The Emacs Widget Library
gnu.org
The Emacs Widget Library
1–10 of 52 posts
Re: The Emacs Widget Library
#2After 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?
Re: The Emacs Widget Library
#3After 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 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.
Re: The Emacs Widget Library
#4After 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. There's a wealth of classic packages (calc, dired, gnus, ansi-term, ess, auctex...) and modern ones (org-mode, magit, notmuch, pdf-tools, projectile, ivy, company...) that can let you craft a great environment.
Even if you are not a fan of huge customizations, I'm not either, small tweaks that adapt everything to your preferred workflow really do increase productivity. For example, my agenda view on org-mode emulates a kanban board.
I prefer to do as much of my computing as possible on a text-mode Lisp machine for this reason. Everything is friendly and customizable alive. I do web stuff on a regular browser inside a container: Firefox + Tridactyl. And plumbing is left to Unix, either NixOS or a simple Linux (Arch or Slackware) on xterm.
I find that trying to move stuff that naturally falls into one of these platforms (Emacs, Web, Unix) into another one makes me unhappy. For example, trying to browse the web on Emacs or composing emails on a web browser.
Re: The Emacs Widget Library
#5After 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.
Re: The Emacs Widget Library
#6After 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, but to me Gnus is the best non-programming related Emacs package. Life's short. In addition to learning an editor, I don't want to learn an email client UI (all of the ones I used (Thunderbird, Gmail website, Evolution, Geary, Kmail, etc.) suck compared to Gnus), an IRC UI, or any other software that I may want to use in the future. With Emacs, once I grasped the basics, learning ERC (an IRC client), org-mode, Gnus, Projectile, etc. was not that hard. For example, using org-mode I can create flashcards and export them to Anki (it' so much faster and less frustrating than the Anki editor). Emacs is also well documented. Moreover, Elisp introduced me to the Lisp family of languages. I'm amazed how the Common Lisp development environment with Slime and Quicklisp is so much better than anything else out there. People think Python notebooks are great for easy prototyping. I say they should try Slime first. yada yada yada (You should try Emacs yourself and see if you like it.) yada yada yada.
Re: The Emacs Widget Library
#7After 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…
Have you tried Notmuch. I like Gnus, but I find Notmuch's architecture really neat. Besides, it's super fast.
Have you considered org-drill instead of exporting to Anki? Or you run Anki on a phone?
The only thing I miss on Emacs is a good OMEMO XMPP or Signal implementation. Currently Bitlbee lacks both.
Re: The Emacs Widget Library
#8After 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 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-surroundRe: The Emacs Widget Library
#9Earlier 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…
Have you tried Notmuch. I like Gnus, but I find Notmuch's architecture really neat. Besides, it's super fast. Have you considered org-drill instead of exporting to Anki? Or you run Anki on a phone? The only thing I miss on Emacs is a good OMEMO XMPP or Signal implementation. Currently Bitlbee lacks both.
I tried mu4e before Gnus. Haven't tried Notmuch. I like reading hackernews and some mailing lists on Gnus without cluttering my inbox. Not sure if Notmuch can handle that.
Yes, I use Anki on my phone too.
I haven't thought about using Emacs as an IM, but I use w3m for browsing, which is great given all JS/CSS crap we get from websites these days. I just want text and can easily search for it within w3m.
Re: The Emacs Widget Library
#10After 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 build and host a website... great little project that took way too much time better used elsewhere.)
Nowadays I basically do VSCode for many things and jump onto Emacs if VSCode can't do it. Still using vim bindings though.