4 ms·

I love vim but for some tasks (Clojure, Scala) it seems emacs is the better option, so I've recently tried to switch over to emacs + evil for these tasks. Howev

I love vim but for some tasks (Clojure, Scala) it seems emacs is the better option, so I've recently tried to switch over to emacs + evil for these tasks. However: While my MacVim (and terminal vim) looks quite beautiful these days, due to all these splendid plugins and color themes (powerline etc) that I installed, I have to say that emacs looks awful. I did search Github for nice Emacs configs that make it look more pleasant (just using Solarized doesn't cut it for me) but I couldn't find any. Does anyone have tips for nice emacs configurations that make it look a lot more beautiful? Edit: My current vim looks like this (opened random old files) http://appventure.me/vim.png http://appventure.me/vim.png

alexott 13y ago
What do you want to achieve? "Beautiful" is very different for different people :-) I'm using my own color scheme (example, https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3314/ottalex.5/0_23992_5fbf7afb_orig https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3314/ottalex.5/0_23992_5fbf7...). If you want, you can grab my configs from https://github.com/alexott/emacs-configs/ https://github.com/alexott/emacs-configs/ (mac os x-specific parts in rc/emacs-rc-local-flash.el)
- terhechte 13y ago
  My current vim looks like this, I rather like it dark etc http://appventure.me/vim.png http://appventure.me/vim.png
- justinhj 13y ago
  I quite like the cyberpunk color theme. Wondered if it was a bit gimmicky at first, but it has stuck. http://imgur.com/eRnb1uL http://imgur.com/eRnb1uL https://github.com/n3mo/cyberpunk-theme.el https://github.com/n3mo/cyberpunk-theme.el
gexla 13y ago
Did you try Emacs in the terminal? If Vim looks good in your terminal, then Emacs should be about the same.
nieve 13y ago
I don't know if this is what you're thinking of when you say beautiful, but I'm pretty happy with my current setup: http://i.imgur.com/m6cIbd0.png http://i.imgur.com/m6cIbd0.png It's basically a slightly tweaked version of color-theme-zenburn with rainbow-delimiters mode, (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t), and modeline tweaks from http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2011/08/customizing-mode-line.html http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2011/08/customizing-mode-line.h...
- bitserf 13y ago
  Which font are you using? I can't quite place it.
  - swah 13y ago
    Not him, but maybe its Ubuntu?
    - espadrine 13y ago
      Not Ubuntu. The middle vertical bar in the m would be shorter. I'm wondering what font this is, too.
    - nieve 13y ago
      (Her actually.) It's M+ 1mn Light (M+ fonts, Type 1, monospace). I think the whole family is attractive & readable and for programming on OS X I wanted something with a lighter font weight (it's got 5) to compensate for OS X's overly heavy rendering of light text on dark backgrounds. For Linux/BSD terms I tend to use either the medium weight or use monofur. Samples: http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/design/index-en.html#mono http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/design... Design: http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/index-en.html http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/index-... Bitmap font which I havent used: http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-bitmap-fonts/design/index.html http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-bitmap-fonts/design/...
      - bitserf 13y ago
manish_gill 13y ago
My GVim: http://i.imgur.com/5nH37zy.png http://i.imgur.com/5nH37zy.png My Emacs: http://i.imgur.com/SNTZL6i.png http://i.imgur.com/SNTZL6i.png At first, Emacs font rendering felt weird to me, but some tweaking made it look slick. I use the ir-black theme with the Monaco for powerline font. Here's my config: https://github.com/mgill25/dotfiles/blob/master/emacs https://github.com/mgill25/dotfiles/blob/master/emacs
- klibertp 13y ago
  I see NERDTree on your GVIM screenshot, yet no equivalent in Emacs. I don't know about you, but I missed NERDTree very much, so I looked at speedbar in Emacs. Unfortunately, out of the box it displays as another WM-level window (frame in Emacs parlance), but I managed to beat it into shape with: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SrSpeedbar http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SrSpeedbar Speedbar is good, because not only looks like NERDTree, it also displays summary of file contents (for programming: functions, classes, imports, etc.) if you want.
  - manish_gill 13y ago
    Thanks. I'll give it a try. I do miss NERDTree in Emacs, but so far, I've only been tinkering around with it, and still use vim for long sessions. :)
    - klibertp 13y ago
      I try to move on to Emacs as my full time editor/IDE, but so far I failed, and I've been trying for several weeks now. The problem is that I put years of tinkering into my VIM to make it almost exactly as I need it. This means that I won't switch until Emacs has at least very similar number of customizations, macros, plugins, etc. And making this from scratch takes time. The only positive in this is that I already know what I want, so hopefully it'll take shorter than for the first time :)
      - lord_quas 13y ago
        The reason to move to emacs is exactly because it has far more customizations available than vim does. Emacs' nerd tree equivalent is called undo tree, and its fantastic. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/UndoTree http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/UndoTree
tephra 13y ago
What is your current config? Looks like you want global-linum-mode to get line numbering. then to remove tool, menu and scroll bars do (tool-bar-mode -1) (menu-bar-mode -1) (scroll-bar-mode -1)
- claudius 13y ago
  I found global-linum-mode to be rather slow in large files, unfortunately. Are there better alternatives that show the number for each line? At the moment, I’m using column-number-mode to see the current line/column in the status bar, but I’m not too happy with it.
  - npsimons 13y ago
    I know it's probably a personal preference thing, but do you really need line numbers? I've never missed them. Even if I'm not jumping to a compile error (or grep result, etc) with M-g n, I can always go to a particular line with M-g g, or show what line the cursor is on with what-line. I've also got flymake next and previous warnings mapped to similar keys.
olgeni 13y ago
> I have to say that emacs looks awful I thought pretty much the same, until I recompiled it using Athena widgets, which brought it back to its intended glory.
- mietek 13y ago
  Can you share a screenshot?
tikhonj 13y ago
Emacs has its own version of powerline. You can turn off most of the annoying frills like the menu bar, the scroll bars, the toolbar and the fringe. You can also use a nice typeface (I'm very partial to Deja-vu Sans Mono) and a nice color scheme (I like blackboard). I think the final result looks rather good: http://jelv.is/emacs-blackboard.png http://jelv.is/emacs-blackboard.png and http://jelv.is/emacs-demo.png http://jelv.is/emacs-demo.png.
- terhechte 13y ago
  That looks nice, do you have the config for that available somewhere? Thanks!
  - tikhonj 13y ago
    My actual .emacs file has a ton of things unrelated to this, so here are the relevant bits: ;; Make the window simpler (tool-bar-mode -1) (scroll-bar-mode -1) (menu-bar-mode -1) (fringe-mode 0) Powerline and the color theme are installed separately. You can get powerline using the new package manager through M-x package-list-packages. You might have to configure some additional package sources first: (require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org /packages/")) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/")) (package-initialize) You can then run powerline using (require 'powerline) It might take a little more configuration to get the powerline colors matching to what you want. You can also customize the shape of the separator: it doesn't have to be an arrow. Unfortunately, the blackboard theme in the package manager is using the old color-theme package which has been made obsolete with Emacs 24. You should use the version ported to the new and improved theming mechanism[1]. [1]: https://github.com/don9z/blackboard-theme https://github.com/don9z/blackboard-theme Download that and put it in ~/.emacs.d/themes. Now you can set it up with: (setq custom-theme-directory "~/.emacs.d/themes/") (setq custom-safe-themes t) (load-theme 'blackboard) I hope that helps.
    - terhechte 13y ago
      Thanks, fantastic! Will try it out!
derengel 13y ago
Where can I find that vim color theme? Did you had to do anything special on a 256 color terminal to make it work?
- terhechte 13y ago
  The config is on my github.com/terhechte can't look it up right now I'm on a wedding, color scheme is jellybeans :)

alexott 13y ago

What do you want to achieve? "Beautiful" is very different for different people :-) I'm using my own color scheme (example, https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3314/ottalex.5/0_23992_5fbf7afb_orig https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3314/ottalex.5/0_23992_5fbf7...). If you want, you can grab my configs from https://github.com/alexott/emacs-configs/ https://github.com/alexott/emacs-configs/ (mac os x-specific parts in rc/emacs-rc-local-flash.el)

terhechte 13y ago
My current vim looks like this, I rather like it dark etc http://appventure.me/vim.png http://appventure.me/vim.png
justinhj 13y ago
I quite like the cyberpunk color theme. Wondered if it was a bit gimmicky at first, but it has stuck. http://imgur.com/eRnb1uL http://imgur.com/eRnb1uL https://github.com/n3mo/cyberpunk-theme.el https://github.com/n3mo/cyberpunk-theme.el

gexla 13y ago

Did you try Emacs in the terminal? If Vim looks good in your terminal, then Emacs should be about the same.

nieve 13y ago

I don't know if this is what you're thinking of when you say beautiful, but I'm pretty happy with my current setup: http://i.imgur.com/m6cIbd0.png http://i.imgur.com/m6cIbd0.png It's basically a slightly tweaked version of color-theme-zenburn with rainbow-delimiters mode, (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t), and modeline tweaks from http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2011/08/customizing-mode-line.html http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com/2011/08/customizing-mode-line.h...

bitserf 13y ago
Which font are you using? I can't quite place it.
- swah 13y ago
  Not him, but maybe its Ubuntu?
  - espadrine 13y ago
    Not Ubuntu. The middle vertical bar in the m would be shorter. I'm wondering what font this is, too.
  - nieve 13y ago
    (Her actually.) It's M+ 1mn Light (M+ fonts, Type 1, monospace). I think the whole family is attractive & readable and for programming on OS X I wanted something with a lighter font weight (it's got 5) to compensate for OS X's overly heavy rendering of light text on dark backgrounds. For Linux/BSD terms I tend to use either the medium weight or use monofur. Samples: http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/design/index-en.html#mono http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/design... Design: http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/index-en.html http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-outline-fonts/index-... Bitmap font which I havent used: http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-bitmap-fonts/design/index.html http://mplus-fonts.sourceforge.jp/mplus-bitmap-fonts/design/...
    - bitserf 13y ago

manish_gill 13y ago

My GVim: http://i.imgur.com/5nH37zy.png http://i.imgur.com/5nH37zy.png My Emacs: http://i.imgur.com/SNTZL6i.png http://i.imgur.com/SNTZL6i.png At first, Emacs font rendering felt weird to me, but some tweaking made it look slick. I use the ir-black theme with the Monaco for powerline font. Here's my config: https://github.com/mgill25/dotfiles/blob/master/emacs https://github.com/mgill25/dotfiles/blob/master/emacs

klibertp 13y ago
I see NERDTree on your GVIM screenshot, yet no equivalent in Emacs. I don't know about you, but I missed NERDTree very much, so I looked at speedbar in Emacs. Unfortunately, out of the box it displays as another WM-level window (frame in Emacs parlance), but I managed to beat it into shape with: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SrSpeedbar http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SrSpeedbar Speedbar is good, because not only looks like NERDTree, it also displays summary of file contents (for programming: functions, classes, imports, etc.) if you want.
- manish_gill 13y ago
  Thanks. I'll give it a try. I do miss NERDTree in Emacs, but so far, I've only been tinkering around with it, and still use vim for long sessions. :)
  - klibertp 13y ago
    I try to move on to Emacs as my full time editor/IDE, but so far I failed, and I've been trying for several weeks now. The problem is that I put years of tinkering into my VIM to make it almost exactly as I need it. This means that I won't switch until Emacs has at least very similar number of customizations, macros, plugins, etc. And making this from scratch takes time. The only positive in this is that I already know what I want, so hopefully it'll take shorter than for the first time :)
    - lord_quas 13y ago
      The reason to move to emacs is exactly because it has far more customizations available than vim does. Emacs' nerd tree equivalent is called undo tree, and its fantastic. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/UndoTree http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/UndoTree

tephra 13y ago

What is your current config? Looks like you want global-linum-mode to get line numbering. then to remove tool, menu and scroll bars do (tool-bar-mode -1) (menu-bar-mode -1) (scroll-bar-mode -1)

claudius 13y ago
I found global-linum-mode to be rather slow in large files, unfortunately. Are there better alternatives that show the number for each line? At the moment, I’m using column-number-mode to see the current line/column in the status bar, but I’m not too happy with it.
- npsimons 13y ago
  I know it's probably a personal preference thing, but do you really need line numbers? I've never missed them. Even if I'm not jumping to a compile error (or grep result, etc) with M-g n, I can always go to a particular line with M-g g, or show what line the cursor is on with what-line. I've also got flymake next and previous warnings mapped to similar keys.

olgeni 13y ago

> I have to say that emacs looks awful I thought pretty much the same, until I recompiled it using Athena widgets, which brought it back to its intended glory.

mietek 13y ago
Can you share a screenshot?

tikhonj 13y ago

Emacs has its own version of powerline. You can turn off most of the annoying frills like the menu bar, the scroll bars, the toolbar and the fringe. You can also use a nice typeface (I'm very partial to Deja-vu Sans Mono) and a nice color scheme (I like blackboard). I think the final result looks rather good: http://jelv.is/emacs-blackboard.png http://jelv.is/emacs-blackboard.png and http://jelv.is/emacs-demo.png http://jelv.is/emacs-demo.png.

terhechte 13y ago
That looks nice, do you have the config for that available somewhere? Thanks!
- tikhonj 13y ago
  My actual .emacs file has a ton of things unrelated to this, so here are the relevant bits: ;; Make the window simpler (tool-bar-mode -1) (scroll-bar-mode -1) (menu-bar-mode -1) (fringe-mode 0) Powerline and the color theme are installed separately. You can get powerline using the new package manager through M-x package-list-packages. You might have to configure some additional package sources first: (require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org /packages/")) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/")) (package-initialize) You can then run powerline using (require 'powerline) It might take a little more configuration to get the powerline colors matching to what you want. You can also customize the shape of the separator: it doesn't have to be an arrow. Unfortunately, the blackboard theme in the package manager is using the old color-theme package which has been made obsolete with Emacs 24. You should use the version ported to the new and improved theming mechanism[1]. [1]: https://github.com/don9z/blackboard-theme https://github.com/don9z/blackboard-theme Download that and put it in ~/.emacs.d/themes. Now you can set it up with: (setq custom-theme-directory "~/.emacs.d/themes/") (setq custom-safe-themes t) (load-theme 'blackboard) I hope that helps.
  - terhechte 13y ago
    Thanks, fantastic! Will try it out!

derengel 13y ago

Where can I find that vim color theme? Did you had to do anything special on a 256 color terminal to make it work?

terhechte 13y ago
The config is on my github.com/terhechte can't look it up right now I'm on a wedding, color scheme is jellybeans :)