I am trying to get into emacs. I have installed it using apt-get install on ubuntu.
Now I want to change the background color, and found some doc on this. The best doc I found is this:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FrameParameters
But when reading about how to add things to the .emacs file, none of the docs/info I found mention anything about structure, and the .emacs file just looks like a big mess. Do any of you experienced emacs users follow a specific structure when adding to .emacs, or do you just add anywhere?
I want to add the following:
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(foreground-color . "white"))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(background-color . "black"))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(cursor-color . "coral"))
When opening the .emacs file, I don't file like just throwing it in, as I like structure. Before I try to make my own, I'd like to hear if there is a convention that I have missed?
Your .emacs file is a piece of Lisp code. There are conventions for how to format Lisp code, but I guess that's not really what you are looking for.
Part of the problem is that your .emacs will tend to grow organically, as you find new things you want to try and new knobs you want to tweak. Over time, it will build up into a huge, monolithic piece of unrelated code snippets.
The usual structuring conventions for code apply -- group related code together, add comments, modularize.
What you can do with the code you posted as an example is mainly to add a comment.
;; Frame colors
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(foreground-color . "white"))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(background-color . "black"))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(cursor-color . "coral"))
Some people like to add folding mode markers so they can collapse/expand code sections, but perhaps at that point you should start thinking about breaking it up into smaller files.
Overhauling the rest of your .emacs file is out of scope here, and impossible without access to the full thing. But see http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/DotEmacsModular for some suggestions. (Disclosure: A snippet of mine is prominently linked.)
Using customize also helps somewhat, but it has its own pros and cons. The customize settings are added programmatically at the end of your .emacs, and has very little by way of structure.
Related
I have files with a .new extension that contain LaTeX code (they are the output of a program that does things on the original .tex source).
In order to check them I need that they have the LaTeX syntax highlighted and that they can be opened in read-only mode to avoid introducing errors. So I put these lines in my .emacs:
(setq auto-mode-alist
(append '(("\\.new\\'" . read-only-mode)
("\\.new\\'" . latex-mode))
auto-mode-alist))
But it does not work as expected because only the first mode is applied. How can I force emacs to apply both read-only-mode and latex-mode to the same file extension?
An easy solution is to associate your file extension with a custom derived major mode:
(define-derived-mode read-only-latex-mode latex-mode "LaTeX"
"Major mode for viewing files of input for LaTeX."
(read-only-mode 1))
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.new\\'" . read-only-latex-mode))
The new read-only-latex-mode does everything that latex-mode does (including running latex-mode-hook if you're already using that), but it additionally enables read-only-mode after all of the parent mode's actions have taken place.
Any other code which cares about the major mode being latex-mode should already be testing that using the standard approach of (derived-mode-p 'latex-mode) which is still true for this new mode; so in principle this approach should Just Work.
Not sure I can really provide an answer, but here's some things to consider:
read-only-mode is a minor mode, while
auto-mode-alist is meant to turn on major modes. For major modes, it makes sense that you can have only one.
You can put something like -*- buffer-read-only: t; -*- on your first line in the file (possibly behind some comments or shebangs, depending on the file type) which would turn on read-only-mode. Maybe automate this using auto-insert-alist and match the .new filename pattern.
There's some good suggestions over at https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/jqxgiz/how_can_i_make_some_files_automatically_readonly/ , namely try file local variables and use find-file-hook
Hope some of that helps.
There are multiple questions along these lines but I haven't been able to find what I need from start to finish. I have been using emacs for a few years but am not used to its customization.
I have a unique file type, identified by its extension, which emacs is not configured for. Its comment style is
<!-- text -->
and I would like to set the variables comment-start and comment-end to the relevant values (which I am assuming will allow me to use comment-region). I don't know the correct way to do this so that it will always be configured when I open this file type but won't affect the default behavior of emacs.
Do I need to make a new major mode for this file type, and then set the variables, or is there an easier way of doing it? An example of the complete requirements for my .emacs file would be much appreciated!
See here. I think this will work:
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist
'("\\.extension\\'" . (lambda ()
(setq-local comment-start "<!--")
(setq-local comment-end "-->"))))
Alternatively, if this file extension is well known (or if these files are close enough to a well known syntax), you may be able to just find a major-mode online that does what you want. For example, NXML Mode may just give you the comment syntax you want along with some other useful features.
I have to adjust to 4 space indentation for a project I'm collaborating on at work. I hate looking at it, being accustomed to a nice compact 2 space indentation. Is there any way to have emacs display 2 spaces as one? Or maybe tabify on file load, and untabify on save. I'm working in c++. I have searched through google, but can't seem to find an answer to this.
You can try using prettify-symbols-mode, which is built into Emacs >=24.5.
(defun jpk/contract-spaces ()
(add-to-list 'prettify-symbols-alist '(" " . ?\ ))
(prettify-symbols-mode 1))
(add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook 'jpk/c-contract-spaces)
This changes the display, not the content of the buffer or file. I'm not sure this is the best idea. It will affect (auto)indentation and you won't see what the saved file will look like.
I downloaded two .el files
One is to highlight current column where cursor is and another one to highlight some specific words.
I followed next steps in the file:
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.xemacs/packages/") //path where I saved .el files
(load "column-marker") //name of file without .el extension
To this step it works fine, I find those when I press M-x column-marker and I can use it.
My problem begins when I want to use it everytime i open emacs and I found that I could use something similar to this:
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.js\\'" . js2-mode))
Which in my case I am typing:
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.\\'" . column-marker)) //I want to enable it for all .something files
But... when doing that, there is an error when opening emacs and it starts with default setup.
What am I doing wrong? I have tried many ways and none work.
Thanks in advance
Always post the error message you see. That helps others help you.
C-h f auto-mode-alist tells you that the functions you use in it must implement major modes. column-marker is not a major-mode function. It is not even a function; it is a file.
What you need to do, for each mode where you want some function in file column-marker.el to be invoked, is to put that function on the major-mode hook for that function. For example:
(add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode (lambda () (interactive) (column-marker-1 80))
And lo and behold, what does the Commentary in file column-marker.el tell you?
;; Installation: Place this file on your load path, and put this in
;; your init file (`.emacs'):
;;
;; (require 'column-marker)
;;
;; Other init file suggestions (examples):
;;
;; ;; Highlight column 80 in foo mode.
;; (add-hook 'foo-mode-hook (lambda () (interactive) (column-marker-1 80)))
Couldn't be clearer. Provided you actually read it.
Seriously, a minimum of investigation is in order, before you post a question to StackOverflow. You should do a Google search, open README files and read them, and so on --- first. And in the case of Emacs questions, IMHO, you should ask Emacs first (e.g. C-h v auto-mode-alist).
According to the rules of S.O. posting, not doing preliminary simple research is even grounds for closing a question. So do not be surprised if this question gets closed or downvoted.
So I'm relatively new in trying to customize emacs. But I really need to customize is asap. Tabs are a pain in emacs as they are two spaces, and the text is all messed up when it is opened with any other editor after that.
Currently, I only have few lines in my ~/emacs.d/init.el file:
(setq load-path (concat (getenv "HOME") "/.emacs.d/"))
(set-scroll-bar-mode 'right)
(require 'linum)
(global-linum-mode t)
I get an error while starting up emacs:
Loading encoded-kb...done
An error has occurred while loading `/Users/mycomp/.emacs.d/init.el':
Symbol's function definition is void: set-scroll-bar-mode
To ensure normal operation, you should investigate and remove the
cause of the error in your initialization file. Start Emacs with
the `--debug-init' option to view a complete error backtrace.
I tried srtating it with the --debug-init option, but my lisp knowledge is not enough to help me figure out what's wrong. Any help on how to get this working or redirecting me to some GOOD tutorials on editing init.el files will be really helpful (yes i did google tutorials on editing the initialization file, but every one of them was terrible).
I'm assuming my code for getting line numbers on the left is also wrong. Could someone please help me with this? Thanks a lot.
I think this line may be the problem:
(setq load-path (concat (getenv "HOME") "/.emacs.d/"))
First of all, I don't think this is required to load ~/emacs.d/init.el. Secondly, if you do want to add a directory to your load-path, you should probably be doing it like this instead:
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/")
This code adds the directory to the load-path, your code just clobbers it with the single directory.
Use 'M-x apropos' and 'M-x customize-apropos'. For now, those will make your life much easier when you want to customize things.
For instance, to customize things to do with scrolling, 'M-x customize-apropos RET scroll RET' will give you a list of all things that you can customize that have 'scroll' in them. You can look around and find the things that you want by searching the buffer. If you find a particular thing that you want, there's usually a group that it belongs to. You can click on that, and just customize those particular values. Make sure you save the settings.
It might take you a while to figure out what things are called. If you've got an idea, try the apropos search. If that doesn't turn up anything, google can probably sort it out for you.
For now, don't worry about hacking the elisp. This method will write values to your startup file (probably the .emacs?) and you can look and check the syntax later if you're really interested. I customize most of my stuff this way; I only bother actually modifying the file by hand when I'm trying to write my own hooks or functions.