When I’m looking at a diff in Emacs’s diff-mode, I usually use native functions like diff-apply-hunk to apply/revert or otherwise operate on hunks. Occasionally, though, I just want to kill (copy) part of the diff so I can do something else with it. When I do, I end up with leading – or + or […]

I often run Java programs like Android apps in my Emacs compilation buffer while I’m working on them, so I see Java stack traces there just like compile errors. Emacs is good at identifying compilation errors so you can jump straight to the source file and line, but not so much with stack traces. Here’s […]

I use Emacs, vc, and git all pretty heavily. I know the cool kids use magit and egg, but good old vc has stuck with me through four different “new hotness” version control systems – CVS, Perforce, Subversion, and now git – and I’m sure it will still be around for many more to come. […]

Update: Emacs 26.1 added official support for this with a new emacsclient –tramp option! The 26.1 manual isn’t online yet, but you can learn more with M-x info inside Emacs 26.1, Emacs => emacsclient options. I recently started running shells inside Emacs via shell mode, including ssh sessions to remote hosts using TRAMP. I’m pretty […]

I recently started running shells inside Emacs via shell mode, and so far I’m pretty happy with it. I’ve found a number of things to tweak, though, including the completions buffer, which is great except that it overstays its welcome and doesn’t close when you’re done with it. I searched the web and found Dmitriy […]

Mental context switches are evil. Some people handle them better than others, but not me. I handle them worse. I feel it, almost physically, when context switches whittle down my precious flow piece by piece. It hurts! Even something as small as switching between Emacs and the shell can hurt, especially when I do it […]

Here’s some Emacs Lisp for encoding flowed text a la RFC 2646. This is useful for composing email in Emacs. For example, if you use a separate email client and emacsclient as your editor, add this and (add-hook ‘server-switch-hook ‘flow-encode-buffer) to your .emacs to encode your emails as flowed text automatically. (defgroup flow-fill nil “Decoding […]

Emacs’s support for special buffer frames, specifically the special-display-function variable and friends, let you customize the way Emacs chooses a window and buffer for new frames that are displayed via display-buffer. Here’s Elisp code you can use as special-display-function that prefers existing windows and frames, as opposed to splitting the current window and frame, but […]

I use GNU Emacs as my text editor, and I love it. I regularly use it to work with multiple workspaces that have identical sets of files and directories. After I’ve worked in one workspace for a while, I often want to switch to another workspace. Specifically, I want to close all of the files […]

When I’m working, I pretty much live inside Emacs. It’s my IDE, debugger, text editor, email composer, spreadsheet, file manager, and all-around scratch pad. I’ve burned Emacs’ key bindings into my brain, so I go to great lengths to set them in every program I use. That way, I don’t have to context switch my […]

I spend a fair amount of time ssh-ed into remote, headless linux servers. I often need to use a text editor to edit configuration files. Most don’t run X windows, so I can’t run emacs, my editor of choice, in graphical mode. I could use emacs -nw, which starts emacs in text mode, but emacs […]

I work at home occasionally, using plain old SSH to VPN in to work. I forward X Windows over SSH, so I can run shells and Emacs on my work machine and display them locally on my laptop. This works ok, but it can be dog slow at times. The biggest annoyance is the kill […]

This article describes my first attempt at running shells inside Emacs, which didn’t work out. I tried again recently, and I think I’m going to stick with it, so this is preserved for posterity only! When I’m working, I pretty much live inside Emacs. It’s my IDE, debugger, text editor, email composer, spreadsheet, file manager, […]

I do most of my Emacs customization in my .emacs file. However, Emacs starts itself and creates an X11 window before it reads the .emacs file. So, customizations that affect the window itself are very expensive, since they’re applied after the window is created. A few of these customizations include turning the menu bar, toolbar, […]

I use GNU Emacs, and I love it. However, I had trouble recently when I tried to re-bind C-1 to do something new. Executive summary? Do this: (global-set-key [(control \1)] ‘foo) Note the escaped 1. Evidently this keystroke syntax interprets numeric arguments as key ids, or something, instead of the key’s actual character. So, to […]