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Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

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Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#91

Post by e3bc54b2 »

michaelanckaert wrote: post #68
BeetleB wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly recommend storing your config in an org file and using Babel to load the init. I find it the only way to preserve my sanity as my config grows.

I actually switched back to a plain elisp config file instead of having an org file loaded by babel. After spending about a year with an org-mode powered config file I felt like the surrounding "prose" just distracted me. The very few lines of config that required some explanation were easily documented with one or two lines of comments in elisp. After using it myself and viewing plenty of org-mode powered config fil…

The surrounding prose are distdacting, byt surrounding code is even more distracting. Org-mode allows simply folding away stuff not under focus, and it helps a lot with ADHD.

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#92

Post by catern »

dmortin wrote: post #4

Interesting, but you know what might even be better? If it could be done directly from emacs. E.g. if you start with a brand new emacs then you could paste a line into scratch, eval it, and then these question would come up, you give answers and then an emacs file is generated, written, evalled and you get your configured emacs instantly. But of course a web interface also has its advantages, it's prettier than bareb…

The customize interface built into Emacs already provides this. Though it supports customizing far more things, so it might be overwhelming. Maybe a new user customization group would be good.

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#93

Post by daptaq »

ravar wrote: post #85

Maybe i am alone with my kloc+ .emacs.d with multiple patched functions but this website seems to miss the whole point of configuring emacs to me.

Could you elaborate on what you mean? The intention is not to have a finished configuration that requires no more work, but to provide a template on which further customizations can be made.

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#94

Post by daptaq »

karmajunkie wrote: post #71
daptaq wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no experience with Evil or that entire space. I would be interested to look into how the situation can be improved, but then again, I do believe that evil-mode is fundamentally just an emulation layer, and shouldn't be regarded as an equal to the regular keybindings.

> I do believe that evil-mode is fundamentally just an emulation layer, and shouldn't be regarded as an equal to the regular keybindings. With all due respect, that's rather condescending and an example of the kind of myopia that religious adherents of both emacs and vi get accused of. fundamentally both emacs' native keybindings and vi keybindings are methods of connecting keyboard events to elisp functions. That's…

I understand your point, but I am not convinced. Nit because I belive in some inherent superiority of some or another set of keybindings, but rather because on the one hand evil isn't a perfect emulation (any somewhat experienced Vim user can always name me a few faults), and on the other the very need for evil-collections to bridge the gap between Emacsy conventions that packages conventionally use and Vims keys (e.g. Dired becomes practically useless if it were to overwritten by Evil keys).

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#95

Post by dmortin »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #88
bachmeier wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd be making it hard for someone who already knows Emacs to use it. It would be a burden for a longtime user to have to enter one keyboard shortcut to move into legacy mode? As opposed to making it weird and difficult for everyone else and then watching Emacs die.

Sadly emacs as a community is moving too glacially towards user friendliness for the sake of maintaining backwards compatibility. I don't see this trend changing any time soon, so fewer people every year will stick with it.

That's why there are starter kits and configurators like the posted link.

New users should not be recommended to use barebones emacs, because it's too alien. They should use a nicely preconfigured system instead.

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#96

Post by rmnull »

daptaq wrote: post #21
rmnull wrote: post #10

Neat. I like the fact that it is opinionated providing a decent setup to get things done. Here are some of the things i was confused about, or thought could be improved. 1. The label of checkbox don't seem to respond to clicks. 2. On Font Input, There's no description or selections on what inputs are acceptable. 3. There is no mention of Javascript in programming language support section. iirc typescript package can…

As you might have noticed, I am not a web developer, but I will try and look into resolvi g the issues you brought up. I have an idea of how to solve the font issue ( https://git.sr.ht/~pkal/ecg/tree/master/item/ecg.lisp#L342 ), but on my systems this never gives me all the fonts. The programming language section is also difficult, content-wise, because I don't use most of those languages, and am thus not familiar wi…

As an alternative solution, you can ask if the user would like to setup their font on start of emacs and invoke `menu-set-font`. But i think this won't work for people who want to run their emacs in console, another problem i see with this solution is, it would prompt every time emacs starts, which would lead to more confusion.

> I have an idea of how to solve the font issue (https://git.sr.ht/~pkal/ecg/tree/master/item/ecg.lisp#L342), but on my systems this never gives me all the fonts.

if i read it correctly `document.fonts` reads like "get all the fonts used on this web page" rather than "get me all the fonts installed on this computer".

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#97

Post by karmajunkie »

daptaq wrote: post #94
karmajunkie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do believe that evil-mode is fundamentally just an emulation layer, and shouldn't be regarded as an equal to the regular keybindings. With all due respect, that's rather condescending and an example of the kind of myopia that religious adherents of both emacs and vi get accused of. fundamentally both emacs' native keybindings and vi keybindings are methods of connecting keyboard events to elisp functions. That's…

I understand your point, but I am not convinced. Nit because I belive in some inherent superiority of some or another set of keybindings, but rather because on the one hand evil isn't a perfect emulation (any somewhat experienced Vim user can always name me a few faults), and on the other the very need for evil-collections to bridge the gap between Emacsy conventions that packages conventionally use and Vims keys (e.…

ok, i think i went off half cocked here and read more into your earlier post than i should have. it sounds like you take issue with a particular implementation rather than the core concept, which is of course reasonable.

mea culpa

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#98

Post by daptaq »

rmnull wrote: post #96
daptaq wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you might have noticed, I am not a web developer, but I will try and look into resolvi g the issues you brought up. I have an idea of how to solve the font issue ( https://git.sr.ht/~pkal/ecg/tree/master/item/ecg.lisp#L342 ), but on my systems this never gives me all the fonts. The programming language section is also difficult, content-wise, because I don't use most of those languages, and am thus not familiar wi…

As an alternative solution, you can ask if the user would like to setup their font on start of emacs and invoke `menu-set-font`. But i think this won't work for people who want to run their emacs in console, another problem i see with this solution is, it would prompt every time emacs starts, which would lead to more confusion. > I have an idea of how to solve the font issue ( https://git.sr.ht/~pkal/ecg/tree/master/…

> As an alternative solution, you can ask if the user would like to setup their font on start of emacs and invoke `menu-set-font`. But i think this won't work for people who want to run their emacs in console, another problem i see with this solution is, it would prompt every time emacs starts, which would lead to more confusion.

Interesting idea. It might be possible to generate a snippet that will remove itself after the first initialization, but if that doesn't work at least a comment could be inserted.

> if i read it correctly `document.fonts` reads like "get all the fonts used on this web page" rather than "get me all the fonts installed on this computer".

Ok, I see. Another possibility would be to use https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/FontFaceSet to check for the avaliablility fixed set of popular fonts.

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#99

Post by daptaq »

gnufx wrote: post #83
daptaq wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say so, customize is a useful interface to get an overview of all the options a package or feature might provide, but without any order or structure beyond the group hierarchy.

I don't know what's the basis for denying it, but the parent is correct about the intention when it was developed. I don't understand why it should be thought to imply Lisp knowledge. It is useful to lay out the customization possibilities, but that's a bonus.

Ok, I might have misread the comment. But to clarify my own position, I it doesn't necessarily have to be the lack of Experience with Elisp, but with the way you use Emacs and how it behaves (managing buffers and windows, how scrolling works, the little differences in how GUI features behave, etc.). To make use of the easy customization interface, and not get frustrated by it, it help to have some basic experience with Emacs. My intention is to provide a guided tour of what someone might want to have in Emacs, before they begin using it. That way they can get common annoyances out of the way before starting, and have less friction when dealing with whatever remains.

Re: Show HN: Emacs Configuration Generator

#100

Post by chimprich »

daptaq wrote: post #62
lvass wrote: post #53

Neat tool. I tried generating a config similar to mine, and it was surprisingly close, although it looks quite different without use-package. Did you not add use-package because it's not in the repositories you're using, or something else? Great choice adding Modus themes! I feel like making something similar just for hydras. A few mostly minor things I think could improve: * undo-tree. * y-or-n-p. Typing yes or no i…

Thanks for noticing the issues, I will fix the issues and add the other features. > Did you not add use-package because it's not in the repositories you're using, or something else? Mainly that, but also I am not too fond of use-package. If I add support, it would be with my own package (setup) as an alternative. > Great choice adding Modus themes! Well they are bundled in by default. > * undo-tree. Not sure about th…

> I am not too fond of use-package.

What do you dislike about it?

It seems like almost a standard now. Even if you don't personally like it, it might be useful to beginner Emacs users to use the tools that everyone else is using. I could say the same about helm.

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