Xah Emacs Blog Archive 2025-01
- keyboard history.
- old article on best keyboard. 10 years ago.
- we can see what is going on in keyboard scene back then.
updates
other updates
code update
code update.
- computer science and history. For lisp fans.
- explains cons car cdr in lisp list.
- https://youtu.be/n_JUKfSf8sc?t=922
- Computer Science, Advanced Functional Programing. Emacs Lisp.
- Demo of supreme functional programing technique, of not using any variable or constant at all, in your program.
- https://youtu.be/n_JUKfSf8sc?t=3563
- Play at 1.5 speed.
bug fix
bug fix
updated
updates
code update. now pass by stdin, not working file. reading file is always slower.
- new way. 3 instances of emacs.
- some are running elisp code.
- tip: never use emacs server.
- setup your emacs so that there is no any possible freeze-the-world prompt when starting up.
- in software ui design, you should never have freeze-the-world, such as do you want to save before close.
- in those situation, simple abort and message.
fixed a minor bug in cycle order.
updates
updated.
updated
- Computer science, emacs lisp.
- Master emacs lisp.
- Buffer Functions
- this buffer thing, makes emacs lisp the best programing language for text processing.
- No other programing language comes close, not perl python fsharp golang.
remove the number sign # pest in keybinding code.
- For coders, emacs lisp.
- Starting to remove the idiotic number sign # pest in elisp.
- The number sign is a ugly redundant thing.
- Emacs lisp priests tell you you need it because it tells emacs lisp compiler that it's a function, so you have better error checking.
- But in practice, that error never actually happens.
- It is a very ugly thing from Common Lisp.
updated
code update.
updates
major updates
- For Big Tech Bros. emacs, advanced editor.
- Explain why emacs undo has keys control+/ but also control+_
- ai bot answers.
- in short, a big baggage of history.
code update.
major rewrites
updated
updated.
more updates
- For Coders. Emacs, Advanced Code Editor.
-
This command
xah-extend-selectionnow has high prominence in Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦 - Now it has a easy key g (in dvorak layout is i).
- you can use it by grabbing the code.
- link in thread.
- for coders. Wolfram language, emacs lisp.
- success.
xah-wolfram-eval-regionno longer creates a temp file. xah-wolfram-temp-dir-path is removed.
- experimenting with Proportional Font in code again.
- Emacs: Toggle Monospace / Proportional Font
more updates.
more updates
updated with new key change
code update
updated with tip.
minor updates
- Emacs: Copy Paste, kill-ring
- Emacs: Copy Current Line 📜
- Emacs: Show Copy History (kill-ring) 📜
- Emacs: Copy Buffer or Selection 📜
- 2025-06-28
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
xah-select-blocknew behavior. now select without the ending empty lines, when the command is not repeated.- change key,
xah-slash-to-backslashand other related to slash backslash. now have the same prefix.
- 2025-06-24
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
-
key change.
shell-commandis now [space n g], was [n 9].shell-command-on-regionis now [space n f], was and [n 0]. reason: trying to reduce using the digit keys, because i find that for touch typers, they are not ergonomic. also on a lot new ergo keyboards in past 10 years, digit keys require combination.
- 2025-06-06
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
-
now use
length=length>length<
minor updates
Emacs lisp, map-apply etc not documentated in manual
- for coders. emacs lisp.
- Interesting, these functions are not documentated in emacs lisp manual.
- map-apply map-contains-key map-copy map-delete map-do map-elt map-empty-p map-every-p map-filter map-insert map-into map-keys map-keys-apply map-length map-let map-merge map-merge-with etc.
Bit diddling in emacs lisp
for computer scientists. this is bit diddling in lisp, loved by certain Common LISP idiots
for c and cpp programming language lovers, and rust programming language lovers, they would get so excited about this that they piss in their pants.
- 2025-05-17
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
xah-clean-whitespacenow takes option begin end args.xah-reformat-to-sentence-linesnow also breaks with html br tag.
- 2025-05-03
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
- xah-repeat-key now default to space. (was m). removed xah-fly-insert-mode-activate-space-before and xah-fly-insert-mode-activate-space-after
- now full Table of Contents in each chapter.
- Practical Emacs Tutorial
minor update
disable emacs changing the window title
(setq frame-title-format "Xah Emacs")
- 2025-04-22
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
xah-next-user-buffer, removed the behavior of using arrows to repeat after the command, that was added about 3 months ago. it is confusing. (i.e. removed (set-transient-map xah-fly-switch-buffer-map))
updated
code update
- 2025-04-19
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
xah-toggle-read-novel-moderemoved. no belong.
code update. xah-insert-random-string now back to avoid vowels. vowel in random string is nasty, because they creat meaning.
- 2025-04-18
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
- removed require ido for
xah-insert-date. thanks to Stefan Monnier. xah-open-in-external-appfixed a bug for Windows, of replacing apostrophe, now all, not just first.
code update
- emacs 30 major change. great fix.
- now sort takes key args and not destructive.
- 2025-04-12
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
-
xah-insert-datemajor refactor. now show current date in minibufer menu.xah-show-kill-ringwent back to qwerty key t.
- for rocket scientists.
- Emacs: Insert Random Number or String 💠
- new algo and behavior.
- now includes all A to Z and 0 to 9, but first char is always letter.
- before, omits 1 0 o O and all vows aoeiu.
- 2025-04-09
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
- bumped up Package-Requires to (emacs "28.3"), due to use of seq-setq. and other minor code tweak.
- xah-insert-date now use ido-completing-read instead completing-read. because the latter does not work when recorded as key macro, with fido-vertical-mode on.
more code update
- 2025-03-31
- Emacs: Xah Wolfram Mode 📦
- name completion now doesnt added [] because options shouldn't add it, but right now haven't found a way to determine when is a symbol a option. removed some abbrev that shouldn't be there.
emacs. syntax table. some unicode matching brackets no match
these match:
- math flattened parenthesis ⟮ ⟯
- math white tortoise shell ⟬ ⟭
- medium parenthesis ornament ❨ ❩
- medium flattened parenthesis ornament ❪ ❫
- medium curly ornament ❴ ❵
- medium pointing angle ornament ❬ ❭
- heavy pointing angle ornament ❰ ❱
these no match:
- double curly quote “ ”
- single curly quote ‘ ’
- french angle quote ‹ ›
- french double angle « »
- heavy single quotation mark ornament ❛ ❜
- heavy double turned comma quotation mark ornament ❝ ❞
- ❮ ❯ HEAVY LEFT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK ORNAMENT
this behavior probably intensional
- massive code update.
- removed dependency on Emacs: xah-get-thing.el 📦
- Emacs: HTML. Add Paragraph Tags 📜
- Emacs: HTML. Lines to List 📜
- Emacs: HTML. Lines to Table 📜
- Emacs: HTML. Embed Youtube Video 📜
- Emacs: HTML. Ruby Annotation 📜
- Emacs: HTML Entities. Ampersand Encoding, Decoding 📜
- Emacs: HTML. Delete Tags 📜
- Emacs: Add Brackets to CAPITALIZED words 📜
- Emacs: Change Brackets 📜
- Emacs: Insert Brackets by Pair 📜
- Emacs: Check Brackets Balance 📜
- Emacs: Quote Lines 📜
- Emacs: Replace Straight Quotes to Curly 📜
- Emacs: Replace Greek Letter Names to Unicode 📜
- Elisp: Multi-Pair String Replacement with Report
- Emacs: Reformat Lines for Source Code 📜
- Emacs: Spaces to New Lines 📜
- Emacs: Add Period to Line Ends 📜
- Emacs: Reformat to Long Lines (unfill-region) 📜
- Emacs: Reformat to Sentence Lines 📜
- Emacs: Remove Punctuation Extra Spaces 📜
- Emacs: Clean Empty Lines 📜
- Emacs: Copy Current Line 📜
- Emacs: Select Text Block 📜
- Emacs: Delete Text Block 📜
- Emacs: Move Cursor by Text Block 📜
- Emacs: Upcase Sentences 📜
- 2025-03-21
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
-
new key for
xah-backward-punct,xah-forward-punct. in qwerty, it is [space k], and left or right arrow. (was just 1 and 2) now can also repeat by pressing arrows. also, xah-punctuation-regex by default checks equal sign. typically useful in moving cursor to string assignment. display-line-numbers-modenow has a key, qwerty [space l h].
- 2025-03-08
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
- some key change.
- call-last-kbd-macro, new "r SPC", old "r e"
- rectangle-mark-mode, new "r r", old "r SPC"
- all dvorak notation.
emacs 30 is out.
- 2025-03-01
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
- better docstring for • xah-fly-use-control-key • xah-fly-use-meta-key • xah-fly-use-isearch-arrows
- now
split-window-righthave key control right square bracket -
now
xah-previous-user-bufferandxah-next-user-bufferhas key control with page up down
- 2025-02-05
- Emacs: Xah Dired Mode (xah-dired.el) 📦
- lots updates.
- 2025-02-05
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
xah-smart-deletefix so in minibuffer when before cursor is space, don't complain.xah-search-current-wordnow do not deactivate mark.
- 2025-01-24
- Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦
-
fixed issue https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys/issues/184 , and
xah-run-current-filenow show result buffer and make it current. - xah-repeat-key, fixed issue https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys/issues/183 thanks to akashpal-21
minor update