothing to do with agreeing/disagreeing with his views.)

ultim8k 10y ago

Cool! Congrats guys!

tt44 10y ago

Sorry, all of this bullshit doesn't matter in the least

dang 10y ago
Please don't post uncivil, unsubstantive comments here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11656415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11656415 and marked it off-topic.

eulji 10y ago

Anyone have an opinion about emacs on Windows ? I am forced to work on Windows and have no idea about the setup here.

groovy2shoes 10y ago
It's really easy. You download a zip file and extract it somewhere. Then you launch "runemacs.exe".
Grue3 10y ago
I use it as my primary editor. Works pretty much out of the box, unless you need image support, in which case you have to download dozens of different dlls for each image type.

necessity 10y ago

"The best editor is not Emacs nor Vi, it's Vi + Emacs" I've discovered [evil](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil) a few days ago and I'm in love.

topkekz 10y ago
There is also Spacemacs which is emacs + Evil with some sweets. http://spacemacs.org/ http://spacemacs.org/

kozikow 10y ago

There is lots of IDE vs emacs discussion in this subject. I have been using primarily (IntelliJ+IdeaVim) and sometimes (Emacs+evil) for the last few years. If I want to write big, complex change in a codebase in Java/Scala/Python/Javascript I would use IntelliJ. Yet IntelliJ doesn't work well in many corner cases, like very big codebases, projects in C/C++ or languages not officially supported by Jetbrains, cross language projects (even with IJ Ultimate), remote editing or just quickly opening some github repo without spending time on any project setup. And extra emacs packages like magit and org-mode are irreplaceable. Given the emacs flexibility I was able to configure Emacs to implement majority of IntelliJ keybindings. There usually is an equivalent emacs function of package for IntelliJ behavior, e.g. M-x and IntelliJ "Find Action". Emacs helm works a lot like fuzzy matching in IntelliJ. Sometimes I only implement the "similar" behaviour, e.g. "Show usages" vs "Grep for text at point in current project" in IJ. I will be writing a blog post about it at kozikow.wordpress.com, but if you are interested now now I can send you my .emacs.d. In this setup I can just setup "fast, always works and easy to set up, but not too powerful" code navigation using ctags/ggtags, grep/ag and projectile in emacs and avoid packages like EDT, eclim-emacs or Jedi that are more powerful, but sometimes require custom per repository setup, or are slow. I usually have both emacs and IJ opened and switch between the two. I have a keybinding in both editors for "open current file in the other editor" (emacsclient + external tool in IJ). So in the spirit of motto of Spacemacs - "The best editor is neither Emacs nor Vim nor IntelliJ, it's Emacs and Vim and IntelliJ!"

unhammer 10y ago
I haven't had to java in a long time, but for C++ I find ymcd (based off vim's YouCompleteMe) well worth a little effort to set up. Get the daemon at https://github.com/Valloric/ycmd https://github.com/Valloric/ycmd and emacs package at https://github.com/abingham/emacs-ycmd https://github.com/abingham/emacs-ycmd It gives "intelligent" completion and code navigation, just like you'd expect from IDE's. For the per-project setup, I typically just copy-paste the config file from another project and perhaps tweak some include paths in it. Apparantly ycmd can do C#, Rust, Go, JS etc. as well now. I like this way of putting such "IDE features" (meaning the programming language-specific features) into editor-agnostic deamons; that way good completion/navigation is available to all editors. The same idea is behind eclim (as you mentioned) for Java and merlin for OCaml.

bitfox 10y ago

A lot of text editors have a 1% of emacs power but a great web site and a great interface. This help them to shine in the IDE/Editors jungle. So, this new interface, will help emacs (from a "marketing" point of view). Personally, I think that Emacs is one of the best editors. Not so simple to use (you may think if you are going to start without a tutorial), but, definely... very strong and personalizable. I prefer to not compare with IDEs. The advantages of IDEs is that they have a particular UI and a set of tools focused for a particular language/development tool. This will allow you to have an initial set of features. Ready to use. Without spending your time to work on personalization. You may think to IDEs as editors with a restricted set of features (compared with emacs).

soyuka 10y ago

shit now we need a better one for vim

apatters 10y ago

Does anyone know of a fun and engaging way to learn emacs, like VIM Adventures? I sit and stare at a list of emacs hotkeys any time I want to give it a shot and my eyes glaze over.

rashkov 10y ago
I'm not sure it's worth learning the emacs key bindings for text editing if you already know vim. Just turn on evil mode and use that. I could be totally wrong here but I haven't seen any real defenders of emacs key bindings. seems to me that people are used to them and they do the trick, but vim is considered more powerful for pure text editing. Using emacs is still great for a host of other reasons though.
- rashkov 10y ago
  I did just come across this though: C-h t That'll bring up a tutorial file that's like vimtutor. Not quite vim-adventures but it's pretty helpful

howardabrams 10y ago

While the web site is nice, and the links to Emacs Rocks are great, perhaps it should also include a more comprehensive video introduction to Emacs, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6jfrrwR10k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6jfrrwR10k