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The Emacs Widget Library

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Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#11

Post by clircle »

tashlandiq1 wrote: post #6
milkytron wrote: post #2

After using vim for years and becoming what I would consider proficient in it, is there any reason to try out emacs? I've been wondering if I could be more productive in it after the learning curve, or if I should spend that time further solidifying and slightly improving my vim skills. Has anyone here used both and have any thoughts on this?

I also used Vim for about 5 years. I have been using Emacs for about two years now. Emacs, hands down, is the better editor, and not only that. When I first decided to learn one of them, Vim seemed cool because modal editing was something new to me. I'm glad I learned it, but I wish I had switched to Emacs earlier. Emacs offers so much than Vim plus many other programs combined. Emacs users often mention org-mode, bu…

How well does Evil mode work with Gnus? I used mu4e for a while but eventually just went back to thunderbird.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#12

Post by celeritascelery »

platz wrote: post #8
applecrazy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using spacemacs for a bit now, mainly because of org-mode. Most of the keybindings from Vim transfer to spacemacs, so it hasn't been very hard to learn, so for you I think it would be a nice middle ground, if you don't want to immediately go full Emacs.

Spacemacs unfortunately suffers from slow startup speed and an unnecessary "layers" abstraction. I could never use Emacs without vim keybindings, but I don't need to install Spacemacs to get that. It's as easy as package-install evil package-install evil-commentary package-install evil-leader package-install evil-org package-install evil-surround

Your missing he part where you have to configure all those packages. Having new features already setup and integrated for me is a huge plus. It takes a lot of work to mimic something as well done as Spacemacs.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#13

Post by hyperion2010 »

milkytron wrote: post #2

After using vim for years and becoming what I would consider proficient in it, is there any reason to try out emacs? I've been wondering if I could be more productive in it after the learning curve, or if I should spend that time further solidifying and slightly improving my vim skills. Has anyone here used both and have any thoughts on this?

I've been on vim for 8+ years. About 2 years ago I set up emacs because I wanted to start working in lisp land and use org mode. I couldn't use emacs without vim keybinds so I installed evil. I still use both editors, but I find emacs much easier to customize and the 'operating system' part of emacs makes it much easier to manage all the things I need to do. It sucks for big files, and there are some annoying quirks where repeating actions don't quite match vim's behavior, otherwise, I can hardly tell the difference, and when I do it is much easier to adjust to fit my needs. If you have your workflows set, then as with anything, there isn't much reason to switch, but emacs opens up a whole new world of possibilities in other ways.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#14

Post by zcid »

milkytron wrote: post #2

After using vim for years and becoming what I would consider proficient in it, is there any reason to try out emacs? I've been wondering if I could be more productive in it after the learning curve, or if I should spend that time further solidifying and slightly improving my vim skills. Has anyone here used both and have any thoughts on this?

I have used vim/tmux/screen for almost 20 years, and while I only use a subset of the functionality, I am extremely at home in that workflow. I recently switched over to Emacs because I started spending a lot of time in Scheme.

I set it up over a couple of days to almost entirely emulate my vim setup: leader key, 'jk'->ESC, evil binding everywhere, you name it. At this point, my config file is only 165 lines, yet it provides all the editing comforts to which I'm accustomed. The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how to map my enter key to ':' in normal mode.

I still use vim out of habit when I'm in the terminal, but the transition is so smooth I don't even notice which one I'm using. It's difficult to say if it's worth the effort to switch unless you are looking at a specific use case with which vim struggles. I am in love with the ease of CL/Scheme editing in Emacs, but without that itch, I probably wouldn't have switched. I've had many people try to convert me in the past, but they couldn't provide the why.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#15

Post by tashlandiq1 »

clircle wrote: post #11
tashlandiq1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also used Vim for about 5 years. I have been using Emacs for about two years now. Emacs, hands down, is the better editor, and not only that. When I first decided to learn one of them, Vim seemed cool because modal editing was something new to me. I'm glad I learned it, but I wish I had switched to Emacs earlier. Emacs offers so much than Vim plus many other programs combined. Emacs users often mention org-mode, bu…

How well does Evil mode work with Gnus? I used mu4e for a while but eventually just went back to thunderbird.

I don't know. I've never used Evil. I felt like I should actively forget Vim in order to get the most out of Emacs. Vim emulation maybe good for editing for some people, but Emacs is much more than an editor. People bring up the Emacs pinky problem, and I agree it's a problem. But the solution for me was easy: mapped the left alt to ctrl, and kept using the right alt as alt.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#16

Post by kovek »

One thing I tried to make in Emacs was a window at the top which shows the lines that you do not see that are unindenting from the currently visible indentation. It would act almost like a header. Next, would be to display these vertically inside the space created by the indentation itself. I don't see how to pack more source code context information on a screen than that

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#17

Post by orbital-decay »

abhiyerra wrote: post #10
milkytron wrote: post #2

After using vim for years and becoming what I would consider proficient in it, is there any reason to try out emacs? I've been wondering if I could be more productive in it after the learning curve, or if I should spend that time further solidifying and slightly improving my vim skills. Has anyone here used both and have any thoughts on this?

I've used Emacs for about 8 years now and before that I used vim. I think Emacs in Evil mode is the best. Emacs default keybindings were giving me the Emacs pinky. Then again nowadays I am trying to be pragmatic with editors and more get things done. It is easy to go into endless customization in Emacs where you don't actually solve any real problems. (i.e I once used elnode https://github.com/nicferrier/elnode to bu…

A classic trick to avoid Emacs pinky is swapping Caps Lock and Ctrl. I'm using it everywhere though; swapcaps makes it much more comfortable to use the Ctrl key on a standard PC keyboard.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#18

Post by platz »

celeritascelery wrote: post #12
platz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spacemacs unfortunately suffers from slow startup speed and an unnecessary "layers" abstraction. I could never use Emacs without vim keybindings, but I don't need to install Spacemacs to get that. It's as easy as package-install evil package-install evil-commentary package-install evil-leader package-install evil-org package-install evil-surround

Your missing he part where you have to configure all those packages. Having new features already setup and integrated for me is a huge plus. It takes a lot of work to mimic something as well done as Spacemacs.

here's the total configuration required:

    (require 'evil)    
    (require 'evil-matchit)
    (require 'evil-surround)

    (evil-mode 1) 
    (global-evil-matchit-mode 1)
    (global-evil-surround-mode 1)
    (evil-commentary-mode)
judge for yourself whether this is too much work to paste into your .emacs

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#19

Post by ams6110 »

nextos wrote: post #4
milkytron wrote: post #2

After using vim for years and becoming what I would consider proficient in it, is there any reason to try out emacs? I've been wondering if I could be more productive in it after the learning curve, or if I should spend that time further solidifying and slightly improving my vim skills. Has anyone here used both and have any thoughts on this?

Emacs is not just an editor, it's a text-mode Lisp machine. If you like this idea, it does make sense to try it. Some people love Evil, a Vim emulation layer on top of Emacs. I do all my computing using just StumpWM, Emacs, Firefox and xterm. I'm much happier than with my previous setup. Curses-based CLI applications don't compose well. They are little silos. In contrast, on Emacs everything is hackable and alive. Th…

> I do all my computing using just StumpWM, Emacs, Firefox and xterm

Same, though I use Awesome for my window manager.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#20

Post by Pimpus »

orbital-decay wrote: post #17
abhiyerra wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Emacs for about 8 years now and before that I used vim. I think Emacs in Evil mode is the best. Emacs default keybindings were giving me the Emacs pinky. Then again nowadays I am trying to be pragmatic with editors and more get things done. It is easy to go into endless customization in Emacs where you don't actually solve any real problems. (i.e I once used elnode https://github.com/nicferrier/elnode to bu…

A classic trick to avoid Emacs pinky is swapping Caps Lock and Ctrl. I'm using it everywhere though; swapcaps makes it much more comfortable to use the Ctrl key on a standard PC keyboard.

With the placement of the Control key on most keyboards, your pinkie is doing a straight downwards motion which is much less straining than going sideways, even if it is a bit of a long stretch. Most keyboards (maybe not on laptops though) also have two Control keys so the load is distributed over two pinkies instead of one and neither hand makes any crazy stretches. Personally, I think Caps Lock as Control is categorically terrible advice. I'm sure your intentions were good, but I wouldn't be surprised if this classic trick wasn't originally some vile Vim scheme designed to undermine Emacs users.

Ideal would be to use a keyboard and OS (MacBooks have both) where you can map Control to the keys immediately next to the spacebar. Using the strongest finger (thumb) instead of the weakest finger and the strongest movement (thumb curl) rather than the weakest is a true upgrade.

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