- You can make this setup more stable
- I recommend Emacs 24.3.1 or 24.4
- Tested with Emacs 24.3.1, 24.4, 24.5 on ALL platforms (Linux/Windows/Cygwin/Mac)
- Check section “About Emacs 23” if you uses Emacs 23.4
- Please read FAQ to disable default Vim key bindings
- It’s my intentional design that you can NOT install packages from melpa-unstable by default. Experienced users can modify variable melpa-include-packages in “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el” to install packages from melpa-unstable
- Other issues are covered in FAQ
- Stable is the first priority
- I do NOT re-define key bindings, so original key bindings are still there
- 100% usable in terminal
- Popular languages are supported (C/C++/Java/Ruby/Perl/Python/C#/Lua/Javascript …)
- Minimum dependency (For example, network connection is OPTIONAL to install packages)
- Optimized for cross-platform C++ development
Most users should follow the section “Install in normal way”.
You need read the section “Install stable version in easiest way” if and only if:
- You are absolutely newbie, knowing nothing about Linux/Unix
- You are living in North Korea without internet access
Please remove the file ”/.emacs.d/init.el" and "~/.emacs". "
” means the parent directory of your “.emacs.d” directory.
Uninstall any package not installed at “~/.emacs.d”. For example, run “apt-get autoremove emacs-w3m” on Debian/Ubuntu. If don’t know what I mean, then do nothing.
All packages should be placed at “~/.emacs.d” from now on.
There are TWO ways to install this setup:
Way 1, download latest setup and extract its content into “~/.emacs.d”, OR run command cd ~; git clone https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git .emacs.d
in shell.
Way 2, use stable setup, OR run command cd ~; git clone https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git .emacs.d; cd .emacs.d; git reset --hard stable
in shell.
Ensure that the init.el contained in this repo ends up at ~/.emacs.d/init.el.
By default, all packages will be installed automatically during startup. Edit ~/.emacs.d/init-elpa.el to avoid certain package be installed automatically.
You don’t need git or network any more. All you need are only two zip files.
Here are the exact steps to follow:
- Remove the file “~/.emacs”.
- Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d/archive/stable.zip
- Extract its content into empty directory ”
/.emacs.d" ("
” means home directory, the environment variable HOME contains the path of home directory). After extraction, there will be a file named “init.el” in “~/.emacs.d” - Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/myelpa/archive/stable.zip
- Extract the zip somewhere, say “~/projs/myelpa”.
- Double check that there is a file named “archive-contents” in the directory “~/projs/myelpa”
- Uncomment below code in “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el” and start Emacs now!
(setq package-archives '(("myelpa" . "~/projs/myelpa/")))
That’s it. You never need internet in the future because you are using local package repository “~/projs/melpa” now.
You can switch to the online repository like “http://elpa.gnu.org” or “http://melpa.org” by modifying “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el”.
You can install them in any way you like. But “OS package manager” is easier.
“OS package manager” means:
- apt-cyg at Cygwin
- homebrew at Mac
- any package manager at Linux (apt-get at Ubuntu, yum at Redhat, pacman at Arch, emerge at Gentoo …)
These tools are OPTIONAL.
Please ignore any related error message. For example, if aspell and hunspell are not installed, you can ignore all the flyspell error messages.
- needed by
w3m
(w3m is emacs package name written in elisp) - install through OS package manager
- please note only emacs with GUI can display image
- required by
flymake-lua
- install through OS package manager
- needed by
flyspell
- hunspell is the alternative of
aspell
. So you need only one of them. - install through OS package manager
- for aspell, you may need its dictionary like aspell-en
- I force the dictionary to “en_US” in “~/.emacs./lisp/init-spelling.el”. You can modify it.
- I recommend aspell for programmers
- needed by lisp
slime
- install through OS package manager
- needed by
web-mode
for real time HTML syntax check - install through OS package manager
- install
node.js
through OS package manager, thensudo npm install -g csslint
identify from ImageMagick
- needed by
org-mode
to export org file to odt file when image embedded - install through OS package manager
- needed by
org-mode
to export org file to odt file - install through OS package manager
- install
node.js
through OS package manager, thensudo npm install -g jshint
- required by js-mode
- by default I use js2-mode which does NOT need jshint
- needed by my clipboard command
copy-to-x-clipboard
andpaste-from-x-clipboard
under Linux - install through OS package manager
- needed by
cpputils-cmake
- install through OS package manager
- Please use out-of-source build tree when using CMake
- needed by
cpputils-cmake
,company-clang
- install through OS package manager
- If you use
cpputils-cmake
andcmake
,cpputils-cmake
will do all the setup for you. You don’t need read next item! But please spend a few minutes to learn the basics of cmake! There is a one minute step-by-step-guide in README of cpputils-cmake to teach you how to use cmake. - If you use
company-clang
, add(setq company-clang-arguments '("-I/example1/dir" "-I/example2/dir"))
into ~/.emacs.d/init.el
- needed by
flymake
- install through OS package manager
- needed by MozRepl
- used by Firefox
- it creates tags file for code navigation
- needed by many tags related packages
- install through OS package manager
- See How to use ctags in Emacs effectively
- needed by
ggtags.el
- it creates index files for code navigation
- more advanced than ctags, supports references and has better performance
- install through OS package manager
- Only one executable
soffice
needed when converting odt file into doc/pdf - conversion happens automatically when exporting org-mode to odt
- The conversion command is in variable
org-export-odt-convert-processes
- Install through OS package manager
- Beautify javascript code
- Install pip through OS package manager, then
pip install jsbeautifier
- syntax check Erlang through flymake
- Install from https://github.com/ten0s/syntaxerl
- Required by elpy which is python IDE
- At least
pip install jedi flake8
. Check elpy website for more tips.
- Required by sdcv.el
- install through OS package manager
curl http://abloz.com/huzheng/stardict-dic/dict.org/stardict-dictd_www.dict.org_wn-2.4.2.tar.bz2 | tar jx -C ~/.stardict/dic
to install dictionary
”~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-evil.el” lists the most frequently used key bindings I use.
For example, below line means pressing “,bf” equals to M-x beginning-of-defun
,
"bf" 'beginning-of-defun
Read wikipedia in order to know,
- What is environment variable
- What is pipe, stdout, stdin
Press C-h t
(“C” means Ctrl key, “M” means Alt key) to read bundled tutorial.
At minimum you need know:
- How to move cursor
- How to read help by pressing
C-h v
andC-h f
.
Org-mode is a for notes-keeping and planning.
Please watch the Carsten Dominik’s talk. It’s really simple. The only hot key to remember is Tab
.
For that problem, you can visit EmacsWiki for the solution. Newbies can ask for help at http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/.
Most people should synchronize from my stable setup which is updated every 6 months:
git pull https://[email protected]/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git stable
But advanced users can use latest setup:
git pull https://[email protected]/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git
If you don’t like my commits, you can revert them:
# always start from the latest related commit
git revert commit-2014-12-01
git revert commit-2014-11-01
Learn basics.
Then use my solution.
Please note paredit-mode is enabled when editing Lisp. Search “paredit cheatsheet” to learn its key bindings.
Use smart-mode-line or powerline?
Comment out (require 'init-modeline)
in init.el at first.
Other softwares may intercept the key bindings. For example, someone reported QQ on windows 8 can intercept =M-x=.
They are listed at “lisp/init-evil”. I use evil-leader to assign hot keys.
If two plugins conflicts, the more frequently used plugin takes priority.
But there exists workaround for less used plugin. Check “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-evil.el” for the list of alternative.
For example, if which-func-mode
cannot display function name at mode-line, you can use M-x popup-which-function
instead.
popup-which-function
is mentioned in init-evil.el.
Press M-x org-version
, then read corresponding online manual.
I keep the original status of org-mode. If you find anything doesn’t work out of the box, it’s because you haven’t do the required setup yet.
For example, org-capture
need your manual setup.
You need remove emacs 22 bundled with freshly installed OSX:
sudo rm -rf /usr/bin/emacs /usr/share/emacs
You need remove the obsolete ctags/etags too:
sudo rm /usr/bin/ctags /usr/bin/etags
To find out the version of your Emacs/Ctags, run below command in shell:
emacs --version
ctags --version
Some packages (Evil, Helm, Web-mode …) are so important to my workflow that I locked their versions.
Those packages are placed at “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp”.
They will not be upgraded through ELPA automatically unless you delete corresponding folders at “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp”.
Some variables are hard coded so you cannot “M-x customize” to modify them.
Here are the steps to change their values:
- Find the variable description by “M-x customize”
- For text “Company Clang Insert Arguments”, search “company-clang-insert-argument” in “~/.emacs.d/lisp/”
- You will find “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-company.el” and modify company-clang-insert-argument’s value
BTW, please read my comments above the code at first.
If you press C-x C-f
to open a file, Ido will show the completions.
You can keep pressing C-f
to ignore the completions.
I strongly suggest Cygwin version of Emacs. But native windows version is OK if you declare environment variable HOME which points to a user directory C:\Users\<username>
. You need extract .emacs.d into the directory HOME points to.
Instead of M-x yas-expand
or press TAB key, you may use press “M-j” in evil-insert-mode.
Please place the source at “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp” where some samples already exist.
Insert below lines into “~/.emacs.d/init.el”:
;; check the package's README to figure out what's the =require= line!
(require 'cool-package-name)
;; put whatever setup here
Your locale must be UTF-8 compatible. For example, as I type locale
in shell, I got the output “zh_CN.UTF-8”.
Type below commmand in shell:
http_proxy=http://yourname:[email protected]:8080 emacs -nw
People in China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran need goagent. Run command http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:8087 emacs -nw
in shell after starting goagent server.
If you use Gnus for email, check init-gnus.el and read my Gnus tutorial.
Some package cannot be downloaded automatically because of network problem.
You could
M-x list-packages
to manually install it- Or
M-x package-refresh-content
and restart Emacs. the package will be installed automatically
By default EVIL (Vim emulation in Emacs) is used. You can comment out line containing “(require ‘init-evil)” in init.el to unload it.
It’s defined in “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-evil.el”. Press C-z
to switch between Emacs and Vim key bindings.
Please reading its PDF manual before using evil-mode.
I assume you are using company-mode. Other packages have similar setup.
At minimum:
- You need install clang
- Make sure your code is syntax correct at the beginning
- assign reasonable value into company-clang-arguments
Here is sample code:
(setq company-clang-arguments '("-I/home/myname/projs/test-cmake" "-I/home/myname/projs/test-cmake/inc"))
In “friendly” Visual C++, you need do similar setup.
Check http://emacsthemes.caisah.info/.
Write down the name of color theme (for example, molokai).
Insert below code into “~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-color-theme.el”,
;; the color theme name "molokai"" could be replaced with other theme name
(require 'color-theme-molokai)
(color-theme-molokai)
“M-x color-theme-select” may not work because of some design flaw in Emacs.
Please note there is NO unified way to enable color theme. You need read color theme’s documentation at first.
My sample code works for most color themes.
If you insist on configuring the color theme in a different way, please,
- Comment out the line containing
(require 'init-color-theme)
in “~/.emacs.d/init.el” at first - Read EmacsWiki
TERM=xterm-256color emacs -nw
Run command M-x toggle-input-method
to toggle input method. A 20M chinese dictionary is already provided.
If your personal word file “~/.eim/pyim-personal.txt” exists, it will be used.
Or else “~/.emacs.d/pyim/pyim-personal.txt” will be created.
Run below commands:
mkdir -p ~/tmp;
curl http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/emacs-24.3.tar.gz | tar xvz -C ~/tmp/emacs-24.3
cd ~/tmp/emacs-24.3;
mkdir -p ~/myemacs/24.3;
rm -rf ~/myemacs/24.3/*;
./configure --prefix=~/myemacs/24.3 --without-gtk --without-gtk3 --without-aqua --without-x --without-xpm --without-png --without-gif --without-alsa --without-tiff --without-jpeg --without-aqua --without-rsvg --without-xft --without-xaw3d --without-xim --without-xpm --without-dbus --without-makeinfo --with-x-toolkit=no --without-sound --without-sync-input --without-pop;make;make install
Feel free to replace 24.3 with other version number.
”~/.emacs.d/init.el” is the main file. It includes all the other *.el files.
”~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el” defines how and what packages will be installed from MELPA.
The package manager will extract packages into “~/.emacs.d/elpa/”.
I also manually download and extract some packages into “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/”. Packages in “~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/” is not visible to the package manager.
My own snippets for Yasnippet is at “~/.emacs.d/snippets”.
Other directories don’t matter.
Emacs 23 support was dropped on <2015-04-21>.
The latest Emacs23 compatible version of setup is 1.2!
Here are the steps to use that setup:
- Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d/archive/1.2.zip
- Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/myelpa/archive/1.2.zip
- Follow the section “Install stable version in easiest way” but skip the download steps
Since most third party plugins don’t support Emacs 23 any more. I strongly recommend you upgrading to Emacs 24 instead!
Emacs is portalbe on any platform. So you can install Emacs even when you are not root of the Linux server. Please read previous “Install Emacs at home directory” for HOW.
- Never turn off any bundled mode if it’s on by default. Future version of Emacs may assume it’s on. Tweak its flag in mode hook instead!
- Git skills are extremely useful for maintainting your emacs.d. The book Pro Git has everything. Please read the chapters “Git Basics”, “Git Branching”, “Git Tools” at minimum.
Check EmacsWiki and my FAQ at first.
File bug report at https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d. Don’t email me directly!
Please contact the original developer if you find any bug from third party packages.
Bug report should include details (OS, Emacs version …) plus the output of emacs --debug-init
at minimum.