Xah Emacs Blog Archive 2012-03

Add-A-Gram Programing Puzzle

John Snader posted a very interesting coding challenge problem. See: Source irreal.org.

try implement it in elisp or your fav lang. (i'd love to see it in elisp, ruby, perl, python, JavaScript, ocaml.)

Emacs + Keyboard Geeking, the Nth Episode 2012-03-27

Emacs Tip: Make Menu Key Do M-x

(global-set-key (kbd "<apps>") 'execute-extended-command) ; make the menu key do M-x

this is default on Linuxes.

Of you Linux users, do you use M-x more often or ▤ Menu key to call command by name?

New Emacs Wiki: wikemacs.org

A new emacs wiki http://wikemacs.org/

started by [Bozhidar Batsov https://plus.google.com/108153044872779739189/posts] (who brought us emacs prelude pack.)

Help contribute!

(also thanks to [Alex Schroeder https://plus.google.com/112496081196492342580/posts] for the huge work on http://www.emacswiki.org/ since about 2005!)

I'd much prefer Wikipedia style, the content as well as Wikimedia software. Emacswiki (EW) is just chaotic and often incorrect or outdated info, and there is no impetus to fix those while as a wiki it does have the power to.

for example, while i was looking at yasnippet ~2007. I discovered there's quite a lot template systems already, some are bundled in emacs. Thanks to EW for that. However, aside from just a list of names, it's impossible to know much of anything. I spent a day diving among the chaotic info on EW. If it was like Wikipedia, then, in a hour i'd have read a summary of all template systems, know which exactly are bundled, when, in what emacs version, and also get a summary of their differences, their feature set, and code samples on defining a template with each.

A wiki system can do this, and you all will contribute. Just look at how great Wikipedia have become, its quantity and quality. But i don't understand why Alex refuse to do this. He does not have actually to do anything, all he simply have to do is to edit his guideline/mindset, so all contributor can follow towards that automatically and naturally. He somehow have a mindset that ANY thing ANY user add there is FINE. That's the problem.

(i have written a summary of yasnippet and a couple other entries on EW in the past, trying to summarize it well in Wikipedia style… but rarely do it because either it bit rots or became just more chat again after a while)

the second issue is the wiki software… but that's less important. IF wikimedia (or other more powerful) software is used, then we could have a separate talk/discussion page, or even a entirely separate forum system. Sticking with one-man oddmuse software just won't scale.

update: Emacs: Make elisp-index-search use Current Symbol

emacs toothpick 2021-01-20 Vb38V
Emacs Lisp Toothpick Syndrome

Emacs Grep Command and Unix Shell Quote Escape Pain

See: Problems of grep in Emacs.

Updated: Emacs Lisp: HTML Amazon URL Linkify. (thanks to jcs again.)

Updated: Emacs: Cycle Space Hyphen Underscore. (Thanks to Jon Snader (irreal.org) again for proofreading.)

Emacs: New HTML5 Tag Set for Yasnippet

Here's yasnippet bundle for complete set html5 tags, and html5 tags only. [see HTML5 Tags] I've been using them for a year now.

Download at http://code.google.com/p/ergoemacs/source/browse/#git%2Fpackages%2Fyasnippet-0.6.1c%2Fsnippets%2Ftext-mode%2Fhtml-mode

(thanks to John Kitchin)

If you enjoyed my work, a donation is much appreciated.

Emacs: List Colors, Name, Hexadecimal

Is Emacs in Any Linux Base?

So, on twitter, this tweet turned up today:

«_dumfries: Dear distros, please include emacs in base.»

and my reply:

«@_dumfries as long as GNU Emacs refuse to change keys to be compatible on Linux apps, it's hard.»

when i tried Ubuntu Linux last year, i found that emacs isn't part of the normal install. But in fact, is in a package category that's unsupported (called “universe”). [see Emacs on Ubuntu Linux]

This is a INSULT to the face.

Not in base install is inconvenience, but in a unsupported category. FSF GNU flagship software, categorized as fringe.

This is the Open Source situation. Very hard to swallow.

Emacs should be the default editor. But at the minimum, it should to be in base package of Linux distros.

But i can totally understand why Linux distro refuse to do that. The emacs priests are too high up there to be compatible with the rest of open source. As long as the copy/paste/undo keys isn't compatible with the rest of Linux, it's hard for Linux to consider it as default editor.

then we have a handful of oldbie emacs faakheads, who insist their habits over the hundreds of thousands of young generation.

but wait, why don't you use Microsoft Notepad? Emacs isn't notepad. If you want, try Microsoft Word. The easier you make software, the dumber people becomes (Knuth). Emacs was here first. Mouse isn't efficient. I've been using emacs for 20 years, starting with PDF and TEKO systems. I never had a problem with my hands. And you should swap control and caps lock as the keys should be. If you want X C for copy paste, you can do it easily, after all, we are talking about emacs!

New article: Emacs Keys Summary.

2 Articles on the Problems of EmacsWiki

Note: Emacswiki was great, it served its time, helped people tremendously, but now it might be good time to change, since lots has changed in past 7 years since it started.

If you feel the same, please send a kind notice to Alex. He might be convinced now. Also, Alex was kind enough to license the whole thing as open source. He has mentioned that he doesn't mind if people mirror or start another wiki. So, if you are ambitious, you can start a fresh one.

Xah Emacs Tutorial News: Some Article Updates, and Thank You

Emacs Lisp: Parse Date Time

In past months, Jon Snader (jcs) (irreal.org) has gone thru my elisp tutorial and corrected many errors and given me feedback. I really like to say a big thank you to Jon here. Thank you Jon.

Also, i have now and then received donations from people, with encouraging words. Recently got one from a professor from a well-known university. I really like to thank you guys. Some of you sent donation but i know that some are buried in my email that i have not replied. I just want to say here Thank You, whoever may be reading this. I will continue working on the emacs tutorial and ErgoEmacs as usual. Many elisp topics, such as emacs font system, buffer/frame system, display system, i yet have to explore and write about. Thank you all for the support. And thank you for reading.

Keyboard with Numeric Keypad Sawed Off

Updated: Emacs: How to Make 【Ctrl+x】 Easier to Type on Dvorak Keyboard

Bug Fix: System-Wide ErgoEmacs Keybinding for Windows

New version of system-wide ErgoEmacs qwerty keybinding for windows “ErgoEmacs_keybinding_Windows_qwerty.ahk”. Fixed a missing colon, that prevents Alt+i to work.

At System-wide ErgoEmacs Keybinding for Windows, Mac, Bash

Thanks to [Mira HÉDL https://plus.google.com/u/0/111496164424874339580/posts] for reporting.

emacs Search Find Replace Commands, and case-sensitivity

Emacs: Find Replace in Current File

that's a detailed tutorial on the most frequestly used find replace commands, and the details about letter-case-sensitivity in find string and replacement string.

Here's a summary:

Growing collection of emacs 24 tips in one page: Emacs 24 (Released 2012-06)

Set Line Number to Start at 0. Emacs Init: Show Line Numbers

Emacs Package Repository: MELPA

For Emacs Package System, there is another package repository http://melpa.milkbox.net/ . Am not sure what's its distinctive features from other repo such as Marmalade. You might try it. Let me know.

MELPA is written by Donald Ephraim Curtis (home page http://milkbox.net/ )

(melpa is suggested by Ozan Sener from Jon Snader's blog.)

See also: Emacs: Install Package with ELPA/MELPA.

emacs vi power drill cartoon
“vi vs emacs”. 0xBabafoool comics by Laurent Grégoire

Emergency vim.

Emacs: Install Package with ELPA/MELPA

Xah Emacs/Elisp Tutorial Update 2012-03-07

New version of my emacs tutorial ready.

If you've bought it before, please just email to Xah@XahLee.org with subject “emacs tutorial upgrade”.

If you haven't bought it, you can get it for just $10. See: Buy Xah Emacs Tutorial. As far as i know it's more complete and detailed tutorial than any emacs book, printed or not, especially the elisp section.

Also, you can subscribe my emacs blog from Google Plus, facebook, twitter, or Google Reader. See: Xah Lee Feeds.

Thank you for support! and thanks to those of you who have made comments or helped spread the word on social networks. Also, much thanks to Jon Snader (jcs) (irreal.org) who made many private corrections and suggestions.

Emacs 24: copy-directory Major Brokage

See: Emacs 24 (Released 2012-06)

Emacs 24: Spell-Checking on Windows is 25 Times Faster!

See: Emacs 24 (Released 2012-06)

Emacs: Undo/Redo Saga

emacs 24 new command: count-words: Emacs 24 (Released 2012-06)

Updated with a new command “open-in-external-app”. Emacs: Open File in External App 🚀. Tested on Windows. Let me know if it works for Mac or Linux, especially for more than 1 marked files.

Try Out Emacs 24 Beta Release

See: Emacs 24 (Released 2012-06)

Emacs 24 Changes: Bookmark File Location

See: Emacs 24 (Released 2012-06)

In-place Algorithm for Reversing a List in Perl, Python, Lisp, Mathematica

Update: Emacs fill-paragraph Problem