Ask HN: Emacs users on OS X, what's your setup?

I also stumbled upon this yesterday, for making the rest of OS X more like emacs (or VI). OS X already has emacs keybindings for all text areas, but it is missing some functionality (backward|forward-word). OS X has a concept called input managers, which allow you to plumb in your own custom behaviour.

http://subtlegradient.com/articles/2005/12/27/gus-mueller-fl...

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/02/04/vi-input-manager/

One thing I find useful is the Its All Text! add-on for Firefox. It lets me use emacs as an external editor for any browser text area. Its ideal for blog entries, web mail or any filling in text in a small text entry area (like this one on HN!).

In addition to giving me all the power of emacs editing, getting the text inside emacs means I can more easily use templates, save stuff off in text files etc.

You need to start an emacs server in your .emacs: (server-start). I also (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'flyspell-mode) so that I get spell correction. With my setup I just control-e in any text area and it pops open a new buffer in my emacs session.

I seem to be the only one here who likes how Aquamacs uses both Mac and Emacs key bindings. I find myself using both. There is probably some reason I sometimes use the Emacs kill/yank/etc. vs. when I use Mac cut/copy/paste, but I'm not sure what it is.

I also use Emacs in Windows and Unix at work, but I imagine it is sitting in front of my Mac that triggers the cmd key bindings in my head. Maybe it's just that, with Aquamacs, whatever key binding first pops into my head will probably work, so I don't have to worry about context switching so much.

I also agree that Option is the right key to use for Meta. I don't think I would ever get used to pressing cmd and not having it activate the Mac key bindings. Probably because I have been using Macs in some capacity since 1987.

The other "Mac-like" thing about Aquamacs is how it pre-bundles so many of the useful modes. Going out and loading each mode you want one at a time and tweaking it just so seems so Linux to me. I like how Aquamacs tries to give you something that Just Works for most of what you want it to do, instead of something more bare bones that you are expected to configure out the wazoo. I discovered both SBCL and Aquamacs when I wanted to learn Common Lisp, and Aquamacs coming with SLIME pre-installed made one less thing I had to fuss with.

- Caps-lock == Ctrl - plist hacked so the whole system (at least cocoa-apps) behave emacs-like (Apple is meta) - carbon emacs, because (fullscreen, extensions work, like to have the default GNU set-up as a starting point, and there was 1 thing Cocoa Emacs did not right but I forgot what it was) - I use color themes a lot, I plan to have each major mode auto-choosing one; most of my .emacs pets are not implemented yet, in a way the real work tends to be more fascinating - org-mode as "productivity app" and backbone for DTP

Sorry the formating. Here is it again:

Caps-lock == Ctrl

plist hacked so the whole system (at least cocoa-apps) behave emacs-like (Apple is meta)

carbon emacs (not the one running under the CLI, the .app), because:

(fullscreen, extensions work, like to have the default GNU set-up as a starting point, and there was 1 thing Cocoa Emacs did not right but I forgot what it was)

I use color themes a lot, I plan to have each major mode auto-choosing one; most of my .emacs pets are not implemented yet, in a way the real work tends to be more fascinating

org-mode as "productivity app" and backbone for DTP