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It depends on what you're trying to use it for. If you just use Emacs for coding, you're not going to gain anything from running it in a GUI. However, if you al
by stebalien 1y ago
It depends on what you're trying to use it for. If you just use Emacs for coding, you're not going to gain anything from running it in a GUI. However, if you also use it to read documentation, take notes, etc.; being able to display images, different fonts, different sized fonts, etc. is pretty nice.
- hollerith 1y ago>If you just use Emacs for coding, you're not going to gain anything from running it in a GUI. That's true only if you think pointing devices are useless for editing and navigating code. ADDED: I withdraw this comment.
- robenkleene 1y agoJust a heads up, in 2025 the mouse and trackpad work incredibly well with TUI applications. There are days I think the mouse works even better than with GUI applications because it tends to be easier to select any text on the screen than with a GUI. To be clear, I love both (TUI & GUI), but when I started integrating the mouse more into my terminal workflow, I was shocked at how well it worked.
- hollerith 1y agoCan you move point to a position by clicking that position with a pointing device? Also, when you've selected some text with the pointing device, does Emacs sense the selection? I.e., does (list (region-beginning) (region-end)) return the start and end of the selection?
- robenkleene 1y agoYes and yes, I don't think there are any mouse issues I've had working with Emacs in the terminal (whereas there are tons of bindings issues).
- hollerith 1y agoI had no idea! Wow.
- iforgotpassword 1y agoWhat terminal are you using that doesn't support a mouse? Or is it emacs that doesn't have mouse support?
- hollerith 1y agoBefore writing my comment, I started Emacs as `emacs -nw` in Gnome Terminal and failed to find a way to move point with my mouse. If there is any additional configuration I need to do to Emacs or a different terminal-emulating app I need to install, I'd be glad to learn about it. I didn't mean to suggest that pointing devices are completely useless in a terminal, but it has always been my experience that what the device can do is severely limited compared to graphical Emacs.
- robenkleene 1y agoLooking at my config quickly, I think you probably need this: (xterm-mouse-mode 1)
- pama 1y agoOr simply upgrade to the top of tree version of Emacs that now has native mouse support in the terminal.