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

121 pointsby procrastinatus17 lat temu52 comments

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?

59 comments

yummyfajitas17 lat temu

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.

mark_h17 lat temu

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-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/ and http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/KeyBindingNotation

mahmud17 lat temu

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".

vaporstun17 lat temu

Firemacs, Firefox extension which gives emacs keybindings.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4141

parbo17 lat temu

C-S-t in Firefox will bring it back. Don't know if the content of the text field remains though.

mapleoin17 lat temu

It does. It's not that hard to test.

wingo17 lat temu

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 :)

jmhodges17 lat temu

I am completely surprised no one has linked to technomancy's emacs-start-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

devin17 lat temu

technomancy is a great developer and an excellent teacher

scottw17 lat temu

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)

chairface17 lat temu

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.

al3x17 lat temu

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

tptacek17 lat temu

Thanks, I didn't know about Rinari.

lacker17 lat temu

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.

mapleoin17 lat temu

  ;; 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.

chairface17 lat temu

True, but I'm pretty sure mapping to C-m also maps it to the enter key.

[deleted]17 lat temu

j_baker17 lat temu

uniquify is awesome!

radu_floricica17 lat temu

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)

justinhj17 lat temu

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-searchin...

I like to send gmail

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_baker17 lat temu

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.

technomancy17 lat temu

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.

yummyfajitas17 lat temu

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/

justinweiss17 lat temu

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)

dirtyaura17 lat temu

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)))))

j_baker17 lat temu

I use 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.

yummyfajitas17 lat temu

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)))

[deleted]17 lat temu

aiiie17 lat temu

http://bitbucket.org/[redacted]/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs

http://bitbucket.org/[redacted]/dotfiles/src/tip/.emacs.d/pl...

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.

mikedouglas17 lat temu

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)))))

diiq17 lat temu

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.

diN0bot17 lat temu

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)))

kirubakaran17 lat temu

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

coffeemug17 lat temu

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

Ben6517 lat temu

It's hard to live without:

(fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p)

[deleted]17 lat temu

(1)

[deleted]17 lat temu

(1)

elq17 lat temu

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

grandalf17 lat temu

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

bmac17 lat temu

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/ wonderful for coding html mockups and django templates.

my github repo if anyone cares to take a peek: http://github.com/bmac/emacs

gcv17 lat temu

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.

vasudeva17 lat temu

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 '>'.

johngunderman17 lat temu

http://github.com/johngunderman/emacs/blob/master/emacs-john...

Mine's pretty minimal at the moment, but it does the job.

jws17 lat temu

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.

frossie17 lat temu

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.

devin17 lat temu

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.

brianobush17 lat temu

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.

apgwoz17 lat temu

Mine has:

(require 'activator) (activator-start)

Which then looks at all of the stuff here: http://github.com/apgwoz/emacs-config

bkudria17 lat temu

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

larrywright17 lat temu

Much of this is cribbed from other places (credited where possible):

http://github.com/larrywright/emacs

jonshea17 lat temu

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

vaporstun17 lat temu

(setq comint-input-ring-size 2048)

The default undo history is only 32. I like to be able to go further back.

[deleted]17 lat temu

leif17 lat temu

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

bkudria17 lat temu

Oh, you use (pessimism-mode t) too?

twism17 lat temu

ido.el to find files

    (require 'ido)
    (ido-mode t)

gibsonf117 lat temu

;; 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.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 (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
  )