Why does my *scratch* buffer save data in aquamacs emacs? - emacs

In regular emacs my understanding was that if you killed the scratch buffer, when you switched back to it it would be empty, or when you closed and restarted emacs, it would be empty. With Aquamacs, it seems to preserve the buffer contents. Why might this happen?

In Aquamacs changes documentation says:
The scratch buffer is now persistent
across sessions. It is saved to an
internal file, but File / Save As (or
Apple-Shift-S or C-x C-w) still allow
users to save the file elsewhere. (To
switch this off, customize the
`aquamacs-scratch-file' variable to
nil.)
http://braeburn.aquamacs.org/code/master/aquamacs/doc/AquamacsHelp/node42.html

Related

emacs as an external editor for other applications (Houdini, Joplin)

I am trying to use emacs as an editor with other applications which allow people to open text in an editor (Sublime in this case), save it, and see it updated in the application. For example, in Houdini, a 3D software, I can type code in an external editor (in this case, Sublime), modify, save... and see it update in the application (Houdini). When I use emacs, it doesn't work. As an example, here I am adding a line of text using Sublime in Houdini:
Once I save and close, the text is updated in Houdini, and I can continue working:
Try as I might, I can't get this to work in emacs. I am sure the file has the same name, and when I save, it confirms the right file path.
What am I missing? I have run into the same problem with an application called Joplin: Sublime works, emacs does not.
A wild guess: Emacs has different behaviour when saving files than Sublime, and Houdini gets confused by that.
When you save a file in Emacs, Emacs creates a backup of the previous contents of the file, suffixing the file name with a tilde. By default it does this by renaming the existing file to the backup name, and then writing the contents to the real filename, thereby creating a new file.
(You can observe this by running ls -i before and after: the backup file will have the inode number that the main file had previously. Note that Emacs doesn't make backups after the first save during the same editor session, so you might need to restart Emacs or kill the buffer with C-x k to see this.)
I suspect that Houdini keeps the file open while Emacs is editing it, and so when you save the file from Emacs, the file that Houdini has open is actually the backup file.
You can configure Emacs to make backups by copying instead of renaming by setting the variable backup-by-copying to t. Add this to your ~/.emacs file (creating it if it doesn't exist):
(setq backup-by-copying t)

Save layout shell/terminal state between sessions

So any shell/terminal buffer turns into a text or scratch between sessions (if I close and open spacemacs again)
I'm doing TDD and it's quite convenient to have mocha running tests in a vsplit window on the side of a workspace.
What would be the best approach to that?
Thanks
You are right. *shell* buffer will be reverted into *scratch* when you close emacs. (in this case I guessed that you used desktop.el to achieve persistent sessions)
Unfortunately dekstop.el doesn't support saving *shell* buffers. So it will be reverted to *scratch* when you try to save it.
The good news is you can use desktop+ which can achieve your needs.
Quoting from documentation
Desktop sessions by default save only buffers associated to "real" files. Desktop+ >extends this by handling also "special buffers". The list of currently supported s
pecial buffer types is:
- compilation buffers (in `compilation-mode`)
- terminal buffers (in `term-mode`)
- org agenda & todo lists (in `org-agenda-mode`)
- indirect buffers (a.k.a clones).
- man pages (in `Man-mode`)
- shell buffers (in `shell-mode`)
PS: I don't use spacemacs. According to your explanation, I think spacemacs activate desktop.el by default

Bookmark+ using a temporary file, despite having asked for a specific file

After typing C-x r l I get a buffer called *Bookmark List*
In this buffer I see:
Bookmark file:
/tmp/bmkp-temp/19236bkt
If I open help (i.e. press h), I see:
Bookmark file: /tmp/bmkp-temp-19236bkt
Sorted:
Filtering: none
Marked: 0
Omitted: 0
Autosave bookmarks: no
Autosave list display: yes
This is even though I have the following in my .emacs file:
(setq bookmark-file "~/.emacs.d/bookmarks")
(setq bookmark-default-file "~/.emacs.d/bookmarks")
(setq bmkp-default-bookmark-file "~/.emacs.d/bookmarks")
(setq bmkp-last-as-first-bookmark-file nil)
Why is it using a different bookmark file from the one I specified?
I also noticed that when I load Emacs the following happens:
Emptying bookmark file `/tmp/bmkp-temp-23808OMn'...
Saving file /tmp/bmkp-temp-23808OMn...
Wrote /tmp/bmkp-temp-23808OMn
Emptying bookmark file `/tmp/bmkp-temp-23808OMn'...done
...
Helm completion enabled
Emptying bookmark file `/tmp/bmkp-temp-23808bWt'...
Saving file /tmp/bmkp-temp-23808bWt...
Wrote /tmp/bmkp-temp-23808bWt
Emptying bookmark file `/tmp/bmkp-temp-23808bWt'...done
...
Emacs goes on a spree deleting temporary bookmark files. ?
Perhaps you were trying to use "bookmark-file bookmarks"? Or anyways, accidently hit C-x p x?
These are claimed to correspond, at EmacsWiki: Bookmark Plus / Bookmark-File Bookmarks, where they say, "bmkp-set-bookmark-file-bookmark, bound to C-x p x". For my Emacs, this is not true.
By typing C-x p C-h, I can check key-bindings that start with C-x p. I find
C-x p x is bound to bmkp-toggle-autotemp-on-set, and
C-x p y is bound to bmkp-set-bookmark-file-bookmark.
Then, the link should say C-x p y instead.
It looks like something, somewhere (e.g. check your .emacs file) has turned on bmkp-temporary-bookmarking-mode. When that mode is on, any bookmarks you create are for the current session only -- they are not saved to your bookmark file.
And that means that your bookmark-file location settings are ignored. (Note, BTW, that bmkp-default-bookmark-file is a function, not a variable -- it is not something that you set. And you don't need all of those bookmark-file settings; some are redundant: old names from old versions of Emacs bookmarking.)
I don't know why you are getting multiple temporary bookmark-file creations and saves. You didn't provide a complete recipe. You should get only one such. This is all I see in *Messages* in this regard, for instance:
Emptying bookmark file `c:/DOCUME~1/me/LOCALS~1/Temp/bmkp-temp-5348su1'...
Saving file c:/Documents and Settings/me/Local Settings/Temp/bmkp-temp-5348su1...
Wrote c:/Documents and Settings/me/Local Settings/Temp/bmkp-temp-5348su1
Emptying bookmark file `c:/DOCUME~1/me/LOCALS~1/Temp/bmkp-temp-5348su1'...done
It also appears that you have a lot of stuff going on (Helm etc.). When trying to understand or debug a problem, it helps to narrow things down as much as possible. Who can tell what other interactions might be involved here?
All of that said, my advice would be to not start out using the temporary bookmarking mode. I would not suggest you use that until you are quite familiar with Bookmark+. You can use temporary bookmarks without using this mode.
Here is the doc about using temporary bookmarks:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/BookmarkPlus#toc55
Finally, as Stefan suggested, please follow up by email. It's a lot easier for debugging/discussing things in detail.
Thx -- Drew
Update 2019-04-21:
I think what might have happened is that you quit Emacs with bmkp-temporary-bookmarking-mode enabled. Although Bookmark+ (correctly) does not save the file of temporary bookmarks it was not preventing the recording of bmkp-last-as-first-bookmark-file from being updated to point to the temporary file. In your next Emacs session that temporary file (if it still existed) was loaded because of bmkp-last-as-first-bookmark-file.
That should be OK now. Enabling bmkp-temporary-bookmarking-mode now resets bmkp-last-as-first-bookmark-file to nil, so if you quit with the temp mode still enabled, then when you load your bookmark file in a new session the file that is read is the value of bookmark-default-file. (The value of bookmark-default-file is never changed, except by your
customizations.)
It's quite an old question, but since I had just the same problem and the other answers didn't help me I'll post my solution:
I'm using desktop files from desktop.el and the temporary mode was set there in the desktop file! Removing that setting from all my desktop files fixed the problem.
This might be handy:
find ~ -name .emacs.desktop -print0 | xargs -0 grep -l bmkp-temporary-bookmarking-mode

Emacs Buffer Management

I was wondering how people manage with the useless messages etc emacs buffers generated randomly, for example after my completions, I get an completions buffer and it upsets me it create a buffer I have to traverse to get to the next buffer. Anyone have a solution to this?
The title is rather vague. There are lots of Q&As on the general subject of "buffer management" in Emacs. Here's one which includes links to several others (see "Linked" in the right-hand sidebar):
How can I more easily switch between buffers in Emacs?
For your specific question, I suggest using the excellent winner-mode. Just add (winner-mode 1) to your .emacs file (or type M-x winner-mode RET to try it out).
Once enabled, you can call winner-undo with C-c<left> (repeatedly, if necessary) to step backwards through all the previous window configurations.
Thus, when a window pops up and you no longer want it, you type C-c<left> and you're immediately back to how things were before.
C-c<right> calls winner-redo which restores the configuration you started with (i.e. it doesn't step through the configurations like the undo command).
Also note that many types of buffer can be buried with q or deleted with z.

Why do my emacs comint buffers sometimes seem to share the same history?

I often have several comint buffers open at once, for example I'll have a SQLi buffer open to a database and a set of shell buffers open in various places. Sometimes, for no reason I can detect, all of these buffers start to share a common buffer command history, such that M-p will pull up my last SQL command in a shell-mode buffer, and so on.
How can I fix this? What on earth is causing it?
Have you exited from any of the shells or SQL sessions? Long time since I used emacs but I seem to remember when a shell terminated the commands would be part of a 'global-command-history-list'.
note - A shell can quit, but the buffer will still be there in emacs.
It sounds like there is something else going on in your system that you are not aware of. One possibility may be something in your .emacs is mixing between buffers without your knowledge. Another possibility is that you are inadvertently moving data through your copy-and-paste system.