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Emacs is special regarding UIs

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Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#201

Post by trenchgun »

auslegung wrote: post #110
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #45

Emacs and org-mode is frequently mentioned on HN as being awesome, but I don't feel like I could ever switch; I've got enough issues with vim already. For one, all the keyboard shortcuts and commands that you have to learn; I don't know if I have the capacity to learn all that anymore, not without deliberate practice, while in modern editors you can get by with keyboard + mouse and slowly learn some new shortcuts her…

Others have given great recommendations for emacs options that lower the learning curve, but if you're interested in vim instead of emacs, onivim does the same with vim. https://onivim.github.io

There is also Spacevim https://spacevim.org/

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#202

Post by jwr »

boogies wrote: post #141
jwr wrote: post #11

One begins to understand the advantages of this approach after 10-15 years or so. I feel that I am constantly being forced into new "UI paradigms", and it isn't always a change for the better. I started with DOS (Norton Commander, anyone? to this day there is no comparable tool), then Windows 3.0 and 3.1 (which was mostly garbage and I did not enjoy the UI at all). I then started using Linux and discovered Emacs. Whe…

> Norton Commander, anyone? to this day there is no comparable tool What’s the problem with Midnight Commander and/or the 23 other programs at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander#Norton_Comman... ?

Midnight Commander is nowhere near where Norton Commander was in terms of usability. Some of that is because of platform restrictions (terminal and keyboard access limitations) and some because of a difference in philosophy.

Norton Commander was simple, but it got the simple things right.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#203

Post by hosh »

This is something Richard Stallman has advocated for. Free software was not just about the availability of source code, but also about making sure software can function well on lower powered devices, lower bandwidth environment, or people who cannot use the same kind of interfaces.

There was an essay discussing this ... but I do not recall it now.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#204

Post by jonrx »

LandR wrote: post #144
melling wrote: post #3

Emacs Lisp is slow. There has been a multi-decade effort to make Guile support ELisp, and using Guile to make Emacs more performant. Cross platform UI, with a faster Lisp, would allow Emacs to be even more special.

My experience on windows is that emacs is unusably slow. Multi-second lag on type and navigating isn't acceptable. Org-mode is especially bad.

I think it's related to the fact that emacs has multiple (very) small files and short-lived processes, which does not work well/fast on Windows. For a while, I ran Xubuntu in a VM just to use emacs, because the performance on my Surface book 2 was unacceptable.

I ended up going in the other direction: kept emacs, got mostly rid of windows (I have it in a VM for the odd occasion where I need to use a windows-specific program. The fact that my company is flexible on the work OS is a huge bonus for me.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#205

Post by II2II »

bartread wrote: post #123

This is somewhat oblique to the content of the post but "special" is about right. "Unnecessarily obtuse", particularly from a contemporary perspective, might be a less kind way to describe it. I could say the same about the documentation which, frankly, is not great at making you immediately productive. It's written like an academic treastise, not a tutorial for a piece of software that exists to help you get stuff d…

Emacs is an old piece of software that has historical baggage. I would imagine that the window and frame terminology is a product of their time: the use of window would have made sense prior to X. Another term had to be introduced when X support came along.

It is also a piece of software where changing the terminology is very difficult. While a non-scriptable program could simply change the documentation and be done with it, Emacs would either have to change the names of exposed functions (breaking compatibility) or have one set of terminology for scripting and another while discussing the user interface.

Perhaps better choices could have been made, but the issue is non-trivial.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#206

Post by rusk »

NateEag wrote: post #135
rusk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't even have to need filesystem API if you're just using it as an emacs client connecting to an emacs server. Your remark about GDPR is kind of strange ... not sure what that would have to do with anything ... GDPR applies to people and organisations, not their tools.

The requirement to advertise "we use cookies" and spam you with popups when you visit a site is frustrating for highly technical users. OP is saying that Emacs-as-website would be frustrating if it had those popups.

You don’t have to do that unless you’re hosting a public site ... and even so if it’s a private session and you’d logged in this wouldn’t be required. Logging in is seen as a tacit acknowledgment that you consent to being tracked, cause how would I have. A personal session otherwise.

The cookies warning is all about notifying the casual reader who might otherwise believe they were passively browsing static content.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#207

Post by morelisp »

jimmyvalmer wrote: post #169
bartread wrote: post #123

This is somewhat oblique to the content of the post but "special" is about right. "Unnecessarily obtuse", particularly from a contemporary perspective, might be a less kind way to describe it. I could say the same about the documentation which, frankly, is not great at making you immediately productive. It's written like an academic treastise, not a tutorial for a piece of software that exists to help you get stuff d…

> like the key bindings for switching ... being far too similar and easy to confuse for a newbie. You must be referring to `C-x b` vs. `C-x C-b`. I remember getting apoplectic over this in 1995. I remain aggrieved to this day.

I suspect this is actually `C-x k` vs. `C-x o`.

My recommendation would be to bind `C-x C-k` to `kill-this-buffer` and unbind `C-x k`, or bind `C-x C-o` to a hydra that lets you repeat `C-o` i.e. hold down ctrl and repeat `o`, to cycle windows. Or both.

Alternate, try out `ace-window`.

I'm not sure about "too easy to confuse for a newbie." These kind of mistakes only happen when you are switching buffers rapidly without checking prompts, and newbies won't be doing that. And the default mnemonics are (unlike much of Emacs) good for these tasks. So rebinding doesn't feel like a big ask.

(Agreed `C-x b` should be removed imo.)

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#208

Post by pmoriarty »

swiley wrote: post #54
jwr wrote: post #11

One begins to understand the advantages of this approach after 10-15 years or so. I feel that I am constantly being forced into new "UI paradigms", and it isn't always a change for the better. I started with DOS (Norton Commander, anyone? to this day there is no comparable tool), then Windows 3.0 and 3.1 (which was mostly garbage and I did not enjoy the UI at all). I then started using Linux and discovered Emacs. Whe…

I really honestly don’t like X11. I’ve poked around in the source a couple times and it confuses and scares me. I love the idea of moving entirely to just one graphics API and keeping the server simple. Until wayland has decent performance though I don’t think I’ll ever switch. None of the apps I use are native (except possibly Firefox and some EDA tools but only if gtk is set up right?) I thought my new phone would…

"I love the idea of moving entirely to just one graphics API and keeping the server simple"

I'm all for that, if and only if Wayland doesn't force me to give up what I consider to be important features of X.

Apart from the aforementioned remote access, a post titled "Why I'm not going to switch to Wayland yet"[1] goes in to some requirements that I also find important:

- Programmatic output configuration (xrandr, arandr, etc.)

- CLI clipboard access (xsel, xclip)

- Third party app launcher/window switcher (rofi, dmenu, albert, docky).

- Clipboard managers (parcellite, klipper, Gpaste, clipman, etc.)

- Third party screen shot/capture/share (shutter, OBS, ffmpeg, import, peek, scrot, VNC, etc.)

- Color picker (gpick, gcolor3, kcolorchooser)

- xdotool

That post is a couple of years old now, and I've been told in other HN threads on Wayland that some of this stuff is being worked on now, but until it's all there and it is actually mature and full-featured, I would not willingly switch to Wayland.

[1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/wayland/comments/85q78y/why_im_not_...

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#209

Post by Jtsummers »

fierarul wrote: post #177
hpfr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I'd call it re implementation when the original Emacs is older than DOS and GNU Emacs, still maintained today, is older than Windows (1985). Emacs's keybindings, font rendering, and scrolling were just as valid then as any other approach. Let's at least avoid comparisons to Swing :). You can bind copy-and-paste as well as any other text wrangling functionality to whatever you want and there are ways t…

I understand, but 35 years have passed, no need to stick to the original implementation that long. I'm a super basic user and nowadays basically have Emacs open all day just for org-mode. Nothing else. To me it seems a terrible text editor and has an UI that's foreign on macOS and Ubuntu. It's unclear to me under what OS/Window manager/etc Emacs fits right at home. It seems out of this world. I can imagine there may…

A reason to stick so closely to the original model is that it has lasted 35 years. There are few other programs that have lasted as long without feeling an urgency to change with the times, and mostly by the base system being similarly stubborn about changing or by being incredibly simple.

The fact that it's, essentially, the same on every OS I use it on is another selling point. I bring my .emacs file and make minor tweaks for different OSes (due to where files/programs are if absolute paths or relative paths in the user home directory are different). It always works the same once I've made those small changes (and they are small, and once done my Windows .emacs is good on any Windows box). Again, there are few other programs like this. At a minimum, you often end up with subtly different keybindings (macOS using the command key, Windows using control, and Linux using control or alt) and subtly different layouts that break workflow and habit.

Re: Emacs is special regarding UIs

#210

Post by gkya »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #45

Emacs and org-mode is frequently mentioned on HN as being awesome, but I don't feel like I could ever switch; I've got enough issues with vim already. For one, all the keyboard shortcuts and commands that you have to learn; I don't know if I have the capacity to learn all that anymore, not without deliberate practice, while in modern editors you can get by with keyboard + mouse and slowly learn some new shortcuts her…

> For one, all the keyboard shortcuts and commands that you have to learn

> Second, it feels like you have to spend a lot of time to set it all up.

You learn a subset that's relevant to you. Also there is which-key which helps _a lot_.

But, I mean how do you learn, say, Spanish? Do you just drop English and start speaking Spanish to everyone from day one? No, it's something that happens in a dedicated time. Once you feel comfortable enough, and when the chance presents itself, you being integrating it to your daily life.

Similarly with Emacs, you could just start playing with it, maybe say editing your personal scripts with it at times, using Org mode for some notes. And then slowly integrate it to your life.

No matter how much work is done in the UI compartment, a tool as comprehensive and customisable as Emacs will never be learnt in one day. There won't be any magic bullets. It's always like learning a language.

The important consideration is if the returns are worth the investments here. Unlike other editors---which are great software in their own ways, anybody who says "hackers should use Emacs or Vim" or similar BS just don't know what they're saying---, Emacs provides some particular opportunities, which depending on your workflow might not be worth it.

> Third, will it replace an IDE?

Yes, you can get it to do all that. OOTB is hard, but AFAIU projects like Spacemacs and Doom are kinda making that happen.

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