Irrespective of the merits of emacs itself, this feels like a nearly perfect introductory tutorial. I've never seriousny used emacs, but this made me want to go try it and made me feel like I would probably succeed. Good show, whoever wrote this.
Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
81–90 of 138 posts
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#82I'm learning Emacs for class, and I was wondering: do you use the same hand to hit the command/meta keys? For example, when I'm doing C-n or C-p, I am currently hitting the command key with my left hand, but the identifier with my right. Is this the normal way, or do most people use one hand to execute a command?
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#83I'm learning Emacs for class, and I was wondering: do you use the same hand to hit the command/meta keys? For example, when I'm doing C-n or C-p, I am currently hitting the command key with my left hand, but the identifier with my right. Is this the normal way, or do most people use one hand to execute a command?
I believe the general ergonomic advice is to hit the modifier and "normal" key each with a different hand, so you're doing it right. I try to follow that guideline, but I frequently make exceptions. This is especially true since I have caps lock mapped to ctrl, so I favor that left ctrl button regardless of the other keys I'm pressing.
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#84Emacs-related things I have learned recently: * Sticky modifiers: I don't know why it took me so long for me to activate these. The difference between holding Ctrl while hitting another key or just hitting Ctrl once before the next key makes a huge difference for me. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/StickyModifiers * Got an old-styled Thinkpad keyboard with the trackpoint buttons below the spacebar? I mapped the left b…
recent alternative https://github.com/chrisdone/god-mode
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#85> Go ahead and undo that change. How do I do that? Thanks for the guide by the way!
C-_ is undo in Emacs. That's hold Control, and press "underscore". On my keyboard (most keyboards?) this requires holding Shift and pressing the "minus" key. Hopefully that's clear.
C-/ is also undo, which is arguably easier to reach :)
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#86I'm learning Emacs for class, and I was wondering: do you use the same hand to hit the command/meta keys? For example, when I'm doing C-n or C-p, I am currently hitting the command key with my left hand, but the identifier with my right. Is this the normal way, or do most people use one hand to execute a command?
I believe the general ergonomic advice is to hit the modifier and "normal" key each with a different hand, so you're doing it right. I try to follow that guideline, but I frequently make exceptions. This is especially true since I have caps lock mapped to ctrl, so I favor that left ctrl button regardless of the other keys I'm pressing.
So for C-x, I should hit the command key with my right hand?
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#87I had tinkered with emacs over the years but mostly used vim for programming, until the past year or so when I started writing Haskell and LaTeX for school and put in a determined effort to use Emacs full time. I've found I like a 'regular' text editor more than vi's modes, and that (like rickdale's comment) when I've tried out other editors like Textmate or Sublime Text, they feel like they're missing something comp…
Interesting, I honestly was pretty confident no one who got used to modal editing ever wanted to go back to crazy key chording.
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
The starter packages like prelude and emacs-starter-kit are more like a learning to walk with a crutch when you have perfectly working legs. They offer an easy way to start but once you start using them you'll find it hard to do it the normal way (like when you need to modify your emacs config or add some new elisp that isn't included). It is better just to start emacs do C-h t and start learning, then add and config…
I might be biased (I'm the author), but I don't think that emacs-starter-kit prevents you from doing things the normal way. You can still modify your emacs config and include vendor elisp, and ESK doesn't make it more difficult. And with the tutorial - I have a pretty low opinion of it. I mean, it starts out talking about how to navigate up and down one screen - who cares about that when they're starting to learn a n…
That was kind of my point about the rough start, you won't get emacs to do the real work without putting time into figuring out how to get it to go.
The tutorial is more of a get you started and make sure you can actually edit text in emacs.
The most important parts of the tutorial are the how to save (which most people get to) and getting more help which is probably what people don't get to or understand. It isn't the best thing but it is okay if people make it through the end.
But you're right if you don't want to mess with your editor and `learn` emacs go for a starter kit or go for another editor with bells and whistles included.
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have problem with Elisp. That's actually lot easier than what IDEs offer as a way of customization (Java?), and that's one reason I am interested in Emacs :-). What I don't like is the transition period where I am not set up properly. It doesn't quite feel like learning, but rather reinventing the wheel. And I don't have big requirements either - I just need some sort of project management (being able to work…
Invoking the help system by typing C-h b (the command "describe-bindings") will open a new buffer showing all the keybindings in effect in the current buffer. Picking an unused binding to your liking is a matter of scanning the list. The Emacs help system is a marvel and an astonishment. It's the second thing to explore after running the built-in tutorial. And it's the first thing to master. Don't neglect the hyperli…
Yes, I am aware of all that. Still, there can be various modes in effect, so it would be nice to have a function that would do a pick (that would work in all modes) instead of me scanning the list all the times.
Also, it would be nice if I could easily remap all keys with the given prefix. Maybe someone wrote library for these things already, I don't know.
Re: Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The starter packages like prelude and emacs-starter-kit are more like a learning to walk with a crutch when you have perfectly working legs. They offer an easy way to start but once you start using them you'll find it hard to do it the normal way (like when you need to modify your emacs config or add some new elisp that isn't included). It is better just to start emacs do C-h t and start learning, then add and config…
I might be biased (I'm the author), but I don't think that emacs-starter-kit prevents you from doing things the normal way. You can still modify your emacs config and include vendor elisp, and ESK doesn't make it more difficult. And with the tutorial - I have a pretty low opinion of it. I mean, it starts out talking about how to navigate up and down one screen - who cares about that when they're starting to learn a n…
Yes, original tutorial and Emacs configuration is a bit obscure, for historical reasons. That's understandable.
Another thing I struggled with was some hints how to actually write and structure your own configuration files. For example, is it good to use the configuration inside Emacs? Where this section should go into the config? I had issues figuring out how to load packages etc. In what order should configuration be specified? What if I use multiple computers, can I share parts of configuration? Etc.
Similar for keybindings. What keybinding can I use for my private stuff that are unlikely to conflict with other things?