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September 3, 2024

Part Four of My Battles with Emacs

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It is not my fault. I blame Jack Baty for this. He goes on and on about how Org-mode has improved his sex life and given him purpose and direction. Okay, maybe he hasn’t quite said that. But he is enamored with it and I am curious to find out what he is on about.

He rates Org-mode better than Markdown:

Org-mode may be the Betamax of text formats, but if you recall, Beta was the better format. VHS won, but not because it was better. Why would I use a lesser format for my notes than Org-mode? “Everyone uses Markdown” is not an answer.

I gave up on Org-mode because of my problems with Emacs. Some problem with my setup made using a largish file an absolute nightmare. Using a combination of TaskPaper and BBEdit was working fine. I was relatively happy. I came across pprevosemacs-writing-studio Emacs configuration for authors who research, write and publish articles, books and websites..

I started reading the book and that got me intrigued enough to go back to Emacs. This was helped considerably by the consistent evangelism of Jack Baty.

Configuring Emacs

I adopted large sections of the Emacs Writing Studio configuration.

Got rid of some of the elements which seemed unnecessary to me. Got rid of elfeed, I don’t want to access my RSS feeds in Emacs. I use Newsblur for my RSS feeds and that works great. Dumped the stuff with LaTeX. I don’t use that. I will add it back if I need it. I made some additional tweaks:

  1. Changed the configuration to an Org-mode file. Needed to write extensive notes to myself on every little bit I added or deleted. Tangling the Org-mode file to an init.el file is relatively painless.
  2. Introduced General.el to the configuration. Makes it easy to add keyboard commands to Emacs to be happy in both Org-mode and Markdown.
  3. Got rid of all the evil-mode stuff from my previous configuration. I am going to concentrate on learning Emacs and not complicate matters by learning both Emacs and VIM.
  4. Added tab-bar-mode. I am used to tabs.
  5. Changed the Writing Studio configuration for org-capture. Adapted the section from Prot’s GNU Emacs configuration.
  6. Changed the Mode line with help from SophieBosio.emacs.d Sophie’s Emacs configuration
  7. Added Corfu and Cape to the completion tools.
  8. Got rid of Modern Org Style and went back to Make org-mode stars a little more super. I am using a bit of code Jack Baty had provided a few years ago to make Org-bullets look pretty.
  9. Added Olivetti-mode to both Markdown and Org files.
  10. Set the recentf limit to (recentf-max-saved-items 1000).
  11. Changed the font configuration to Custom build of Iosevka from Protesilos, for default and fixed-pitch fonts. Using Lexend - Deca for variable-pitch font.
  12. Added auto-package-update to make that function easier.
  13. Added saveplace to be able to get back to the place I last worked on a file.
  14. Added a function to make all my regular files load into Emacs through a keyboard command if I need it.
  15. Added Default window size and tabs>spaces.

There might be some other additions and deletions to and from the Writing Studio configuration.

Other Observations

  • I had a bit of code in my older configuration which tried to replicate typewriter scrolling by putting my cursor at the middle of the window. Something about that code made Emacs unusable for large files. The performance of Emacs has improved considerably with that code absent. I am going to explore other ways of adding this feature to Emacs. But I am taking it easy in the meantime.
  • I am done with tweaking for a while. Emacs configuration is a time-sink. Making the ideal text editor for yourself is a commendable goal but it has a cost I am not willing to pay. A little addition and some inane mistake and your configuration goes to hell. It is a matter of trying to find out what you did wrong. Immense frustration ensues. Not going to encourage this behavior. Going to tweak only when it is absolutely necessary. I want to write and read in Emacs. Not become an Emacs guru.

Things Still to be Done

  • Need to get org-agenda working. It is not at the moment.
  • Find a solution for typewriter scrolling.
  • Explore writing in Org-mode to see what the fuss is.
  • Explore Denote to figure out whether I need that.

Conclusion

Am happy to be able to use Emacs as my text editor. In combination with TaskPaper it is getting a fair amount of use for the last few weeks. I still miss certain things about BBEdit. The project-based workflow with relevant folders in the sidebar is an UI I am used to. Not having that in Emacs is a little disconcerting. Getting more familiar with dired buffers might make that unnecessary.

Still getting comfortable with the keyboard commands in Emacs. Immersion is going to help with that.

Will keep posting updates to this as we go along.

Note

  • Thanks to Photo by Tyler Lastovich
  • Thanks to Peter Prevos for the Emacs Writing Studio
  • Thanks to Protesilaos Stavrou for everything you do for the Emacs community.
  • Thanks to Jack Baty for being insistent.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie.

Addendum

These were the antecedents to this step:


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