Emacs Bedrock: A minimal Emacs starter kit

I would probably recommend this to new users. I don't generally recommend starter kits because it defeats the real purpose of emacs which is to hack it. But this one seems to just get over the initial barrier of it looking ugly by default which enables happy hacking more quickly. I like it! (And isn't Emacs 29 great?!)

Btw, one thing that probably all starter kits should do is disable JIT compilation warnings:

`(setq native-comp-async-report-warnings-errors 'silent)`

Maybe JIT-enabled builds aren't generally available right now, but once they are this default would scare a lot of new users right off the bat.

First, for every IDE experience you definitely need flycheck mode:

  (use-package flycheck
    :diminish flycheck-mode
    :init
    (global-flycheck-mode))

This will underline syntax errors for you. (It'll use the language server as a backend once lsp-mode runs.)

Next we install and set up "company-mode" for simple autocompletion. Basically, it starts the (minor) company mode after starting "lsp-mode", sets up key bindings and reduces the delay to zero:

  (use-package company
      :after lsp-mode
      :hook (lsp-mode . company-mode)
      :bind
      (:map company-active-map
            ("" . company-complete-selection))
      (:map lsp-mode-map
            ("" . company-indent-or-complete-common))
      :custom
      (company-minimum-prefix-length 1)
      (company-idle-delay 0.0))

This stuff is for basic JSX/TSX support you'll need to work on React projects. "web-mode" is old-school but it still works for me quite well. Since Emacs 29 you can use "typescript-ts-mode" instead but I haven't tried it out yet:

  (use-package web-mode
    :config
    ;; plain HTML may also contain JS
    (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.html?\\'" . web-mode))
    ;; JSX
    (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.jsx\\'" . web-mode))
    ; TSX
    (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.tsx\\'" . web-mode))
    ;; web-mode overrides these key strokes with "link" and "reload"
    ;; which I *never* needed. But I love compile mode:
    :bind (:map web-mode-map
                ("C-c C-l" . 'compile)
                ("C-c C-r" . 'recompile)))

The next stuff is for setting up lsp mode integrating the various language modes and company mode in a single user experience:

  (defun gernoti/lsp-mode-setup ()
    "Gernot's Emacs: My personal modifications to lsp mode."
    (setq lsp-headerline-breadcrumb-segments '(path-up-to-project file symbols))
    (lsp-headerline-breadcrumb-mode)
    (lsp-treemacs-sync-mode 1))

  ;; I am still using "web-mode" for react projects. The function
  ;; activates lsp mode only if the file actually contains
  ;; javascript/typescript (IIRC it'll also work for TSX):
  (defun gernoti/lsp-deferred-maybe-jsx ()
    (if (string= web-mode-content-type "jsx")
        (lsp-deferred)))

  (use-package lsp-mode
    :commands (lsp lsp-deferred)
    :hook
    (lsp-mode . gernoti/lsp-mode-setup)
    (js-mode . lsp-deferred)
    (typescript-mode . lsp-deferred)
    ;; We only turn lsp-mode on if web-mode runs in JSX or TSX mode.
    (web-mode . gernoti/lsp-deferred-maybe-jsx)
    :init
    (setq lsp-keymap-prefix "C-c l")  ;; Or 'C-l', 's-l'
    :config
    ;; You want this if you want to discover all lsp mode's goodies.
    ;; Though I found I actually don't use many features, really.
    (lsp-enable-which-key-integration t))

At first startup it'll download and run the default js/ts language server. It seems to be working well for me.

You definitely want the "lsp-ui" extensions for jumping around in definitions, too:

  (use-package lsp-ui
    :after lsp-mode
    :hook (lsp-mode . lsp-ui-mode)
    :custom
    (lsp-ui-doc-position 'bottom)
    ;; remap "M-." and "M-?" to point to the nice looking lsp-ui
    ;; replacements
    :config
    (define-key lsp-ui-mode-map [remap xref-find-definitions] #'lsp-ui-peek-find-definitions)
    (define-key lsp-ui-mode-map [remap xref-find-references] #'lsp-ui-peek-find-references))

The thing is about emacs, it makes you self-sufficient. You can always change any behaviour you want to, including this.

I've never used prelude before. I just ran it for the very first time and this is what I did to discover what to change:

C-h k

Help buffer comes up for that key. It looks like it's bound to a lambda, which is actually a bit annoying as you can't jump to the definition or anything, but it's enough to see that it's in `guru-mode-map'.

Then I grepped the project for "guru" (I used C-c p s g because I figured out it was using Projectile and familiar with its default key bindings, but you could use M-x grep, M-x rgrep or just grep in whatever way you are familiar with).

I found this in the docs: https://prelude.emacsredux.com/en/latest/troubleshooting/#wa... (Note, I found and read this in emacs, in docs/troubleshooting.md, I'm just giving the web link here for convenience).

Basically just add `(setq prelude-guru nil)` to your init file.

Btw, for anyone wondering, to run these kind of starter kits "standalone", clone the repo and from within the repo run `emacs -Q --load init.el --init-directory=$(pwd)`. Otherwise it will try to use your actual init dir by default.

Thanks for the pointer to modus-theme. Vivendi-tinted is very close to what I normally run. Time to update to 29 and get rid of more customisation!

From what I remember magit is only slow on WSL, when interacting with a repository that is not located in the Linux subsystem i.e. laying in the windows user directory. But that might be wrong or also depend on other factors.