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The Emacs Widget Library

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Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#21

Post by megaman22 »

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.

Caps-lock is an abomination. I used to try remapping it to something useful, or disabling it in software with autohotkey or the like, but that was not sufficiently foolproof, so I've given up and just rip the keycap off my keyboards. Looks a little trashy, but it works fantastic.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#22

Post by jaytaylor »

zcid wrote: post #14
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…

Can you share this config you speak of? Would like to give it a whirl!

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#23

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

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.

Another approach is to hit Control in its default corner location with the bone below the pinky (fifth metacarpal) instead of the pinky itself. It's definitely a little awkward at first, but works better than you might expect after a little bit of practice. Probably not very viable for most laptop keyboards, though.

Truly hardcore modifier wizards (or people recovering from injury) have been known to use pedals.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#24

Post by wraithm112 »

zcid wrote: post #14
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…

I too have vim muscle memory in the terminal, so what I do is alias vim to emacsclient. It's actually really great! Terminal emacsclient with evil is basically indistinguishable from terminal vim.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#25

Post by natrys »

tashlandiq1 wrote: post #15
clircle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mine is nearly the same. I use xcape to make space behave as ctrl when pressed in conjunction with other keys, but just space otherwise. Much more convenient use of the left thumb. But yes, in practice there is some getting used to it if you are a fast typer, because xcape uses a tiny time threshold to distinguish between the intent behind these two (and that normal space occurs at key release, not key press).

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#26

Post by kaens »

Pimpus wrote: post #20
orbital-decay wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 catego…

> With the placement of the Control key on most keyboards, your pinkie is doing a straight downwards motion

On every keyboard I have in my apartment, and every keyboard I've used for a long time, moving my left pinky straight down with my hands on the home row hits left shift and the windows key, in that order. Hitting caps lock with my left pinky is barely a movement at all.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#27

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

87 wrote: post #5
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 think you shouldn't concern yourself too much with the editor. Negative productivity gains are a possibility too. Emacs can be the ultimate productivity trap if you love customizing stuff. Using Emacs often feels like working on a buggy, never-ending project.

I've been down this road and negative gains are likely. I like tinkering with these things and find it fun, so that's fine with me. But efficiency/productivity we're secondary to exploration.

Unless you have it your heart to become an absolute elisp guru, emacs won't really offer you anything more than vim or any other editor, except plugins that are harder to integrate and configure.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#28

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

platz wrote: post #18
celeritascelery wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Spacemacs does a lot more than provide vim key bindings and modal editing.

The biggie to me is discoverability, with it's pneumonic key combos, and integrating with packages like helm.

Even with evil, the vim semantics are often violated in special buffers, making for a rather disjointed experience. Spacemacs also does a lot to smooth out a lot of those problems.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#29

Post by jibal »

What's the news here? The widget library has been around since 2000. The comments seem to have devolved into yet another vi/emacs debate, but the article isn't about emacs per se.

Re: The Emacs Widget Library

#30

Post by agumonkey »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #23
orbital-decay wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Another approach is to hit Control in its default corner location with the bone below the pinky (fifth metacarpal) instead of the pinky itself. It's definitely a little awkward at first, but works better than you might expect after a little bit of practice. Probably not very viable for most laptop keyboards, though. Truly hardcore modifier wizards (or people recovering from injury) have been known to use pedals.

I hit Control with the last finger joint before the nail, pinky curled. I don't know how it happened but that's how it is now.
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