6 ms·

I was planning on taking on porting Emacs to the iPad, given that it's a fantastically fast, light and low-power modern portable computer. But reading this gave

by jwr 8y ago

I was planning on taking on porting Emacs to the iPad, given that it's a fantastically fast, light and low-power modern portable computer. But reading this gave me pause, I'm not sure I can dedicate as much time to this as it seems will be necessary...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kickingvegas 8y ago
If you’re willing to give up local editing, Blink.sh/mosh + tmux + emacs/emacsclient on a remote host has done the job for me.
- jwr 8y ago
  No, Blink does not work for Emacs. This is a common misunderstanding: a serious Emacs setup will use multiple modifiers (in my case, I need at least Shift, Control, Meta/Alt and Super, preferably also Hyper). My Mac's command key is mapped to Super in my native Emacs. My Emacs as an IDE is basically unusable without the Super modifier. As there is no way to get the additional modifiers through Blink, this is a non-starter. Additionally, the terminal is a bit too slow, and there are a number of other issues (for example, remapping CapsLock to Control kind of works, but there is a small delay, so you get missed keystrokes sometimes). So, while I use and love Blink, it does not help with Emacs at all.
  - sedachv 8y ago
    > Meta/Alt Meta and Alt are two separate modifiers, so if you get a JIS Japanese layout keyboard (QWERTY with extra modifiers), you can have Alt as a separate modifier, at least in X11, which has enough mod bits (mod1 through mod5) to cover everything. Handy for quick input of APL, Greek, etc. Unicode characters.
- vanzorn 8y ago
  How well does it handle chords? I had a heck of a time covering a lot of my common key combos using a bluetooth keyboard on an iPad pro. Would love to know if anyone has a good terminal solution for emacs, (ideally kickingvegas' blink.sh/mosh + tmux) ... I returned to XWindows via WSL (Ubuntu 18.04) + VcXsrv for emacs daily use.
  - kickingvegas 8y ago
    Blink.sh has support for swapping caps and control, which goes a long way for the chords I use in emacs. Not all the meta keys are supported if you’re looking for that, but esc is handled fine.
- tosh 8y ago
  I have a similar setup at the moment (without tmux). One thing I noticed w/ mosh was that copy pasting an input from advent of code (a few hundred lines iirc) caused mosh (?) to hang and I had to restart blink. When I tried copy pasting via ssh instead of mosh it worked. Any idea why this might be (I’d be curious if that was to be expected re how mosh works or whether it might be fixable) and alternatively how I can work around it (instead of fetching the content from a web page via the remote server?).
  - kickingvegas 8y ago
    Possible workaround: create a new Blink shell and paste clipboard via cat > file. Then scp file to the remote host and import into emacs, if scp works. Another approach is to use iCloud sync to move the file over if the remote has it. Note that pasting via cat > file will not echo your clipboard. Don’t worry, it’s there.
    - tosh 8y ago
      ty!
eigenspace 8y ago
just use ish[1]. emacs mostly works on it now totally local to the iPad! If there are still things not working I'm sure a couple PRs would be a lot less work than your original plan. [1] https://github.com/tbodt/ish https://github.com/tbodt/ish
leoc 8y ago
> I was planning on taking on porting Emacs to the iPad I thought that was impossible anyway, given Apple's prohibitions on both GPL code and software runtimes in iOS apps? However I suppose Emacs could be sideloaded onto jailbroken iPads.
- jwr 8y ago
  What exactly is impossible? I can run any software I want on my iPad. No need to jailbreak. Just get Xcode and enjoy the freedom. Who said I need to upload it to the App Store? (as a side note, these prohibitions seem to have been relaxed in recent years)
xte 8y ago
I tried Emacs via various hacks on Android... Mostly to have org-mode there... With a touch only UI it's not usable. With a physical keyboard I see ZERO reason to choose such crappy OS instead of a small ultrabook...
- Wildgoose 8y ago
  Check out the Gemini PDA. It's an Android mobile phone with a full keyboard. I have (and can recommend) the first version, but there is a new version in the works right now, the "Cosmo Communicator": https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/
  - bitwize 8y ago
    Great to see that the dream of the Nokia Internet Tablet lives on.
  - xte 8y ago
    Thanks for the link, many try to promise such kind of "portable computer" but always fail so I do not think we will never arrive at such... Also I do not want Android or other crappy OSes, I want a damn real OS, that I can use and manage... Honestly even if I dream such kind of devices I know rational that I will not really need them: I work/live in fixed place, I do not want to be nomad (well, If being nomad means with a starship around the universe maybe but not in the way I can have now), I do not want to "work from a beach" or on top of a mounting after a good climbing trip. I consider such model as modern slavery vested with a dummy shiny dress... I'm a person, not a Ford-model human robot that voluntary tie myself to a device controlled by it's vendor.
- bitwize 8y ago
  Emacs on Termux with Hacker's Keyboard is pretty usable. I've written (small amounts of) code with it; for Org note taking it will be fine, if not ideal.
  - xte 8y ago
quotemstr 8y ago
I've been meaning to port it to Android too. It's really not that bad. It's a great, easy-to-hack system for porting.

by jwr 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kickingvegas 8y ago

If you’re willing to give up local editing, Blink.sh/mosh + tmux + emacs/emacsclient on a remote host has done the job for me.

jwr 8y ago
No, Blink does not work for Emacs. This is a common misunderstanding: a serious Emacs setup will use multiple modifiers (in my case, I need at least Shift, Control, Meta/Alt and Super, preferably also Hyper). My Mac's command key is mapped to Super in my native Emacs. My Emacs as an IDE is basically unusable without the Super modifier. As there is no way to get the additional modifiers through Blink, this is a non-starter. Additionally, the terminal is a bit too slow, and there are a number of other issues (for example, remapping CapsLock to Control kind of works, but there is a small delay, so you get missed keystrokes sometimes). So, while I use and love Blink, it does not help with Emacs at all.
- sedachv 8y ago
  > Meta/Alt Meta and Alt are two separate modifiers, so if you get a JIS Japanese layout keyboard (QWERTY with extra modifiers), you can have Alt as a separate modifier, at least in X11, which has enough mod bits (mod1 through mod5) to cover everything. Handy for quick input of APL, Greek, etc. Unicode characters.
vanzorn 8y ago
How well does it handle chords? I had a heck of a time covering a lot of my common key combos using a bluetooth keyboard on an iPad pro. Would love to know if anyone has a good terminal solution for emacs, (ideally kickingvegas' blink.sh/mosh + tmux) ... I returned to XWindows via WSL (Ubuntu 18.04) + VcXsrv for emacs daily use.
- kickingvegas 8y ago
  Blink.sh has support for swapping caps and control, which goes a long way for the chords I use in emacs. Not all the meta keys are supported if you’re looking for that, but esc is handled fine.
tosh 8y ago
I have a similar setup at the moment (without tmux). One thing I noticed w/ mosh was that copy pasting an input from advent of code (a few hundred lines iirc) caused mosh (?) to hang and I had to restart blink. When I tried copy pasting via ssh instead of mosh it worked. Any idea why this might be (I’d be curious if that was to be expected re how mosh works or whether it might be fixable) and alternatively how I can work around it (instead of fetching the content from a web page via the remote server?).
- kickingvegas 8y ago
  Possible workaround: create a new Blink shell and paste clipboard via cat > file. Then scp file to the remote host and import into emacs, if scp works. Another approach is to use iCloud sync to move the file over if the remote has it. Note that pasting via cat > file will not echo your clipboard. Don’t worry, it’s there.
  - tosh 8y ago
    ty!

eigenspace 8y ago

just use ish[1]. emacs mostly works on it now totally local to the iPad! If there are still things not working I'm sure a couple PRs would be a lot less work than your original plan. [1] https://github.com/tbodt/ish https://github.com/tbodt/ish

leoc 8y ago

> I was planning on taking on porting Emacs to the iPad I thought that was impossible anyway, given Apple's prohibitions on both GPL code and software runtimes in iOS apps? However I suppose Emacs could be sideloaded onto jailbroken iPads.

jwr 8y ago
What exactly is impossible? I can run any software I want on my iPad. No need to jailbreak. Just get Xcode and enjoy the freedom. Who said I need to upload it to the App Store? (as a side note, these prohibitions seem to have been relaxed in recent years)

xte 8y ago

I tried Emacs via various hacks on Android... Mostly to have org-mode there... With a touch only UI it's not usable. With a physical keyboard I see ZERO reason to choose such crappy OS instead of a small ultrabook...

Wildgoose 8y ago
Check out the Gemini PDA. It's an Android mobile phone with a full keyboard. I have (and can recommend) the first version, but there is a new version in the works right now, the "Cosmo Communicator": https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/
- bitwize 8y ago
  Great to see that the dream of the Nokia Internet Tablet lives on.
- xte 8y ago
  Thanks for the link, many try to promise such kind of "portable computer" but always fail so I do not think we will never arrive at such... Also I do not want Android or other crappy OSes, I want a damn real OS, that I can use and manage... Honestly even if I dream such kind of devices I know rational that I will not really need them: I work/live in fixed place, I do not want to be nomad (well, If being nomad means with a starship around the universe maybe but not in the way I can have now), I do not want to "work from a beach" or on top of a mounting after a good climbing trip. I consider such model as modern slavery vested with a dummy shiny dress... I'm a person, not a Ford-model human robot that voluntary tie myself to a device controlled by it's vendor.
bitwize 8y ago
Emacs on Termux with Hacker's Keyboard is pretty usable. I've written (small amounts of) code with it; for Org note taking it will be fine, if not ideal.
- xte 8y ago

quotemstr 8y ago

I've been meaning to port it to Android too. It's really not that bad. It's a great, easy-to-hack system for porting.