Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
kristofferbalintona.me
Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
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Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#2What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Emacs in much depth at all). Is that annoying, or is it easy enough to do that the annoyance fades into the background?
Also, is there a preconfigured config for Android that can be downloaded so that you don't have to spend too much time in the Customize mode to get started? (I'm assuming, though the article didn't go into detail, that much of the reason for spending time in Customize would be to remap some of those shortcuts to be easier to type on a virtual keyboard, e.g. fewer modifiers).
Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#3What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Ema…
You can connect a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to an Android device -- somehow everybody thinks you have to buy some special $300 keyboard to attach one to a tablet but the basic keyboard from Amazon Basics does just ifne.
Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#4What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Ema…
You can connect a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to an Android device -- somehow everybody thinks you have to buy some special $300 keyboard to attach one to a tablet but the basic keyboard from Amazon Basics does just ifne.
Good point, though I don't always have my Bluetooth keyboard available so I'm still interested in hearing people's experiences with those virtual keyboard apps.
Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#5What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Ema…
Its slow there are some keyboard like unexpected keyboard that make it easier. There's also modifier-bar-mode which displays a little bar you can click to get modifier keys.
Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#6What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Ema…
Its slow there are some keyboard like unexpected keyboard that make it easier. There's also modifier-bar-mode which displays a little bar you can click to get modifier keys.
(menu-bar-mode 1)
(tool-bar-mode 1)
(scroll-bar-mode 1)
(modifier-bar-mode 1)
(menu-bar-set-tool-bar-position `bottom)
Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#7What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Ema…
Honestly these things are not the biggest worry.
You can use a pretty standard config. You are likely not going to be writing pages of code and for prose there are better things on a phone than the keyboard. You can get pretty far though github searching Emacs lisp files with android in the text.
More interesting is dealing with androids permissions. The original article mentions this and I have some notes here. https://gsilvers.github.io/me/posts/20250921-emacs-on-androi...
Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can connect a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to an Android device -- somehow everybody thinks you have to buy some special $300 keyboard to attach one to a tablet but the basic keyboard from Amazon Basics does just ifne.
Good point, though I don't always have my Bluetooth keyboard available so I'm still interested in hearing people's experiences with those virtual keyboard apps.
I used to have a flexible silicon keyboard I could roll up and carry but some of the keys died
Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#9Another (easier imo) way is to just install Emacs in the standard termux installation and run an X11 server, see https://hadi.timachi.com/posts/emacs_GUI_on_android/emacs_GU...
Re: Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good
#10(Travels back to the 90s)
Pretty good for Emacs*
Long live VI.