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Ask HN: What's in your .emacs file?

121 points by procrastinatus 17y ago

I recently accidentally lost my .emacs file which I'd tweaked and put together over the last 5 years. I though this would be a good chance to ask you, what's in your .emacs file?

johngunderman 17y ago
http://github.com/johngunderman/emacs/blob/master/emacs-john.el http://github.com/johngunderman/emacs/blob/master/emacs-john... Mine's pretty minimal at the moment, but it does the job.
grandalf 17y ago
I use Phil Hagelberg's starter kit and have made a few minor customizations -- works great and minimal learning curve. http://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit http://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit
lacker 17y ago
Most important: ;; Don't mix tabs and spaces (setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) ;; Use "newline-and-indent" when you hit the Enter key so ;; you don't need to keep using TAB to align each line. (global-set-key "\C-m" 'newline-and-indent) ;; Get rid of the <2> with duplicate file names (require 'uniquify) (setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'post-forward-angle-brackets) And then a whole bunch of autoload statements for different programming languages.
- deleted 17y ago
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- mapleoin 17y ago
  ;; Use "newline-and-indent" when you hit the Enter key so ;; you don't need to keep using TAB to align each line. (global-set-key "\C-m" 'newline-and-indent) That's what C-j is for.
  - chairface 17y ago
    True, but I'm pretty sure mapping to C-m also maps it to the enter key.
- j_baker 17y ago
  uniquify is awesome!
jws 17y ago
178 lines of crap accumulated over about 20 years. I think I only use an indent variable setting, one key binding, and a handful of language autoloads. delete-delete-delete save-buffer Much better.
- frossie 17y ago
  lines of crap accumulated over about 20 years I hear ya. One of the things I started doing lately is not moving any dotfiles automatically when I get a new machine. After 3 days of moaning, I go and dig out just the stuff that I have noticed I am missing. (I do the same for firefox plugins and so on). It has definitely helped with the historical crud.
  - devin 17y ago
    Yeah it really forces you to look into those dotfiles you haven't read in two years, or that hack script you banged out in 5 minutes, and give them all a bit of thought. That "Just get it into my PATH so I can try it out!" impulse has definitely gotten the better of me a number of times.
- brianobush 17y ago
  ditto. I recall spending many late nights optimizing my dot emacs file and it accumulated tons of cruft. Now it is very abbreviated, wait no that was a dream - Just looked at it, still tons of junk that I don't use. Most of what I use is buffer saving (desktop), hot-keys, turn off scrollbars, and mapping odd file extension to modes. Guess I should go through and clean house again.
brodie 17y ago
http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs.d/plugins/ http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs.d/plugin... Probably my favorite bit of the config is that it uses flymake to run Pyflakes on my Python code as I'm writing it. I also have a little plugin that shows the error in the minibuffer area when the point is over the offending line. It also disables backup/autosave file littering by using a locked down directory in /tmp. As far as bindings go, I wrote delete-backward-indent for python-mode which deletes a level of indentation instead of just one space. There's also newline-maybe-indent that doesn't indent if the previous line has no indentation. Everything else is pretty straightforward customization, I think. flyspell-prog-mode is another thing worth mentioning: it highlights spelling errors, but only in strings and comments.
yummyfajitas 17y ago
I have an emacs.d, which is a superior alternative to a .emacs. The basic init.el file loads my various language modes, and some other minor modes (e.g., tempbuf-mode). It also loads a bunch of files from the "emacs.d/my_lisp" directory which contains various overrides and new functionality attached to existing modes (e.g., icicles customization, assorted one-off functions I want to add to modes). Lastly, it loads a bunch more files from my emacs.d/lisp directory which implement custom functionality. For example, the current emacs M-x eshell doesn't behave the way I like. I often want multiple shells, so I've build a "ring of shells" functionality: f6 cycles through the ring of shells, C-f6 creates new shell window in the ring. I did something similar with window configurations. Also, the emacs.d stores all modes which I use regularly. So when I migrate to a new computer, all I need to do is darcs get me@oldbox:emacs.d and tweak a few settings.
al3x 17y ago
I only periodically experiment with Emacs as my day-to-day editor, but my configuration isn't too shabby: http://github.com/al3x/emacs http://github.com/al3x/emacs
- tptacek 17y ago
  Thanks, I didn't know about Rinari.
mikedouglas 17y ago
Here is a one-liner that's quite useful: (add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook (lambda () (font-lock-add-keywords nil '(("\\<\$FIXME\\|TODO\\|BUG\$:" 1 font-lock-warning-face t)))))
bmac 17y ago
my emacs.d still needs a few tweaks but I'm convinced it always will. most useful parts: replacing fundamental mode with text-mode as the default mode when a new buffer is open. (setq default-major-mode 'text-mode) turn auto fill (automatic line wraping) and flyspell (spellchecking) on by default (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill) (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-flyspell) also I find yasnippet http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/ http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/ wonderful for coding html mockups and django templates. my github repo if anyone cares to take a peek: http://github.com/bmac/emacs http://github.com/bmac/emacs
- gcv 17y ago
  Regarding newlines: in Emacs 23, I recommend visual-line-mode over auto-fill-mode, unless you actually need hard line breaks. For when you do want hard newlines, (setq-default fill-column 80). I never understood why the default is 72; it makes text files excessively narrow.
  - vasudeva 17y ago
    The default is 72, in my understanding, because of the historical use of email. As folks successively quote each other in a thread, the prepending of '>' to the quoted text requires something narrower than 80, else it'll hit the 80-chars-wide limit and wrap. 72 would allow 4 or 8 quote-levels, depending on if your client decides to insert spaces around the '>'.
mark_h 17y ago
http://github.com/markhepburn/dotemacs http://github.com/markhepburn/dotemacs Lots of cruft (roughly 10 years worth), although I did recently start to refactor. Most notable: it's fairly portable and relocatable, thanks to a snippet I cooked up (probably not original, but I haven't seen it else-where): http://everythingtastesbetterwithchilli.com/initialisation-file-portability-tweaks http://everythingtastesbetterwithchilli.com/initialisation-f... (check it out anywhere and just symlink init.el to ~/.emacs, it figures out all paths from there. It'll also load platform-specific code, if you need that). I try and make it lazier by combining autoload and eval-after-load, which helps with startup time. On an organisational point (still work to be done here!), init.el mostly just loads a bunch of other files, which are roughly grouped by task or mode. Github has been a huge boon, combined with submodules to track a lot of third-party extensions. I don't change many key bindings (most notable is the Yegge-suggested C-w for backward-kill-word), but I do have a /lot/ of extensions installed. I'm a fairly heavy user, although almost exclusively as an editor (+ lisp or python interaction, etc) -- I don't use it as a mail client, browser, or anything along those lines. The furthest away I get is the occasional twitter or IRC usage. While I'm rambling: I'd like to make all my key-binding specifications consistent. Currently I have a mix of string specifications, vectors, kbd macros, etc. Does anyone know what the canonical approach is these days? Extra reference: http://www.nongnu.org/emacs-tiny-tools/keybindings/ http://www.nongnu.org/emacs-tiny-tools/keybindings/ and http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/KeyBindingNotation http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/KeyBindingNotation
elq 17y ago
http://github.com/elq/dot-emacs/ http://github.com/elq/dot-emacs/
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kirubakaran 17y ago
http://github.com/ki/my-dot-emacs/raw/master/dot-emacs.txt http://github.com/ki/my-dot-emacs/raw/master/dot-emacs.txt
scottw 17y ago
You'll want to check out dotfiles.com also, btw. I considered putting this in a separate link, but thought that since you asked, it wouldn't be too terrible to post here. There are a few things I include in every .emacs file I have across multiple shell accounts, and this is more or less the entirety of it: ;; how emacs behaves generally (setq scroll-step 1) (setq next-line-add-newlines nil) (setq search-highlight t) (setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) ;; some niceties on the status bar (display-time) (setq column-number-mode t) (setq line-number-mode t) ;; other shortcuts (global-set-key "\C-^" 'enlarge-window) (global-set-key "\C-c\C-w" 'compare-windows) ;; fix broken backspace (global-set-key "\b" 'backward-delete-char) (global-set-key "\C-xt" 'term) ;; UTF-8 goodness (set-terminal-coding-system 'utf-8) (set-keyboard-coding-system 'utf-8) (prefer-coding-system 'utf-8) ;; I'm into Perl, but prefer cperl-mode over the default (defun modify-alist (alist-symbol key value &optional search-cdr) (let ((alist (symbol-value alist-symbol))) (while alist (if (eq (if search-cdr (cdr (car alist)) (car (car alist))) key) (setcdr (car alist) value) (setq alist (cdr alist)))))) (modify-alist 'interpreter-mode-alist 'perl-mode 'cperl-mode t) (modify-alist 'auto-mode-alist 'perl-mode 'cperl-mode t) ;; the one true indentation level (setq cperl-indent-level 4)
- chairface 17y ago
  Wait - I thought it was dotfiles.org? It went down a few months ago and hasn't returned. I'm not getting a response from dotfiles.com either.
mahmud 17y ago
I wrote a long article and at the last paragraph, I decided to edit a sentence, I selected the "region" and pressed C-w to remove it :-( For uninitiated, C-w is "yank text", i.e. cut it, and Firefox it is "close current tab without warning".
- wingo 17y ago
  Seems the keybindings skip direct to the semantics in your brain, without passing through verbose names; C-w would "kill" the text. Still, your lapse is pretty good. Sometimes I can't even name the keys -- but my fingers know :)
- parbo 17y ago
  C-S-t in Firefox will bring it back. Don't know if the content of the text field remains though.
  - mapleoin 17y ago
    It does. It's not that hard to test.
- vaporstun 17y ago
  Firemacs, Firefox extension which gives emacs keybindings. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141
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coffeemug 17y ago
http://sources.defmacro.org/emacs-conf/ http://sources.defmacro.org/emacs-conf/
gibsonf1 17y ago
;; Easymacs sets some common Windows key bindings like ctrl-c to copy, ctrl-s to save, etc. (load "c:/Otech/programs/easymacs/easymacs.el") (defun init-streamfocus () (interactive) ;; Slime is for starting or connecting to SBCL ;; To start: C-x slime RET (add-to-list 'load-path "c:/Otech/sf/lib/slime") ;;(setq inferior-lisp-program "C:/Otech/programs/sbcl-1.0.9/sbcl") ;(setq inferior-lisp-program "C:/Program Files/LispWorks/lispworks-4450") (add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook (lambda () (slime-mode t))) (add-hook 'inferior-lisp-mode-hook (lambda () (inferior-slime-mode t))) ;; (defun lw-start () ;; (interactive) ;; (shell-command (concat "C:/Program Files/LispWorks/lispworks-4450.exe -multiprocessing " ;; "-init c:/Otech/swank.lisp&"))) ;;;For SBCL on Windows ;(setq inferior-lisp-program "sbcl") ;(add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Program Files/Steel Bank Common Lisp/1.0.22/sbcl.exe") ;;For Allegro on Windows (setq inferior-lisp-program "allegro") (add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Program Files/acl81/allegro.exe") (require 'slime) (slime-setup '(slime-fancy slime-banner)) ;;allegro (global-set-key "\C-cs" 'slime-selector) (setq slime-complete-symbol-fancy t) (setq slime-complete-symbol-function 'slime-fuzzy-complete-symbol) (setq slime-multiprocessing t) ;; choose one of the below based on Express or non-Express usage ;(setq slime-lisp* "alisp.exe") (setq slime-lisp "allegro.exe") ;;(setq *slime-lisp* "allegro-express.exe") (setq *slime-port* 4005) (global-set-key [(f5)] '(lambda () (interactive) (shell-command (format "%s +B +cm -L c:/.slime.lisp -- -p %s --ef %s &" *slime-lisp* *slime-port* slime-net-coding-system)) (delete-other-windows) (while (not (ignore-errors (slime-connect "localhost" *slime-port*))) (sleep-for 0.2)))) (let* ((cygwin-root "c:/cygwin") (cygwin-bin (concat cygwin-root "/bin"))) ;(setenv "HOME" (concat cygwin-root "/home/frederick")) (setenv "PATH" (concat cygwin-bin ";" (getenv "PATH"))) (setq exec-path (cons cygwin-bin exec-path))) (setq shell-file-name "bash") (setq explicit-shell-file-name "bash") (push ".fasl" completion-ignored-extensions) (push ".git" completion-ignored-extensions) ;;-------------------------------------- ;;;; For remote slime ;; see http://a1k0n.net/blah/archives/2005/11/04/T18_00_44/index.html http://a1k0n.net/blah/archives/2005/11/04/T18_00_44/index.ht... (require 'tramp) (defvar cayenne-path "/sshx:streamfocus@cayenne:") (defvar current-tramp-path nil) (defun slime-connect-to-host (path port) (setq *current-tramp-path* path) (setq slime-translate-from-lisp-filename-function (lambda (f) (if *current-tramp-path* (concat *current-tramp-path* f) f))) (setq slime-translate-to-lisp-filename-function (lambda (f) (if *current-tramp-path* (substring f (length *current-tramp-path*)) f))) (slime-connect "localhost" port)) (defun cayenne-slime () (interactive) (slime-connect-to-host *cayenne-path* 4006)) (defun cayenne-find-file () (interactive) (find-file (concat *cayenne-path* "/home/streamfocus/sf/"))) ;;;; TRAMP remote editing. See notes for NTEmacs on http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/TrampMode http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/TrampMode (setq tramp-default-method "sshx") ;;;; SLIME settings to edit remote files on rembrandt ;(push (list "^cayenne$" ; (lambda (emacs-filename) ; (subseq emacs-filename (length "/cayenne:"))) ; (lambda (lisp-filename) ; (concat "/cayenne:" lisp-filename))) ; slime-filename-translations) ;; http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/NTEmacsWithCygwin (let* ((cygwin-root "c:/cygwin") (cygwin-bin (concat cygwin-root "/bin"))) ;(setenv "HOME" (concat cygwin-root "/home/fred")) (setenv "PATH" (concat cygwin-bin ";" (getenv "PATH"))) (setq exec-path (cons cygwin-bin exec-path))) (setq shell-file-name "bash") (setq explicit-shell-file-name "bash") ) (defun init-clojure () "Inits slime for streamfocus" (interactive) ;; clojure-mode (add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/clojure-mode") (require 'clojure-mode) ;; swank-clojure (add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/swank-clojure") (require 'swank-clojure-autoload) ;(swank-clojure-config (setq swank-clojure-jar-path "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/clojure/clojure.jar") (setq swank-clojure-extra-classpaths (list "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/clojure-contrib/clojure-contrib.jar")) ;) ;; slime (eval-after-load "slime" '(progn (slime-setup '(slime-repl)))) (add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/slime") (require 'slime) (slime-setup) ;;;type alt-x and slime to start repl )
larrywright 17y ago
Much of this is cribbed from other places (credited where possible): http://github.com/larrywright/emacs http://github.com/larrywright/emacs
diiq 17y ago
Apart from the usual utilities, I've got an emacs-lisp version of write-or-die; it deletes words if you stop typing for more than a few seconds. It's an excellent motivator for first drafts.
justinhj 17y ago
Some key ones (setq transient-mark-mode t) ; visually show region (setq line-number-mode t) ; show line numbers (setq global-font-lock-mode 1) ; everything should use font (windmove-default-keybindings) ; shift-arrow key moves to window in that direction I set up `webjump' to search online API documentation http://justinsboringpage.blogspot.com/2009/05/emacs-searching-programming-apis-with.html http://justinsboringpage.blogspot.com/2009/05/emacs-searchin... I like to send gmail http://justinsboringpage.blogspot.com/2009/02/sending-mail-with-emacs-in-windows.html http://justinsboringpage.blogspot.com/2009/02/sending-mail-w... I think this is the most important one (setq visible-bell t) ; annoying beeps off
- j_baker 17y ago
  I used to set transient-mark-mode to t myself. But being able to set a mark and use C-xC-x to switch the cursor and the mark point is too powerful. It allows you to set a mark, go edit something else, and then go back to where you were. Granted, you could probably do that with transient mark mode, but seeing everything highlighted would be too annoying.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    You can do the same thing with bm.el, but you also get multiple bookmarks (visible in the buffer) which you can then cycle through. I find it helpful to have bookmarks and the region decoupled. http://www.nongnu.org/bm/ http://www.nongnu.org/bm/
  - technomancy 17y ago
    C-u C-SPC cycles through the mark ring and works with transient-mark. Just use C-g to deactivate the region so everything isn't highlighted.
jmhodges 17y ago
I am completely surprised no one has linked to technomancy's emacs-start-kit: https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit Clone that as your emacs.d, add a .el file named the same as your logged in user, and add your specific preferences there. (I like to have it include stuff in a jmhodges directory in emacs.d, of course.) On that note, my own fork of it with very minor personal changes: https://github.com/jmhodges/emacs-starter-kit https://github.com/jmhodges/emacs-starter-kit
- devin 17y ago
  technomancy is a great developer and an excellent teacher
leif 17y ago
mine's in http://github.com/adlaiff6/df.git http://github.com/adlaiff6/df.git but I don't really expect you to read it
- bkudria 17y ago
  Oh, you use (pessimism-mode t) too?
radu_floricica 17y ago
Pretty new to emacs, so my first move was to make it more familiar and avoid breaking my fingers: ;; Switch buffer (global-set-key [f5] 'buffer-menu) ;; Save and load (global-set-key [f2] 'save-buffer) (global-set-key [f3] 'find-file) ;; Compile file (global-set-key [f9] 'slime-compile-and-load-file) ;; Goto line (global-set-key "\M-l" 'goto-line) ;; Go to other window (global-set-key (kbd "<C-tab>") 'other-window) ;; And probably the most useful one, numpad Enter for eval line: (global-set-key (kbd "<kp-enter>") 'slime-eval-last-expression)
apgwoz 17y ago
Mine has: (require 'activator) (activator-start) Which then looks at all of the stuff here: http://github.com/apgwoz/emacs-config http://github.com/apgwoz/emacs-config
Ben65 17y ago
It's hard to live without: (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p)
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j_baker 17y ago
I use anything: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Anything http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Anything And then I have this in my .emacs: (require 'anything-config) (global-set-key "\C-c\C-a" 'anything) (global-set-key "\C-c\C-e" 'anything-for-files) I try to get in the habit of using C-cC-e instead of C-xC-f or C-x b. Anything is just too useful as a file/buffer finder.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  Near as I can tell, there is only one reason not to simply rebind C-x C-f to anything-for-files: it doesn't create files. That's fixable: (defun anything-for-files-create-if-not-found () "Just like anything for files, but gives the option to create a file." (interactive) (anything '(anything-c-source-ffap-line anything-c-source-ffap-guesser anything-c-source-regular-filename-completion anything-c-source-recentf anything-c-source-file-not-found anything-c-source-buffers+ anything-c-source-bookmarks anything-c-source-file-cache anything-c-source-files-in-current-dir+ anything-c-source-mac-spotlight)))
dirtyaura 17y ago
My emacs setup consists of several files, a structure that I shamelessly copied from one and only Stevey Yegge, a true emacs fanatic. Now, I used to work for Google and most people there let you see their own home directories and I used that as an opportunity to learn from Stevey's setup. There are a lot of customization going on and I should do a separate blog post about the setup. Here are I just cherry-picked some recent configuration favorites of mine: ;; ;; Superb way to move between Emacs windows ;; Shift+arrow keys (windmove-default-keybindings) ;; Resize emacs according to the display resoluton (defun set-frame-size-according-to-resolution () (interactive) (if window-system (progn (if (> (x-display-pixel-width) 1900) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'width 260)) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'width 80))) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'height (/ (- (x-display-pixel-height) 50) (frame-char-height)))) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'top 10)) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'left 5)))))
twism 17y ago
ido.el to find files (require 'ido) (ido-mode t)
diN0bot 17y ago
i put third party .el files in .emacs.d and then set the load path in the first line of my .emacs file (setq load-path (append load-path (list "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d"))) some useful .el's auto-save-list/ highlight-current-line.el auto_save_list/ psvn.el backup-file-list/ pycomplete.el cpp-font-lock.el python-mode.el django-mode.el vc-.el doctest-mode.el zenburn.el rebindings are useful, such ctrl-q for M-x goto-line: (global-set-key "\C-q" 'goto-line) I cribbed the following from someone else, but i find it most awesome: ; ===== Put auto-save, backup files in one place === ;; Put autosave files (ie #foo#) in one place, not ;; scattered all over the file system! (defvar autosave-dir (concat "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d/auto-save-list/")) (make-directory autosave-dir t) (defun auto-save-file-name-p (filename) (string-match "^#.*#$" (file-name-nondirectory filename))) (defun make-auto-save-file-name () (concat autosave-dir (if buffer-file-name (concat "#" (file-name-nondirectory buffer-file-name) "#") (expand-file-name (concat "#%" (buffer-name) "#"))))) ;; Put backup files (ie foo~) in one place too. (The backup-directory-alist ;; list contains regexp=>directory mappings; filenames matching a regexp are ;; backed up in the corresponding directory. Emacs will mkdir it if necessary.) (defvar backup-dir (concat "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d/backup-file-list/")) (setq backup-directory-alist (list (cons "." backup-dir)))
vaporstun 17y ago
(setq comint-input-ring-size 2048) The default undo history is only 32. I like to be able to go further back.
jonshea 17y ago
http://github.com/jonshea/config-files/blob/master/.emacs http://github.com/jonshea/config-files/blob/master/.emacs
justinweiss 17y ago
I work mostly inside git repositories, so this has been really valuable for scoping commands to the current repository: (defun my-git-root () (if buffer-file-name (let* ((current-directory (file-name-directory buffer-file-name)) (git-directory (concat current-directory ".git"))) (while (and current-directory (not (file-exists-p git-directory))) (setq current-directory (file-name-directory (substring current-directory 0 -1))) (setq git-directory (concat current-directory ".git"))) current-directory))) I also hated editing system files until I added this function, which I almost definitely cribbed from somewhere: (defun sudo-find-file (file-name) (interactive "FFind file (sudo): ") (find-file (concat "/sudo::" file-name))) I got sick of having to context-switch to the browser when I needed to do a quick search, which is where these come in: (defun go-to-doc (base-url) (let ((default (symbol-name (symbol-at-point)))) (browse-url (concat base-url (read-string "Search term: " nil nil default))))) (defun rails-doc () (interactive) (go-to-doc "http://apidock.com/rails/search?query=")) (defun ruby-doc () (interactive) (go-to-doc "http://apidock.com/ruby/search?query=")) I really, really hope package.el is built-in soon: (when (load (expand-file-name "~/.emacs.d/elpa/package.el")) (package-initialize)) and by far the most important line in the whole file: (server-start)
bkudria 17y ago
My (somewhat extensive) Emacs config can be found here: http://github.com/bkudria/dotfile http://github.com/bkudria/dotfile

121 points by procrastinatus 17y ago

I recently accidentally lost my .emacs file which I'd tweaked and put together over the last 5 years. I though this would be a good chance to ask you, what's in your .emacs file?

johngunderman 17y ago

http://github.com/johngunderman/emacs/blob/master/emacs-john.el http://github.com/johngunderman/emacs/blob/master/emacs-john... Mine's pretty minimal at the moment, but it does the job.

grandalf 17y ago

I use Phil Hagelberg's starter kit and have made a few minor customizations -- works great and minimal learning curve. http://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit http://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit

lacker 17y ago

Most important: ;; Don't mix tabs and spaces (setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) ;; Use "newline-and-indent" when you hit the Enter key so ;; you don't need to keep using TAB to align each line. (global-set-key "\C-m" 'newline-and-indent) ;; Get rid of the <2> with duplicate file names (require 'uniquify) (setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'post-forward-angle-brackets) And then a whole bunch of autoload statements for different programming languages.

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mapleoin 17y ago
;; Use "newline-and-indent" when you hit the Enter key so ;; you don't need to keep using TAB to align each line. (global-set-key "\C-m" 'newline-and-indent) That's what C-j is for.
- chairface 17y ago
  True, but I'm pretty sure mapping to C-m also maps it to the enter key.
j_baker 17y ago
uniquify is awesome!

jws 17y ago

178 lines of crap accumulated over about 20 years. I think I only use an indent variable setting, one key binding, and a handful of language autoloads. delete-delete-delete save-buffer Much better.

frossie 17y ago
lines of crap accumulated over about 20 years I hear ya. One of the things I started doing lately is not moving any dotfiles automatically when I get a new machine. After 3 days of moaning, I go and dig out just the stuff that I have noticed I am missing. (I do the same for firefox plugins and so on). It has definitely helped with the historical crud.
- devin 17y ago
  Yeah it really forces you to look into those dotfiles you haven't read in two years, or that hack script you banged out in 5 minutes, and give them all a bit of thought. That "Just get it into my PATH so I can try it out!" impulse has definitely gotten the better of me a number of times.
brianobush 17y ago
ditto. I recall spending many late nights optimizing my dot emacs file and it accumulated tons of cruft. Now it is very abbreviated, wait no that was a dream - Just looked at it, still tons of junk that I don't use. Most of what I use is buffer saving (desktop), hot-keys, turn off scrollbars, and mapping odd file extension to modes. Guess I should go through and clean house again.

brodie 17y ago

http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs.d/plugins/ http://bitbucket.org/brodie/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs.d/plugin... Probably my favorite bit of the config is that it uses flymake to run Pyflakes on my Python code as I'm writing it. I also have a little plugin that shows the error in the minibuffer area when the point is over the offending line. It also disables backup/autosave file littering by using a locked down directory in /tmp. As far as bindings go, I wrote delete-backward-indent for python-mode which deletes a level of indentation instead of just one space. There's also newline-maybe-indent that doesn't indent if the previous line has no indentation. Everything else is pretty straightforward customization, I think. flyspell-prog-mode is another thing worth mentioning: it highlights spelling errors, but only in strings and comments.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

I have an emacs.d, which is a superior alternative to a .emacs. The basic init.el file loads my various language modes, and some other minor modes (e.g., tempbuf-mode). It also loads a bunch of files from the "emacs.d/my_lisp" directory which contains various overrides and new functionality attached to existing modes (e.g., icicles customization, assorted one-off functions I want to add to modes). Lastly, it loads a bunch more files from my emacs.d/lisp directory which implement custom functionality. For example, the current emacs M-x eshell doesn't behave the way I like. I often want multiple shells, so I've build a "ring of shells" functionality: f6 cycles through the ring of shells, C-f6 creates new shell window in the ring. I did something similar with window configurations. Also, the emacs.d stores all modes which I use regularly. So when I migrate to a new computer, all I need to do is darcs get me@oldbox:emacs.d and tweak a few settings.

al3x 17y ago

I only periodically experiment with Emacs as my day-to-day editor, but my configuration isn't too shabby: http://github.com/al3x/emacs http://github.com/al3x/emacs

tptacek 17y ago
Thanks, I didn't know about Rinari.

mikedouglas 17y ago

Here is a one-liner that's quite useful: (add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook (lambda () (font-lock-add-keywords nil '(("\\<\$FIXME\\|TODO\\|BUG\$:" 1 font-lock-warning-face t)))))

bmac 17y ago

my emacs.d still needs a few tweaks but I'm convinced it always will. most useful parts: replacing fundamental mode with text-mode as the default mode when a new buffer is open. (setq default-major-mode 'text-mode) turn auto fill (automatic line wraping) and flyspell (spellchecking) on by default (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill) (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-flyspell) also I find yasnippet http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/ http://code.google.com/p/yasnippet/ wonderful for coding html mockups and django templates. my github repo if anyone cares to take a peek: http://github.com/bmac/emacs http://github.com/bmac/emacs

gcv 17y ago
Regarding newlines: in Emacs 23, I recommend visual-line-mode over auto-fill-mode, unless you actually need hard line breaks. For when you do want hard newlines, (setq-default fill-column 80). I never understood why the default is 72; it makes text files excessively narrow.
- vasudeva 17y ago
  The default is 72, in my understanding, because of the historical use of email. As folks successively quote each other in a thread, the prepending of '>' to the quoted text requires something narrower than 80, else it'll hit the 80-chars-wide limit and wrap. 72 would allow 4 or 8 quote-levels, depending on if your client decides to insert spaces around the '>'.

mark_h 17y ago

http://github.com/markhepburn/dotemacs http://github.com/markhepburn/dotemacs Lots of cruft (roughly 10 years worth), although I did recently start to refactor. Most notable: it's fairly portable and relocatable, thanks to a snippet I cooked up (probably not original, but I haven't seen it else-where): http://everythingtastesbetterwithchilli.com/initialisation-file-portability-tweaks http://everythingtastesbetterwithchilli.com/initialisation-f... (check it out anywhere and just symlink init.el to ~/.emacs, it figures out all paths from there. It'll also load platform-specific code, if you need that). I try and make it lazier by combining autoload and eval-after-load, which helps with startup time. On an organisational point (still work to be done here!), init.el mostly just loads a bunch of other files, which are roughly grouped by task or mode. Github has been a huge boon, combined with submodules to track a lot of third-party extensions. I don't change many key bindings (most notable is the Yegge-suggested C-w for backward-kill-word), but I do have a /lot/ of extensions installed. I'm a fairly heavy user, although almost exclusively as an editor (+ lisp or python interaction, etc) -- I don't use it as a mail client, browser, or anything along those lines. The furthest away I get is the occasional twitter or IRC usage. While I'm rambling: I'd like to make all my key-binding specifications consistent. Currently I have a mix of string specifications, vectors, kbd macros, etc. Does anyone know what the canonical approach is these days? Extra reference: http://www.nongnu.org/emacs-tiny-tools/keybindings/ http://www.nongnu.org/emacs-tiny-tools/keybindings/ and http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/KeyBindingNotation http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/KeyBindingNotation

elq 17y ago

http://github.com/elq/dot-emacs/ http://github.com/elq/dot-emacs/

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kirubakaran 17y ago

http://github.com/ki/my-dot-emacs/raw/master/dot-emacs.txt http://github.com/ki/my-dot-emacs/raw/master/dot-emacs.txt

scottw 17y ago

You'll want to check out dotfiles.com also, btw. I considered putting this in a separate link, but thought that since you asked, it wouldn't be too terrible to post here. There are a few things I include in every .emacs file I have across multiple shell accounts, and this is more or less the entirety of it: ;; how emacs behaves generally (setq scroll-step 1) (setq next-line-add-newlines nil) (setq search-highlight t) (setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) ;; some niceties on the status bar (display-time) (setq column-number-mode t) (setq line-number-mode t) ;; other shortcuts (global-set-key "\C-^" 'enlarge-window) (global-set-key "\C-c\C-w" 'compare-windows) ;; fix broken backspace (global-set-key "\b" 'backward-delete-char) (global-set-key "\C-xt" 'term) ;; UTF-8 goodness (set-terminal-coding-system 'utf-8) (set-keyboard-coding-system 'utf-8) (prefer-coding-system 'utf-8) ;; I'm into Perl, but prefer cperl-mode over the default (defun modify-alist (alist-symbol key value &optional search-cdr) (let ((alist (symbol-value alist-symbol))) (while alist (if (eq (if search-cdr (cdr (car alist)) (car (car alist))) key) (setcdr (car alist) value) (setq alist (cdr alist)))))) (modify-alist 'interpreter-mode-alist 'perl-mode 'cperl-mode t) (modify-alist 'auto-mode-alist 'perl-mode 'cperl-mode t) ;; the one true indentation level (setq cperl-indent-level 4)

chairface 17y ago
Wait - I thought it was dotfiles.org? It went down a few months ago and hasn't returned. I'm not getting a response from dotfiles.com either.

mahmud 17y ago

I wrote a long article and at the last paragraph, I decided to edit a sentence, I selected the "region" and pressed C-w to remove it :-( For uninitiated, C-w is "yank text", i.e. cut it, and Firefox it is "close current tab without warning".

wingo 17y ago
Seems the keybindings skip direct to the semantics in your brain, without passing through verbose names; C-w would "kill" the text. Still, your lapse is pretty good. Sometimes I can't even name the keys -- but my fingers know :)
parbo 17y ago
C-S-t in Firefox will bring it back. Don't know if the content of the text field remains though.
- mapleoin 17y ago
  It does. It's not that hard to test.
vaporstun 17y ago
Firemacs, Firefox extension which gives emacs keybindings. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141

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coffeemug 17y ago

http://sources.defmacro.org/emacs-conf/ http://sources.defmacro.org/emacs-conf/

gibsonf1 17y ago

;; Easymacs sets some common Windows key bindings like ctrl-c to copy, ctrl-s to save, etc. (load "c:/Otech/programs/easymacs/easymacs.el") (defun init-streamfocus () (interactive) ;; Slime is for starting or connecting to SBCL ;; To start: C-x slime RET (add-to-list 'load-path "c:/Otech/sf/lib/slime") ;;(setq inferior-lisp-program "C:/Otech/programs/sbcl-1.0.9/sbcl") ;(setq inferior-lisp-program "C:/Program Files/LispWorks/lispworks-4450") (add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook (lambda () (slime-mode t))) (add-hook 'inferior-lisp-mode-hook (lambda () (inferior-slime-mode t))) ;; (defun lw-start () ;; (interactive) ;; (shell-command (concat "C:/Program Files/LispWorks/lispworks-4450.exe -multiprocessing " ;; "-init c:/Otech/swank.lisp&"))) ;;;For SBCL on Windows ;(setq inferior-lisp-program "sbcl") ;(add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Program Files/Steel Bank Common Lisp/1.0.22/sbcl.exe") ;;For Allegro on Windows (setq inferior-lisp-program "allegro") (add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Program Files/acl81/allegro.exe") (require 'slime) (slime-setup '(slime-fancy slime-banner)) ;;allegro (global-set-key "\C-cs" 'slime-selector) (setq slime-complete-symbol-fancy t) (setq slime-complete-symbol-function 'slime-fuzzy-complete-symbol) (setq slime-multiprocessing t) ;; choose one of the below based on Express or non-Express usage ;(setq slime-lisp* "alisp.exe") (setq slime-lisp "allegro.exe") ;;(setq *slime-lisp* "allegro-express.exe") (setq *slime-port* 4005) (global-set-key [(f5)] '(lambda () (interactive) (shell-command (format "%s +B +cm -L c:/.slime.lisp -- -p %s --ef %s &" *slime-lisp* *slime-port* slime-net-coding-system)) (delete-other-windows) (while (not (ignore-errors (slime-connect "localhost" *slime-port*))) (sleep-for 0.2)))) (let* ((cygwin-root "c:/cygwin") (cygwin-bin (concat cygwin-root "/bin"))) ;(setenv "HOME" (concat cygwin-root "/home/frederick")) (setenv "PATH" (concat cygwin-bin ";" (getenv "PATH"))) (setq exec-path (cons cygwin-bin exec-path))) (setq shell-file-name "bash") (setq explicit-shell-file-name "bash") (push ".fasl" completion-ignored-extensions) (push ".git" completion-ignored-extensions) ;;-------------------------------------- ;;;; For remote slime ;; see http://a1k0n.net/blah/archives/2005/11/04/T18_00_44/index.html http://a1k0n.net/blah/archives/2005/11/04/T18_00_44/index.ht... (require 'tramp) (defvar cayenne-path "/sshx:streamfocus@cayenne:") (defvar current-tramp-path nil) (defun slime-connect-to-host (path port) (setq *current-tramp-path* path) (setq slime-translate-from-lisp-filename-function (lambda (f) (if *current-tramp-path* (concat *current-tramp-path* f) f))) (setq slime-translate-to-lisp-filename-function (lambda (f) (if *current-tramp-path* (substring f (length *current-tramp-path*)) f))) (slime-connect "localhost" port)) (defun cayenne-slime () (interactive) (slime-connect-to-host *cayenne-path* 4006)) (defun cayenne-find-file () (interactive) (find-file (concat *cayenne-path* "/home/streamfocus/sf/"))) ;;;; TRAMP remote editing. See notes for NTEmacs on http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/TrampMode http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/TrampMode (setq tramp-default-method "sshx") ;;;; SLIME settings to edit remote files on rembrandt ;(push (list "^cayenne$" ; (lambda (emacs-filename) ; (subseq emacs-filename (length "/cayenne:"))) ; (lambda (lisp-filename) ; (concat "/cayenne:" lisp-filename))) ; slime-filename-translations) ;; http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/NTEmacsWithCygwin (let* ((cygwin-root "c:/cygwin") (cygwin-bin (concat cygwin-root "/bin"))) ;(setenv "HOME" (concat cygwin-root "/home/fred")) (setenv "PATH" (concat cygwin-bin ";" (getenv "PATH"))) (setq exec-path (cons cygwin-bin exec-path))) (setq shell-file-name "bash") (setq explicit-shell-file-name "bash") ) (defun init-clojure () "Inits slime for streamfocus" (interactive) ;; clojure-mode (add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/clojure-mode") (require 'clojure-mode) ;; swank-clojure (add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/swank-clojure") (require 'swank-clojure-autoload) ;(swank-clojure-config (setq swank-clojure-jar-path "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/clojure/clojure.jar") (setq swank-clojure-extra-classpaths (list "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/clojure-contrib/clojure-contrib.jar")) ;) ;; slime (eval-after-load "slime" '(progn (slime-setup '(slime-repl)))) (add-to-list 'load-path "C:/Otech/programs/clojure/slime") (require 'slime) (slime-setup) ;;;type alt-x and slime to start repl )

larrywright 17y ago

Much of this is cribbed from other places (credited where possible): http://github.com/larrywright/emacs http://github.com/larrywright/emacs

diiq 17y ago

Apart from the usual utilities, I've got an emacs-lisp version of write-or-die; it deletes words if you stop typing for more than a few seconds. It's an excellent motivator for first drafts.

justinhj 17y ago

Some key ones (setq transient-mark-mode t) ; visually show region (setq line-number-mode t) ; show line numbers (setq global-font-lock-mode 1) ; everything should use font (windmove-default-keybindings) ; shift-arrow key moves to window in that direction I set up `webjump' to search online API documentation http://justinsboringpage.blogspot.com/2009/05/emacs-searching-programming-apis-with.html http://justinsboringpage.blogspot.com/2009/05/emacs-searchin... I like to send gmail http://justinsboringpage.blogspot.com/2009/02/sending-mail-with-emacs-in-windows.html http://justinsboringpage.blogspot.com/2009/02/sending-mail-w... I think this is the most important one (setq visible-bell t) ; annoying beeps off

j_baker 17y ago
I used to set transient-mark-mode to t myself. But being able to set a mark and use C-xC-x to switch the cursor and the mark point is too powerful. It allows you to set a mark, go edit something else, and then go back to where you were. Granted, you could probably do that with transient mark mode, but seeing everything highlighted would be too annoying.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  You can do the same thing with bm.el, but you also get multiple bookmarks (visible in the buffer) which you can then cycle through. I find it helpful to have bookmarks and the region decoupled. http://www.nongnu.org/bm/ http://www.nongnu.org/bm/
- technomancy 17y ago
  C-u C-SPC cycles through the mark ring and works with transient-mark. Just use C-g to deactivate the region so everything isn't highlighted.

jmhodges 17y ago

I am completely surprised no one has linked to technomancy's emacs-start-kit: https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit Clone that as your emacs.d, add a .el file named the same as your logged in user, and add your specific preferences there. (I like to have it include stuff in a jmhodges directory in emacs.d, of course.) On that note, my own fork of it with very minor personal changes: https://github.com/jmhodges/emacs-starter-kit https://github.com/jmhodges/emacs-starter-kit

devin 17y ago
technomancy is a great developer and an excellent teacher

leif 17y ago

mine's in http://github.com/adlaiff6/df.git http://github.com/adlaiff6/df.git but I don't really expect you to read it

bkudria 17y ago
Oh, you use (pessimism-mode t) too?

radu_floricica 17y ago

Pretty new to emacs, so my first move was to make it more familiar and avoid breaking my fingers: ;; Switch buffer (global-set-key [f5] 'buffer-menu) ;; Save and load (global-set-key [f2] 'save-buffer) (global-set-key [f3] 'find-file) ;; Compile file (global-set-key [f9] 'slime-compile-and-load-file) ;; Goto line (global-set-key "\M-l" 'goto-line) ;; Go to other window (global-set-key (kbd "<C-tab>") 'other-window) ;; And probably the most useful one, numpad Enter for eval line: (global-set-key (kbd "<kp-enter>") 'slime-eval-last-expression)

apgwoz 17y ago

Mine has: (require 'activator) (activator-start) Which then looks at all of the stuff here: http://github.com/apgwoz/emacs-config http://github.com/apgwoz/emacs-config

Ben65 17y ago

It's hard to live without: (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p)

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j_baker 17y ago

I use anything: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Anything http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Anything And then I have this in my .emacs: (require 'anything-config) (global-set-key "\C-c\C-a" 'anything) (global-set-key "\C-c\C-e" 'anything-for-files) I try to get in the habit of using C-cC-e instead of C-xC-f or C-x b. Anything is just too useful as a file/buffer finder.

yummyfajitas 17y ago
Near as I can tell, there is only one reason not to simply rebind C-x C-f to anything-for-files: it doesn't create files. That's fixable: (defun anything-for-files-create-if-not-found () "Just like anything for files, but gives the option to create a file." (interactive) (anything '(anything-c-source-ffap-line anything-c-source-ffap-guesser anything-c-source-regular-filename-completion anything-c-source-recentf anything-c-source-file-not-found anything-c-source-buffers+ anything-c-source-bookmarks anything-c-source-file-cache anything-c-source-files-in-current-dir+ anything-c-source-mac-spotlight)))

dirtyaura 17y ago

My emacs setup consists of several files, a structure that I shamelessly copied from one and only Stevey Yegge, a true emacs fanatic. Now, I used to work for Google and most people there let you see their own home directories and I used that as an opportunity to learn from Stevey's setup. There are a lot of customization going on and I should do a separate blog post about the setup. Here are I just cherry-picked some recent configuration favorites of mine: ;; ;; Superb way to move between Emacs windows ;; Shift+arrow keys (windmove-default-keybindings) ;; Resize emacs according to the display resoluton (defun set-frame-size-according-to-resolution () (interactive) (if window-system (progn (if (> (x-display-pixel-width) 1900) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'width 260)) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'width 80))) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'height (/ (- (x-display-pixel-height) 50) (frame-char-height)))) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'top 10)) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist (cons 'left 5)))))

twism 17y ago

ido.el to find files (require 'ido) (ido-mode t)

diN0bot 17y ago

i put third party .el files in .emacs.d and then set the load path in the first line of my .emacs file (setq load-path (append load-path (list "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d"))) some useful .el's auto-save-list/ highlight-current-line.el auto_save_list/ psvn.el backup-file-list/ pycomplete.el cpp-font-lock.el python-mode.el django-mode.el vc-.el doctest-mode.el zenburn.el rebindings are useful, such ctrl-q for M-x goto-line: (global-set-key "\C-q" 'goto-line) I cribbed the following from someone else, but i find it most awesome: ; ===== Put auto-save, backup files in one place === ;; Put autosave files (ie #foo#) in one place, not ;; scattered all over the file system! (defvar autosave-dir (concat "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d/auto-save-list/")) (make-directory autosave-dir t) (defun auto-save-file-name-p (filename) (string-match "^#.*#$" (file-name-nondirectory filename))) (defun make-auto-save-file-name () (concat autosave-dir (if buffer-file-name (concat "#" (file-name-nondirectory buffer-file-name) "#") (expand-file-name (concat "#%" (buffer-name) "#"))))) ;; Put backup files (ie foo~) in one place too. (The backup-directory-alist ;; list contains regexp=>directory mappings; filenames matching a regexp are ;; backed up in the corresponding directory. Emacs will mkdir it if necessary.) (defvar backup-dir (concat "/Users/diN0bot/.emacs.d/backup-file-list/")) (setq backup-directory-alist (list (cons "." backup-dir)))

vaporstun 17y ago

(setq comint-input-ring-size 2048) The default undo history is only 32. I like to be able to go further back.

jonshea 17y ago

http://github.com/jonshea/config-files/blob/master/.emacs http://github.com/jonshea/config-files/blob/master/.emacs

justinweiss 17y ago

I work mostly inside git repositories, so this has been really valuable for scoping commands to the current repository: (defun my-git-root () (if buffer-file-name (let* ((current-directory (file-name-directory buffer-file-name)) (git-directory (concat current-directory ".git"))) (while (and current-directory (not (file-exists-p git-directory))) (setq current-directory (file-name-directory (substring current-directory 0 -1))) (setq git-directory (concat current-directory ".git"))) current-directory))) I also hated editing system files until I added this function, which I almost definitely cribbed from somewhere: (defun sudo-find-file (file-name) (interactive "FFind file (sudo): ") (find-file (concat "/sudo::" file-name))) I got sick of having to context-switch to the browser when I needed to do a quick search, which is where these come in: (defun go-to-doc (base-url) (let ((default (symbol-name (symbol-at-point)))) (browse-url (concat base-url (read-string "Search term: " nil nil default))))) (defun rails-doc () (interactive) (go-to-doc "http://apidock.com/rails/search?query=")) (defun ruby-doc () (interactive) (go-to-doc "http://apidock.com/ruby/search?query=")) I really, really hope package.el is built-in soon: (when (load (expand-file-name "~/.emacs.d/elpa/package.el")) (package-initialize)) and by far the most important line in the whole file: (server-start)

bkudria 17y ago

My (somewhat extensive) Emacs config can be found here: http://github.com/bkudria/dotfile http://github.com/bkudria/dotfile