"Lisp free", "Emacs-like". Pick one. You can't claim to have both of those in the same editor.
To be fair the original EMACS did not have Lisp scripting, neither do implementations like MicroEmacs. Are those not Emacs-like?
Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
41–50 of 70 posts
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#42ようこそ As an aside. What were the CJK IME issues you resolved? Was it related to win32 emacs IME issues?
Thank you for the welcome! Yes, it is exactly related to the Windows Emacs IME issues. Emacs is a product I deeply respect, but configuring it to handle Japanese input smoothly on Windows has always been a challenge for me.
There were two main pain points I desperately wanted to solve for my daily workflow:
1. Prefix keys being swallowed by the IME: In Windows Emacs, if your IME is ON and you try to split the window using C-x 2, the 2 (or full-width ２) gets captured by the IME. The command fails, meaning you constantly have to toggle the IME OFF just to run basic window or buffer commands. In elecxzy, I implemented fine-grained control: when the editor enters a "prefix state" (like after pressing C-x or C-c), it actively prevents the IME from capturing the next keystroke. This allows you to smoothly execute commands like C-x 2 or C-x b even while the IME is left ON.
2. IME User Experience (Positioning and Fonts): In Windows Emacs, unless you apply specific patches or complex configurations, the IME candidate window often fails to appear right next to the text you are typing. Furthermore, the font used during IME composition often differs from the editor's main font. These details really hurt the overall typing UX. By using Electron, elecxzy places an invisible exactly at the virtual cursor's pixel position. This lets the browser engine handle the IME natively. The candidate window always tracks the cursor perfectly and the composition text seamlessly matches the editor's styling, without requiring any special configuration from the user—it works smoothly just by running elecxzy.exe.
Eliminating these small, daily frictions was my biggest motivation for building this!
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#43Just to be clear: you say by ‘dropping’ lisp you’re keeping it lightweight but it’s based on electron? So what does ‘lightweight’ mean in your opinion?
Thank you for the sharp question! You are absolutely right that Electron itself has a baseline memory footprint that isn't small. To give a clearer picture of what I mean by "lightweight," here is a quick startup comparison video I took a while ago: https://x.com/elecxzy/status/2022003439757336583 (Sorry for the Japanese text in the video!) Left: VS Code Middle: Windows Notepad Right: elecxzy As you can see, elecxzy…
How often do you start your editor? I start emacs once at booot and keep it running, using emacsclient to open additional files from the command line.
Look, I think that writing your own editor is useful because one learns a lot. And of course, it doesn't need to use Lisp or even be extendable at all. But it's not Emacs any longer if you remove the Lisp part.
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#44With respect, you should learn Lisp - it will allow you to turn Emacs into whatever you want. In my opinion just keeping the Emacs keybindings but dropping all the other advantages of Emacs is missing the point entirely, and using Electron instead is just - as the saying goes - "adding insult to injury".
I was going to ask. I'm not big on Emacs, but ripping out Lisp isn't that removing the part that makes Emacs Emacs? Like, they removed the important part.
Pretty much yes. Emacs is basically a Lisp execution environment with a customisable text-editor included.
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#45I don't mean to tear down your project at all. If you want to make an editor, I think that's great. I'm actually working on a text editor of my own. But I think that you've fundamentally misunderstood the appeal of Emacs. It has little to do with the key-bindings, or even any particular part of the user interface. Many people don't even use them. Doom, a very popular Emacs distribution, enables Vim-like bindings by d…
Thank you for the incredibly insightful comment. I completely agree with your definition of Emacs, and I have the utmost respect for its true nature as a fully programmable Lisp environment. You are absolutely right—that infinite extensibility is what makes Emacs unparalleled.
When I call my project "Emacs-like," I certainly don't mean to deny or replace that beautiful philosophy. I am simply a software engineer who deeply loves the UI, UX, and keybindings that Emacs pioneered.
My goal was just to recreate that specific physical experience as a standalone application. I truly love the sensation of operating an editor entirely by muscle memory and pure reflex—allowing the words in my head to flow seamlessly onto the screen without consciously thinking about the tool itself. I just wanted to package that exact typing experience into a zero-setup app.
By the way, I am very curious about the project you mentioned! What kind of text editor are you working on? I would love to hear about it.
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#46ようこそ As an aside. What were the CJK IME issues you resolved? Was it related to win32 emacs IME issues?
Thank you for the welcome! Yes, it is exactly related to the Windows Emacs IME issues. Emacs is a product I deeply respect, but configuring it to handle Japanese input smoothly on Windows has always been a challenge for me. There were two main pain points I desperately wanted to solve for my daily workflow: 1. Prefix keys being swallowed by the IME: In Windows Emacs, if your IME is ON and you try to split the window…
I understand now and thank you for explaining the issues to me.
Good luck on your project!
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#47With respect, you should learn Lisp - it will allow you to turn Emacs into whatever you want. In my opinion just keeping the Emacs keybindings but dropping all the other advantages of Emacs is missing the point entirely, and using Electron instead is just - as the saying goes - "adding insult to injury".
Thank you for your candid feedback. I completely agree with your point—the true power of Emacs lies in its Lisp environment and infinite customizability.
If my goal was to build a true successor or alternative to Emacs, dropping Lisp and using Electron would indeed be a completely wrong approach.
However, my goal was much simpler and narrower. I wanted a zero-setup, standalone notepad that natively supports Emacs' complex prefix keybindings (like C-x 2 to split windows or C-x b to switch buffers) right out of the box. While simple keys like C-n or C-f can be easily configured in most modern editors, perfectly replicating the sequence and feel of prefix keys usually requires installing plugins and writing complex configurations.
Additionally, as I mentioned in another thread, using web technologies allowed me to solve the Japanese IME cursor tracking issues on Windows natively.
So you are absolutely right: this project misses the core philosophy of what makes Emacs great. But for my specific daily need—a lightweight notepad with built-in Emacs muscle memory—it perfectly scratches my own itch.
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But I think that you've fundamentally misunderstood the appeal of Emacs. It has little to do with the key-bindings, or even any particular part of the user interface. You mean the default keybindings for readline and macos? I think you're greatly overestimating the extent to which you can speak for other emacs users. I love the default keybindings and never even thought to change them, and I very much understand be…
Vim keybindings are not optimized for typing , but for editing .
Yeah! For typing, you could use cat and be done with it. But you think about editing, then ed(1) start to make sense. You think about it a little more and ex(1) makes sense. You want better visual feedback and vi(1) is born. And then you want more programming features and you’ll get vim.
Emacs is what you get when you sidestep the whole process with something as versatile as lisp. Instead of being economical with commands, you just create the specific actions you want
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#49Many, many years ago I was a dedicated Emacs user. My recollection is that there was a very lightweight binary that would launch a single window utilising an existing Emacs process that (of course) you usually alrwady had running, to show a dedicated window for editing a single file - which is Notepad's raison d'etre. So as a Notepad replacement I can't really see a place in the world for something like this. I am no…
Thank you for the thoughtful comment and advice! The lightweight binary you mentioned is likely emacsclient, which is indeed a good way to use a running Emacs process as a quick editor.
You are right that if elecxzy were just for editing a single file, it might not offer much over a standard Notepad. However, the real value I wanted to achieve is the ability to view, edit, and integrate multiple sources using muscle memory, without touching the mouse.
While it runs as a simple standalone window, it supports Emacs window splitting commands like C-x 2, C-x 3, and C-x 1.
Here is a quick video I posted a while ago (the text is in Japanese, but you can see the window splitting in action): https://x.com/elecxzy/status/2020370174818631769
As for contributing to the upstream Emacs to fix CJK issues, I agree that it would be a more impactful approach for the community. But I really appreciate your advice about doing software for myself. I will continue to work on this project for my own use and enjoyment. Thank you for the great advice!
Re: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for the sharp question! You are absolutely right that Electron itself has a baseline memory footprint that isn't small. To give a clearer picture of what I mean by "lightweight," here is a quick startup comparison video I took a while ago: https://x.com/elecxzy/status/2022003439757336583 (Sorry for the Japanese text in the video!) Left: VS Code Middle: Windows Notepad Right: elecxzy As you can see, elecxzy…
How often do you start your editor? I start emacs once at booot and keep it running, using emacsclient to open additional files from the command line. Look, I think that writing your own editor is useful because one learns a lot. And of course, it doesn't need to use Lisp or even be extendable at all. But it's not Emacs any longer if you remove the Lisp part.
Thank you for the comment!
To answer your question: I actually start my editor many times a day. I know the "start once and use emacsclient" workflow is the standard and most efficient way for Emacs users, but I personally tend to open and close editor windows frequently, just like using a simple notepad.
Regarding the Lisp part, I completely agree with you. As I mentioned in other threads, if you remove Lisp, it is absolutely not Emacs anymore.
I am not trying to build a true Emacs, nor am I trying to deny its great philosophy. I just deeply love the physical typing experience and muscle memory of Emacs keybindings. My goal was simply to extract that specific UX and package it into a standalone app that I could run immediately without any setup.
So you are right—it is just a personal project to recreate the typing feel I love, rather than an Emacs replacement!