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What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

masteringemacs.org

171–180 of 290 posts

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#171
post #109

I always like to ask: Has the pixel-scrolling story gotten better on Emacs? I like how I can scroll smoothly on Visual Studio Code.

d12frosted/emacs-plus/emacs-plus@29 on Homebrew is my fav way to install master on a Mac. Trackpad scrolling is smooth even at 120hz.

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#172

I almost wish I never tried Emacs. Ignorance is bliss, and Emacs ruined all other text editors for me. There are absolutely areas that others do better, but the self-documenting “living program” nature is too much to give up; everything you ever need to know or do is a few keystrokes away.

How did you approach Emacs to make it such a valuable tool? I have tried to get started with Emacs a few times but the initial resistance has been too large

You have to find specific need that emacs will fulfil. Org-mode is the key. Don't try to use it like IDE for coding for a start.

I recommend start with video tutorials:

1. Mike Zamansky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49kBWM3RQQ8&list=PL9KxKa8NpF...

2. Rainer König org-mode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQS06Qjnkcc&list=PLVtKhBrRV_...

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#173
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because navigating text with emacs gives me the emacs pinky, I had RSI issues early in my career (not Emacs related), and learned some tricks that come handy with Emacs. Your keyboard has two control keys. Use both of them. In particular, use the "opposite" one. If you want to press C-c, use the right Control key with your right hand. If you want to press C-l, use the left control key with your left hand. This way…

map capslock to be a control key.

Although it's the canonical solution, that would be a degradation for me. It's more ergonomic to use two hands to enter any modifier sequence. Mapping Capslock to Control doesn't provide extra benefits to my solution.

The other problem people have with the pinky is that they're twisting their wrist while typing, which is also against more ergonomic guidelines. The recommendation is to move the whole arm. Once you get used to that, there's no good reason to use the pinky to hit Ctrl (even when rebound to Caps lock). I would guess over half the times, I'm using some finger other than the pinky to hit Ctrl.

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#174
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using emacs on and off for about 20 years and I don’t really get the fanaticism. Org mode and magit and all these things are cool. I like that you can hack it. But — to me it never stops feeling like an ongoing project when you try to live your entire life in it. I like it obviously otherwise I wouldn’t still be using it, but it will never exactly feel elegant to me. More like a good text editor and a hundr…

I like to tinker and hack on things, so I enjoy maintaining my Emacs config to an extent. However, I draw the line at "text editor" with Emacs. I have no desire to read my email, paint pictures, or compose music inside Emacs—there are better tools for that.

I like having my email in Emacs, so i can reference it from org. I also like to write mails in Emacs. Triaging mails in notmuch-emacs is also quick and painless. Reading HTML mails, though — not so much.

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#175
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using emacs on and off for about 20 years and I don’t really get the fanaticism. Org mode and magit and all these things are cool. I like that you can hack it. But — to me it never stops feeling like an ongoing project when you try to live your entire life in it. I like it obviously otherwise I wouldn’t still be using it, but it will never exactly feel elegant to me. More like a good text editor and a hundr…

I like to tinker and hack on things, so I enjoy maintaining my Emacs config to an extent. However, I draw the line at "text editor" with Emacs. I have no desire to read my email, paint pictures, or compose music inside Emacs—there are better tools for that.

For email I disagree. notmuch and mu4e are very good and being able to apply your normal text editing tools in a text oriented context like email is very useful. If there are better tools out there I haven't found them yet.

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#176
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using emacs on and off for about 20 years and I don’t really get the fanaticism. Org mode and magit and all these things are cool. I like that you can hack it. But — to me it never stops feeling like an ongoing project when you try to live your entire life in it. I like it obviously otherwise I wouldn’t still be using it, but it will never exactly feel elegant to me. More like a good text editor and a hundr…

I used Emacs almost exclusively for half a decade and got pretty good at it. But I feel like VS Code is the natural evolution of all the great ideas of Emacs. So I use VS Code almost exclusively now.

I feel that VSCode is missing the number one critical feature of Emacs: the ability to inspect and change the program as it's running.

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you approach Emacs to make it such a valuable tool? I have tried to get started with Emacs a few times but the initial resistance has been too large

What parts did you find difficult? When I first started, I found the keybindings odd, but now I love them since the core set of shortcuts—C-a, C-e, C-f, etc.—work "everywhere" from the terminal, to GNU readline-based programs, to even native macOS text boxes. If you don't like the default keybindings, you can change them or use the Evil package [0] for Vim bindings. If you want to get up and running quickly, I'd chec…

Thanks for sharing your experience! I guess my problem was to remember all the shortcuts and keybindings and how to do things, and having to look them up all the time was tiresome - but I guess the steep learning curve has some fruits in the end

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#178
post #122

I’m interested in emacs / org-mode / org-roam. My goal is to have a local notes solution (replacing Obsidian, Apple Notes), and have the notes automatically published on the web as a crosslinked personal knowledge base. I have somewhat achieved this with Obsidian/markdown files + git + Hugo + Render. I write stuff. Check it into git. Push, and it deploys as a website. Feel pretty good about cobbling that together. Bu…

>but I still end up in weird jams where Emacs has opened up 3+ panes (buffers), and I can’t figure how to even close/quit them.

-x close-buffer will do the job.

Actually, using -x allows you to execute any emacs function, whether it has a key binding or not.

Even better, emacs will suggest completions (and once you are down to a single potential completion, tab completion works nicely) as you type the function name.

And if you don't know the name of the function you want/need, -x apropos will allow you to search for what you want -- with regexp support.

All that said, depending on your use case, it mightn't even be necessary to modify your init file at all.

I'm not a previously frustrated newbie (I started with Lugaru's epsilon[0] back in the early 1980s, moved to straight-up emacs in the late 1980s and never looked back), but I'd be happy to help.

That said, using emacs' built in help/info/apropos tools, not to mention just using -x would almost certainly be a better way to figure out how things work than asking me (but don't let that stop you from doing so). And definitely better than googling/ddging/whatevering what you're looking for. '-x info' and/or -x help are good places to start.

HTHAL.

[0] https://www.lugaru.com/

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a reference for "Jetbrains products are ... spyware due to telemetry we can’t see."

If the source code of what you are running is not fully available, assume it contains telemetry or data collection.

I assume every stranger that calls me is a scammer. That does NOT mean that everyone who calls me IS a scammer.

Re: What’s new in Emacs 28.1?

#180
post #17

I was an Emacs user back in my software writing days, but I thought I had left it behind when I became a lawyer. Over the past month or two however I’ve moved more and more of my workflow over to Emacs. I started with using Org Mode and PDF tools for note taking and reviewing PDFs and task management: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30492373 . More recently I switched my email over to mu4e: https://www.emacswiki…

Thanks for the tips on PDF tools.

I also save org files on shared folders to sync among different machines. I use GnuPG via the epg package to encrypt all files before saving to the shared folders. GnuPG has relatively good cross platform support that I can move the encrypted files between different platforms.

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