Xah Emacs Blog Archive 2014-08

Emacs: Copy File Path of Current Buffer 🚀

Emacs: Sync Copy/Paste Clipboards with Linux X11 (on its own page)

Emacs: Bookmark (minor update)

Maltron Keyboard Review (updated.) includes a new review in comparison to Kinesis, and a list of emacs users i know of using Maltron.

Emacs 24.4 (Released 2014-10) (repost)

get the August beta at ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/emacs-24.3.93.tar.xz

to decompress xz files, do xz -d filename.[see Linux: Extract tar zip gzip lzip bzip2 xz rar]

to build yourself from git: Emacs: How to Build Emacs from git Repository

for emacs 24.4 Windows (built by [Fabrice Popineau https://plus.google.com/+FabricePopineau/posts] ), get at http://semantic.supelec.fr/popineau/programming-emacs.html#sec-2

Datadesk Smartboard Keyboard Review. One of the best, and cheap!

Keyboards Size Comparison: Maltron, Kinesis, Microsoft Ergonomic

Hand Exercise Toys for Repetitive Strain Injury

Found a good putty and squeeze ball designed specifically for Repetitive Strain Injury.

there's a item called

, but it's not really good as a hand exercise toy because it's more of a science toy, with bits of metal in the putty. If you leave it on the carpet, it'll melt into the carpet as one. Rather nasty. I read a lot review of it on Amazon.

For a hand exercise putty, you want one that doesn't smell, doesn't leave grease on your hand, stays in one piece, and not too soft as clay. this one: hand putty . And it's much cheaper than the science toy magnetic putty thing.

Also, there are squeeze rings, and squeeze balls, designed for Repetitive Strain Injury. I've gathered a collection of them, all updated.

reviving the JavaScript raining hearts ♥💕💓💔💖💗💘💝💞💟💙💚💛💜 of 1999. JS: Raining Hearts

Emacs: Xah Dired Mode (xah-dired.el) (repost. updated code on github)

Yuri Khan Truly Ergonomic keyboard config 2014-08-26
[Yuri Khan https://plus.google.com/+YuriKhan/posts]'s Truly ergonomic keyboard config. Detail At https://plus.google.com/113859563190964307534/posts/53VxnxY2jVg

Function keys in a circle! Ergonomixx Mykey Keyboard

The keyboard is the sword of programer. Emacs Keybinding, Keyboard, Articles Index

Emacs: Why You Should Not Swap CapsLock and Control (updated. Removed large portions of rant.)

see also: Bad Advice on Typing and Keyboard from Programers

Emacs: Why You Should Not Swap CapsLock and Control

sometimes i got ridicule on this. Perhaps it's not for everyone's hands, and very much depends on the keyboard you are using.

Google search “emacs palm to press control key” and you'll see many people using this method too.

yes, i use this method to press the control key, started sometimes around 2006 or so. You can see a video of me doing it at http://youtu.be/tkjm1xSF4g0?t=1m2s

How to Avoid Emacs Pinky (updated)

Best Keyboards for Emacs (updated)

new video review. Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard Review

What is the difference between {shell, term, ansi-term, eshell}?

updated at Emacs: Run Shell in Emacs

my emacs abbrev https://github.com/xahlee/xah_emacs_init/blob/master/xah_emacs_abbr.el

for tutorial: Emacs: Abbrev Mode by Lisp Code

Emacs Best Shell Practices

[Guanghui Qu https://plus.google.com/112537550357635435516] asks:

Are you running a shell inside Emacs? I have heard shell, eshell and ansi-term, what's the best practice to work with shell inside Emacs? or should I use shell outside of Emacs? Any suggestions will be helpful to me. Thanks.

See: https://plus.google.com/112537550357635435516/posts/Wgpk2mH6hQh

Emacs: Run Shell in Emacs (updated, and also added a screenshot. Thanks to [Moe Bius https://plus.google.com/102258880674532086678/posts])

xah-filter-list and xah-string-match-in-list-p

Coding is tedious. T E D I O U S.

spend a hour to write these today:

haven't had time to polish it.

they are dumped in “xeu_elisp_util.el” at github.

and, emacs lisp truly sucks. By the way, you'll hear emacs bloggers now and then write how beautiful and powerful emacs lisp is. I tell you, it's total bs. Emacs lisp the language, is perhaps 10 times worse and less powerful then any of Perl, Python, Ruby, JavaScript. Truth.

why i wrote them? here's the problem.

i have a list of files generated by

(find-lisp-find-files $inputPath "\\.html\\'\\|\\.xml\\'")

but i want to filter out some directories. In any other lang, including bash or unix util, you can easily add a option or filter. Emacs lisp can't do. The “find-lisp-find-files” is some kinda obscure function few know. Not much documentation, and not very flexible. So, i had to write my own.

so, the code now is:

(xah-filter-list
 (lambda (h) (not (xah-string-match-in-list-p h $skip-list "match case" t)))
 (find-lisp-find-files $inputPath "\\.html\\'\\|\\.xml\\'"))

it's at “git/xahscripts/elisp/xah_site_move.el” (by the way, this is one of the larger code i spend a couple weeks to write. It is used to split my site into several domains. Basically, given a directory D, and a list of pairs, each pair is 2 full file paths, from and to. Correct all relative links of html files in D according to the from/to pairs. The code is about 1k lines. The bulk is at “xah_emacs_xahsite_path_lisp_util.el”. The task is quite more complex than i imagined. (i wrote them in ))

comment at https://plus.google.com/113859563190964307534/posts/4HmTw4W7tg8

i haven't done much emacs blogging in past week. Mostly focusing on writing my tutorials on JavaScript and Web Dev.

Matt is working on http://ergoemacs.github.io/ diligently as always. Code commits and answering bug reports patiently every day. Every other day i git pull, hundreds of line changes. Amazing.

Mastering the Tools of the Trade

Several tutorials for programers:

I spend 5 years to write them. You spend 5 minutes to read them.

If you are a computer science college student, or if you are pro programer in lang X and want to learn lang Y, then read them. Just these, and the spec or official documentation. (usually linked from each page)

if you like them, you can buy all. Entire xahlee.info, formatted for offline reading. ∑ Xah Code

Xah Linux Box Configurations

A video review of Slimblade vs L-Trac Trackball. See bottom there.

Future and Policies of Books

I got this in my email, from Amazon: http://www.readersunited.com/

it's not about emacs, but about policies and future of ebooks. In short, there's a dispute between Amazon and another big company. Amazon, claims to want to lower price of ebooks, but the publisher refuse.

If you have any interest in policies in society and books, check it out.

Unicode is quite interesting, not just for fun emoticons 👽 and math ∑. Because, when you go deep, it is about ALL grapheme and logographs and symbols of ALL human's writing systems, past and present. See Unicode Search 😄.

toggle-read-only is obsolete since 24.3. Use read-only-mode instead.

new version of emacs tutorial is out. Buy Xah Emacs Tutorial. Thanks for reading.

Master JavaScript in 1 Month

again, heavy work on JavaScript in past month. Result of 1 year study. More complete and in-depth than my 8 years emacs lisp haphazard blog effort.

web programing, tablets, phones, are the most vibrant field in programing since perhaps 2008. JavaScript rules there.

hope you like it, buy it. Xah JavaScript Tutorial

Complete guide to choosing a mouse. Which one is for you? Computer Mouse, Trackball, Input Devices