I'm using helm-mode in emacs to open files. However, when I try to copy the path of a file (say /home/user1/Documents/file1.txt) through mouse left-click and hold to paste it in terminal, I get a message saying
<down-mouse-1> is undefined
I guess helm does not support mouse operations as described here, in which case how can I copy path of a file from emacs (in helm-mode) to paste it in terminal
The answer given in this other thread may seem more straightforward.
In short: with the file selected in the minibuffer use C-u C-c C-k. This invokes helm-kill-selection-and-quit. The file's full path is copied to the kill ring and can be pasted in Emacs or elsewhere.
I guess you want to copy from Minibuffer to your system clipboard. Minibuffer keybinding isn't different from other buffers. If in other buffers you use M-w to copy the region, it should also work in Minibuffer. Note that if you niled x-select-enable-clipboard you need to enable it first. I have the following functions in my init.el
(defun copy-to-clipboard()
(interactive)
(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
(kill-ring-save (region-beginning) (region-end))
(setq x-select-enable-clipboard nil))
and
(defun paste-from-clipboard ()
(interactive)
(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
(yank)
(setq x-select-enable-clipboard nil))
Unfortunately you can't use your mouse to select the texts (ie. to make a region) in helm-mode; you need to set-mark-command (by default C-SPC or C-#) and move your point (ie. cursor). Or just hold the shift and move the point like most other text editors. There is also a mark-word command (by default M-#) that expands the region word by word.
I also recorded an asciinema (because they're fun đ) that you can watch it here
This is a very simple request: I want to create a new, blank file without giving it a name (yet). I can use the scratch buffer but there's only one. I can C-x C-f and open a new file, but then I have to give it a name and path. If I'm just writing notes to myself or sketching out ideas, I don't want to have to give it a name. How do I create a new, empty, unnamed file?
You can create a new buffer with: C-xb and type in the buffer name and it will create a new buffer with a name that you choose.
If you want to save that buffer, just hit C-x w to create the file with its contents to a desired location.
My recommendation is that you give org-mode a try. It will do what want among a million other things.
Give it a name. Just don't save it.
Not what you wanted to hear, but this is the Emacs way.
Use C-x C-f, giving the (to-be-file-visiting) buffer a name. Edit the text. Do not use C-x C-s to save the buffer to the file (i.e., to disk).
Note that you can first put yourself in a directory whose contents you don't care about, so that if you accidentally do save the buffer there then you can easily find, recognize and toss the file. To change directories, you can use M-x cd. Or just do it by editing the directory part when you first use C-x C-f. Or use C-x d to put yourself in a Dired buffer for the directory.
If you don't want to take the chance of accidentally hitting C-x C-s and thus saving your edits, then use C-x b instead of C-x C-f. You are (even here) prompted for the buffer name. Giving it a new name (not the name of an existing buffer) creates a new buffer. In this case, if you use C-x C-s then Emacs prompts you for the file location to save the buffer in.
Why would you want to use C-x C-f instead of C-x b, if you might not want to save the buffer? Providing a file extension in the file name you give automatically puts the buffer in the proper major mode (typically). Otherwise (for C-x b) you need to put the buffer in the mode you want.
Buffer *scratch* is by default in Lisp-Interaction mode, which is similar to Emacs-Lisp mode (but not the same).
In every other text editor or word processor the intuition is to create a ânew fileâ or a ânew bufferâ, not to switch to idiosyncratic *scratch* buffer. For example, you write quick notes or thoughts in several different buffers to keep trace of themâlater you decide if you throw them away or save them. Or you manipulate a snippet of text or code, but you don't want to change the original buffer, so you just copypaste it to a new temporary buffer.
*scratch* is set to Lisp Interaction mode, but if I want to quickly evaluate some Elisp code, I could eval it running eval-expression (Alt+:) or in Elisp interpreter IELM (Alt+x Enter ielm). Also, if you close *scratch* buffer, it doesn't ask you to save it, so you can accidentally lose all your work. Drew's traditional solution seems too sub-optimal. And I don't buy the argument that âthis is how you do it in Emacsâ. Emacs is a customizable editor, so you can and should create whatever workflow is comfortable for you.
That's how ErgoEmacs solves it, buy creating a new-empty-buffer command. You can implemented like this:
(defun new-empty-buffer ()
"Opens a new empty buffer."
(interactive)
(switch-to-buffer (generate-new-buffer "untitled"))
(funcall initial-major-mode)
(put 'buffer-offer-save 'permanent-local t)
(setq buffer-offer-save t))
The variable buffer-offer-save resets every time you change a major mode, therefore you need to annotate it with permanent-local. It also prompts only when you exit Emacs. I think it is intuitive for it to also ask, when you close a modified untitled buffer, therefore see my solution on how to upgrade kill-buffer to prompt before closing a modified buffer.
ErgoEmacs revamps the default keybindings completely and has new-empty-buffer bound to Ctrl+N, like in almost all software. Change variable initial-major-mode if you want the new buffer to have another mode on start.
See also:
Emacs: Problems of the Scratch Buffer # Xah Lee
Emacs: New Empty Buffer # Xah Lee
You can try the following snippet, just add it to your .emacs
(defun new-file-tmp()
"Create a new empty file."
(interactive)
(let ((buf (generate-new-buffer "untitled")))
(switch-to-buffer buf)
(put 'buffer-offer-save 'permanent-local t)
(setq buffer-offer-save t)))
(defun tool-bar-local-item-pre (icon def key map after_item &rest props)
"Add an item to the tool bar in map MAP.
ICON names the image, DEF is the key definition and KEY is a symbol
for the fake function key in the menu keymap. Remaining arguments
PROPS are additional items to add to the menu item specification. See
Info node â(elisp)Tool Barâ. The item is added after AFTER_ITEM.
ICON is the base name of a file containing the image to use. The
function will first try to use low-color/ICON.xpm if âdisplay-color-cellsâ
is less or equal to 256, then ICON.xpm, then ICON.pbm, and finally
ICON.xbm, using âfind-imageâ."
(let* ((image-exp (tool-bar--image-expression icon)))
(define-key-after map (vector key)
`(menu-item ,(symbol-name key) ,def :image ,image-exp ,#props) after_item)
(force-mode-line-update)))
(when (boundp 'tool-bar-map)
(tool-bar-local-item-pre "new" 'new-file-tmp 'new-file-tmp tool-bar-map
'new-file :label "" :help "New untitled File")
(define-key tool-bar-map (vector 'new-file) nil)
;; comment the above line if you want to keep the button for the default behavior
)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-n") 'new-file-tmp)
It defines a new command which creates new empty buffers
Then the code binds it to the top left button of the toolbar, if you are in gui mode, and to the Control-n shortcut.
You can check the post on my site about it.
disclaimer: it's my site
A buffer and a file are not the same thing.
terminology
Regarding buffers,
The text you are editing in Emacs resides in an object called a
buffer. Each time you visit a file, a buffer is used to hold the file's text.
Regarding files,
The operating system stores data permanently in named files, so most
of the text you edit with Emacs comes from a file and is ultimately
stored in a file.
Buffers and files are related through visiting,
Visiting a file means reading its contents into an Emacs buffer so you
can edit them. Emacs makes a new buffer for each file that you visit.
answering the question
Unless I'm mistaken, technically speaking, your question, as written, can't be answered. Pedantically speaking, there's no such thing as (or little practical use for) an unnamed file. A file is a handle for something stored on disk. If you have no handle, then why make a file?
The question can then be interpreted as having two possible meanings1.
1. Making a new buffer (without regard to name)
A new buffer must have a name. An unsaved buffer can be saved to file with a given name using write-file (C-x C-w). You will be prompted for a path/name. Once written, the buffer update to be visiting the file you just wrote.
Since the name of the buffer doesn't matter (until you write it to file), here's a function which creates buffers named *scratch1*, *scratch2*, ... .
(defun create-scratch-buffer ()
"Create a new numbered scratch buffer.
Taken from URL `https://stackoverflow.com/a/21058075/5065796' "
(interactive)
(let ((n 0)
bufname)
(while (progn
(setq bufname (concat "*scratch"
(if (= n 0) "" (int-to-string n))
"*"))
(setq n (1+ n))
(get-buffer bufname)))
(switch-to-buffer (get-buffer-create bufname))
(org-mode)
(if (= n 1) initial-major-mode)))
2. Making a new file (without regard to name)
As hinted at in the new buffer solution, new files can be created with write-file.
When called interactively (M-x make-random-file), this function prompts for a directory. It then writes an empty file named something random like tmp-17388716387615.txt.
(defun make-random-file (dir)
"Make a random file in DIR."
(interactive "DDir: ")
(let* ((filename (concat "tmp-" (int-to-string (random t)) ".txt"))
(filepath (concat dir filename)))
(write-region "" nil filepath nil 'silent nil 'excl)))
As always, if the code above doesn't make sense, look at the documentation for functions and variables with C-h f and C-h v, respectively. And/or read the Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp.
1 It was the second meaning which I was searching for solutions to when I found this as the top search engine hit. Apologies if this was a bit obtuse. Figured it was better to share my solutions with y'all than not. :)
How can I make Emacs start in text-mode and get rid of the following message?
;; This buffer is for notes you don't want to save, and for Lisp evaluation.
;; If you want to create a file, visit that file with C-x C-f,
;; then enter the text in that file's own buffer.
To get rid of the start message just set the initial-scratch-message variable to ""
(setq initial-scratch-message "")
To start the scratch buffer in text mode you will want to initial-major-mode variable
(setq initial-major-mode 'text-mode)
For setting of auto-mode when you start a specific major-mode you'll want to add an event to the mode hook
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)
Rather than fiddle with the way the scratch buffer works, I'd recommend you open Emacs with a file argument. E.g. if you do "emacs foo.txt" chances are it will already start up in text-mode without you having to do anything special for it.
You only do M-x text-mode in the scratch buffer.
That's all.
I have a TODO file that I load emacs up to use 90% of the time. When I load emacs though it defaults to loading the scratch buffer. I would like it to load the TODO file initially. I'm very new to Emacs and have tried searching round for ways to do this using the .emacs file but nothing has worked so far.
Here are my attempts:
1: Use find-file to get the file and switch-to-buffer to load it to the screen
(switch-to-buffer (find-file "c:/Users/Seb/Documents/Emacs/TODO_List.org"))
2: Use pop-to-buffer to load the file instead
(pop-to-buffer (find-file "c:/Users/Seb/Documents/Emacs/TODO_List.org"))
3: Save the desktop so it loads the next time
(desktop-save-mode 1)
None of these are working.
Here is my full .emacs file, as you can see it's barely used!
(custom-set-variables
;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
; '(inhibit-startup-buffer-menu t)
'(inhibit-startup-screen t)
'(initial-buffer-choice t))
(custom-set-faces
;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
)
;; Set the current directory to the Emacs Documents dir
(cd "C:/Users/Seb/Documents/Emacs")
;; Open TODO list on start up
(pop-to-buffer (find-file "c:/Users/Seb/Documents/Emacs/TODO_List.org"))
;; Turn off the annoying tool bar at startup - to turn back on
;; just type M-x tool-bar-mode
(tool-bar-mode -1)
;; Move the mouse when cursor is near
(mouse-avoidance-mode 'cat-and-mouse)
;; This enables saving the current desktop on shutdown.
(desktop-save-mode 1)
;; XML Pretty Print
(defun xml-pretty-print (begin end)
"Pretty format XML markup in region. You need to have nxml-mode
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/NxmlMode installed to do
this. The function inserts linebreaks to separate tags that have
nothing but whitespace between them. It then indents the markup
by using nxml's indentation rules."
(interactive "r")
(save-excursion
(nxml-mode)
(goto-char begin)
(while (search-forward-regexp "\>[ \\t]*\<" nil t)
(backward-char) (insert "\n"))
(indent-region begin end))
(message "Ah, much better!"))
In your startup file, you have this line:
'(initial-buffer-choice t))
as part of your "custom-set-variables" command. The documentation string for "initial-buffer-choice" is:
Buffer to show after starting Emacs. If the value is nil and
inhibit-startup-screen' is nil, show the startup screen. If the
value is string, visit the specified file or directory using
find-file'. If t, open the `scratch' buffer.
So, the value that you've specified ('t') is causing the *scratch* buffer to be displayed after startup. Change this line to the following and your issue should be resolved:
'(initial-buffer-choice "c:/Users/Seb/Documents/Emacs/TODO_List.org"))
When I open 3+ files in emacs, I get a split window with one of my files in the upper buffer and Buffer List in the lower buffer.
How can I get emacs to NOT put Buffer List there, but instead show another one of my files.
thanks. -John
Try this:
(setq inhibit-startup-buffer-menu t)
Documentation can be found here.
Note: This option was introduced in Emacs 22.
For Emacs 21 and before, you could add the following workaround to your .emacs which will force Emacs to only have one window visible upon startup:
(add-hook 'after-init-hook 'delayed-delete-other-windows)
(defun delayed-delete-other-windows ()
"need the call to happen after startup runs, so wait for idle"
(run-with-idle-timer 0 nil 'delete-other-windows))