Xah Emacs Blog Archive 2014-08
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.γsee Linux: Extract tar zip gzip lzip bzip2 xz rarγ
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
- Crazy Aarons Thinking Putty Attractor
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BS3FHU/
, 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 β₯πππππππππππππ of 1999. JS: Raining Hearts
Emacs: Xah Dired Mode (xah-dired.el) π¦ (repost. updated code on github)
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 Keyboard Advice 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 βemacs palm to press control keyβ 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
my emacs abbrev https://github.com/xahlee/xah_emacs_init/blob/master/xah_emacs_abbr.el
for tutorial: Emacs: Setup Hundreds of Abbrevs
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 (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:
elisp_filter_list.html- Elisp: String Match in List π
haven't had time to polish it.
they are dumped in βxeu_elisp_util.elβ 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 bullshit.
- 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 xinputPath "\\.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 βfind-lisp-find-filesβ 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 xskip-list "match case" t))) (find-lisp-find-files xinputPath "\\.html\\'\\|\\.xml\\'"))
- it's at βgit/xahscripts/elisp/xah_site_move.elβ (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 βxah_emacs_xahsite_path_lisp_util.elβ.
- 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:
- Master Linux Commands
- practical git in 1 hour
- Visual CSS Dictionary
- JavaScript in Depth
- Python: Learn Python in 1 Hour
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. β Xah Code
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 π½ and math β. 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 π.
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