- Efficient. Startup time is less than one second
- Robust. Emacs will never crash after a full package upgrade
- Support Windows. You won’t get inferior performance on Windows
- Original setup (key bindings, directories …) of Emacs and 3rd party packages are respected
- Usable in emacs-nox, all key bindings and functionality still usable when you ssh to server with PuTTY
- Robust, you can install packages without network access
- Popular programming languages are supported, C/C++/Java/Ruby/Perl/Python/C#/Lua/Javascript …
- Tested with Emacs 24.4, 24.5, 25.3 on Linux/Windows/Cygwin/macOS
- Please read FAQ to disable Vim key bindings
- Please read section “Key bindings” to learn key bindings
- If you use Windows Emacs, you have to install GnuTLS Dlls manually to be able to install packages from remote repositories. Or else you got error message like
error: Package `async-' is unavailable
on Windows - Most packages from MELPA are invisible while packages from MELPA Stable are visible. You can modify variable
melpa-include-packages
in~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el
to install unstable packages - Please read section “About Emacs 23” if you uses Emacs 23.4
- Other issues are covered in FAQ
Most users should follow the section “Install in normal way”.
You need the section “Install stable version in easiest way” if and only if:
- You are 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 Home directory.
Please uninstall any package which is not installed at ~/.emacs.d
. For example, run apt-get autoremove emacs-w3m
on Debian/Ubuntu.
If you 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 (I recommend the first way):
- download latest setup and extract its content into
~/.emacs.d
, OR run commandcd ~; git clone https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git .emacs.d
in shell. - 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, packages are installed automatically during Emacs startup.
You only need two zip files.
Here are the exact steps,
- Remove
~/.emacs
. - Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d/archive/stable.zip
- Extract its content into empty directory
~/.emacs.d
- Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/myelpa/archive/stable.zip
- Extract the zip somewhere, say
~/projs/myelpa
- Make sure a file named
archive-contents
exists in~/projs/myelpa
- Add
(setq package-archives '(("myelpa" . "~/projs/myelpa/")))
into~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el
- Start Emacs now!
Now you are using local package repository ~/projs/melpa
.
You can switch to online repositories 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 using OS package manager
is easier.
OS package manager
means:
- apt-cyg at Cygwin
- homebrew at macOS
- any package manager at Linux (
apt-get
on Debian/Ubuntu,yum
on Redhat,pacman
on Arch,emerge
on Gentoo …)
If the program is developed with certain programming language. That language may provide its own package manager which allows you install the program for only current user. For example, python package manager has the option ”–user”.
These programs 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.
- Show ancient Chinese poem or quotes from random sources
- Install through OS package manager
Please note you can’t install fortune-zh
through homebrew on macOS but there is a simple workaround:
- install fortune
- Download
fortune-zh
code from https://github.com/debiancn/fortune-zh - Extract code and run
make
in its folder - copy data files and the script named fortune-zh into corresponding folders which
fortune
is using. You may need edit the filefortune-zh
before copying
- Required by
emacs-w3m
- Install through OS package manager
You can insert (setq mm-text-html-renderer 'w3m)
in ~/.gnus.el
to force HTML mail be rendered by w3m
instead of the default HTML rendering engine shr
.
shr
supports COLOR while w3m
not.
But my w3m
based utilities can open video/audio/image with the help of w3m
. So your choice.
- Required by
flymake-lua
- Install through OS package manager
- Required 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
aspell-en
- I force the dictionary to “en_US” in
~/.emacs./lisp/init-spelling.el
. You can modify it. - I recommend aspell for programmers. Non-programmers find hunspell is better on typo correction
If you use hunspell, check my article. Please note the hunspell executable understands either unix format path or windows format path but not both. You need figure out hunspell version you are using.
- Required by lisp
slime
- Install through OS package manager
- Required by
web-mode
for syntax check andtidy.el
html formatting - Install through OS package manager
- Install
node.js
through OS package manager, thennpm install -g csslint
identify from ImageMagick
- Required by
org-mode
to export org file to odt file when image embedded - Install through OS package manager
- Required by
org-mode
to export org file to odt file - Install through OS package manager
- Install
node.js
through OS package manager, thennpm install -g jshint
- Required by js-mode
- I use js2-mode which does NOT need jshint
- Required by my clipboard command
copy-to-x-clipboard
andpaste-from-x-clipboard
under Linux - Install through OS package manager
- Required by
cpputils-cmake
- Install through OS package manager
- Please use out-of-source build tree when using CMake
- Required 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
- Required by
markdown-preview
frommarkdown-mode
- Install through OS package manager
- Required by
flymake
- Install through OS package manager
- Required by MozRepl
- Used by Firefox
- It creates tags file for code navigation and code completion
- Required by many tags related packages
- Install through OS package manager
- See How to use ctags in Emacs effectively
- Required by
counsel-gtags
- It creates index files for code navigation and auto-completion
- Please read GNU Global manual to understand environment variables
GTAGSLIBPATH
andMAKEOBJDIRPREFIX
- Install through OS package manager
- Only the executable
soffice
is used 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
- Run
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
- Used by
M-x counsel-etags-grep
to search text in files - Run
curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
in shell to install Rust thencargo install ripgrep
- Tweak environment variable PATH to let Emacs find ripgrep
I will keep using ripgrep
instead of the-silver-searcher
from now on.
I avoid overriding the original setup of third party command line program.
If I mention certain directories is used by certain program, you can always find the same information in its original manual.
You can also grep keyword
in the directory ~/.emacs.d/lisp
if you got any question on setup.
Basic knowledge of Linux/Unix is required. At least you should understand the words like “environment variable”, “shell”, “stdin”, “stdout”, “man”, “info”.
Everyone should finish this tutorial at first.
At minimum you need know,
- What is Environment Variable
- What is Pipeline (Unix), Standard Streams
The purpose it to know how Emacs interacts with other command line programs.
Press C-h t
in Emacs (“C” means Ctrl key, “M” means Alt key) to read bundled tutorial.
At minimum you need know:
- How to move cursor
C-h v
to describe variableC-h f
to describe functionC-h k
to check function key binding
Org-mode is for notes-keeping and planning.
Please watch Carsten Dominik’s talk. It’s really simple. The only hot key to remember is Tab
.
You can visit EmacsWiki for the solution. Newbies can ask for help at http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/.
Required for vim user,
- Finish vimtutor.
- Read ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/evil/doc/evil.pdf
Most key bindings are defined in ~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-evil.el
.
For example, (nvmap :prefix "," "bu" 'backward-up-list)
means pressing “,bu” executes command backward-up-list
.
The tutorials I recommended provide enough information about commands.
Besides, ”How to be extremely efficient in Emacs” lists my frequently used commands.
Hydra is used to define key bindings when evil-mode is disabled. See ~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-hydra.el
for details.
You can always press C-c C-y
anywhere to bring up default hydra menu.
You can override any key bindings in ~/.custome.el
.
You can customize my-term-program
whose default value is /bin/bash
. It’s used by ansi-term
and multi-term
.
Place your setup in ~/.custom.el
.
It’s usable out of box using Ctags. All you need do is to install Ctags.
To navigate, M-x counsel-etags-find-tag-at-point
.
To enable code auto-completion, M-x counsel-etags-scan-code
at least once.
Optionally, you can add (add-hook 'after-save-hook 'counsel-etags-virtual-update-tags)
into your .emacs
to automatically update tags file.
No further setup is required.
Check https://emacsthemes.com/.
Write down the name of color theme (for example, molokai).
You can M-x counsel-load-theme
to switch themes.
Or you can insert below code into end of ~/.custom.el
or ~/.emacs.d/init.el
,
;; Please note the color theme's name is "molokai"
(when (or (display-graphic-p)
(string-match-p "256color"(getenv "TERM")))
(load-theme 'molokai t))
You can also run M-x random-color-theme
to load random color theme.
Start Emacs this way,
TERM=xterm-256color emacs -nw
Many third party plugins bundled in this setup have already provided all the features you needed. For example, if you use git
, counsel-git-grep
from package counsel/ivy works out of the box.
A generic grep program counsel-etags-grep
is provided if you don’t use git
. Since counsel-etags-grep
is based on counsel/ivy
, it also supports “multi-editing via Ivy”. You could read Nuclear weapon multi-editing via Ivy and Ag to get the idea.
Multi-edit workflow is optimized. After M-x counsel-etags-grep
or pressing “,qq”, press C-c C-o C-x C-q
to enable wgrep-mode
. You can edit text (for example, delete lines) in wgrep-mode
directly.
You can specify the ignore regex like !keyword1
in ivy
. If you want to ignore multiple keywords, you must use syntax like !keyword1\|!keyword2
. As I tested in counsel v0.9.1, non of its grep commands supports ignore syntax reliably. So I suggest using counsel-etags-grep
instead.
I love all the packages from Oleh Krehel (AKA abo-abo). Every article from his blog is worth reading ten times.
You can input :keyword
in ivy UI to search by Chinese Pinyin.
I release patched js2-mode
based on latest official version every three months. My patched version has better imenu support.
Please package-refresh-content
from time to time upgrade js2-mode
.
I use rjsx-mode
with Emacs v25+. It’s based on js2-mode
so it has excellent imenu support.
But web-mode
v15+ is also very popular to edit jsx files.
In order to replace rjsx-mode
with web-mode
, you need search line (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.jsx\\'" . rjsx-mode))
in init-javascript.el
and replace rjsx-mode
with web-mode
on that line.
I use modified version of git-gutter
for now until my pull request is merged into official repository.
You can set git-gutter:exp-to-create-diff
to make git gutter support other VCS (Perforce, for example),
(setq git-gutter:exp-to-create-diff
(shell-command-to-string (format "p4 diff -du -db %s"
(file-relative-name buffer-file-name))))
Please M-x multi-term
.
If you want to use Zsh instead of Bash, please modify init-term-mode.el
Non-Chinese use unicode-fonts.
Chinese use chinese-fonts-setup.
They are not included in this setup. You need install them manually.
Synchronize from my stable setup which is updated every 6+ months:
git pull https://[email protected]/redguardtoo/emacs.d.git stable
Or latest setup which is unstable:
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 cheat sheet” to learn its key bindings.
Use smart-mode-line or powerline?
Comment out (require 'init-modeline)
in init.el at first.
Other desktop applications may intercept the key bindings. For example, someone reported QQ on windows 8 can intercept “M-x”.
Press M-x org-version
, then read corresponding online manual to setup.
For example, org-capture
need your manual setup.
Please replace legacy Emacs 22 and ctags with the new versions.
The easiest way is change Environment variable PATH.
Some packages (Evil, Web-mode …) are so important to my workflow that they are locked.
Those packages are placed at ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp
.
They will not be upgraded through ELPA unless you delete them at ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp
at first.
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 modifycompany-clang-insert-argument
BTW, please read my comments above the code at first.
Ido shows the suggestions when you open/save files.
Keep pressing C-f
to ignore suggestions.
I strongly suggest Cygwin version of Emacs. But native windows version is OK if it knows how to find the third party command line programs. Cygwin provides most of them by default. Please add C:\Cygwin64\bin
to environment variable PATH
so Emacs can detect the program automatically.
By default, environment variable HOME
points to the directory C:\Users\<username>
on Windows 7+. You need copy the folder .emacs.d
into that directory. Or you can setup HOME
.
- Instead of
M-x yas-expand
or pressingTAB
key, you can pressM-j
instead. - Yasnippet works out of box. But you can
M-x my-yas-reload-all
to force Yasnippet compile all the snippets. If you runmy-yas-reload-all
once, you need always to run it when you update the snippets. The purpose ofmy-yas-reload-all
is to optimize the Emacs startup only. IMO, it’s not worth the effort. - You can add your snippets into
~/.emacs.d/snippets
. - Run
grep -rns --exclude
‘.yas*’ ‘key:’ *= in~/.emacs.d/snippets
to see my own snippets
Locale must be UTF-8 compatible. For example, as I type locale
in shell, I got the output “zh_CN.UTF-8”.
Run below command in shell:
http_proxy=http://yourname:[email protected]:8080 emacs -nw
You may 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 package-refresh-content
and restart Emacs. the package will be installed automatically.
use packages on GNU ELPA
By default, packages from GNU ELPA are not available. Search the line “uncomment below line if you need use GNU ELPA” in init-elpa.el
if you want to access GNU ELPA.
For example, flycheck requires packages only exist on GNU ELPA.
By default EVIL (Vim emulation in Emacs) is used. 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 read its PDF manual before using evil-mode.
I assume you are using company-mode. Other packages have similar setup.
There are many ways to scan the C++ source files. The Emacs Lisp code and command line programs to scan the C++ files are company backends. company-clang
is a popular backend because Clang is good at processing C++.
If you use clang to parse the C++ code:
- Make sure code is syntax correct
- 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++, similar setup is required.
You can use other company backends instead of company-clang
. For example, you can use company-gtags
and GNU Global instead. See Emacs as C++ IDE, easy way for details.
Other backends produce less precise results but are more efficient and easier to setup.
It’s similar to C++ setup. You can use company as frontend. But backend is the key. For example, you can’t use company-clang
for PHP because Clang can’t handle PHP. But GNU Global supports PHP, so you can use company-gtags
instead.
For languages GNU Global doesn’t support, you can always fall back to company-etags
and Ctags by using regular expression. Regular expressions could be placed in ~/.ctags
.
You can also complete line by M-x eacl-complete-line
and complete multi-lines statement by M-x eacl-complete-statement
.
M-x toggle-input-method
to toggle input method pyim.
If your personal dictionary ~/.eim/personal.pyim
exists, it will be used.
You can M-x my-pyim-export-dictionary
to export your personal words into personal.pyim. Check init-chinese-pyim.el
for more information.
Run below commands in shell:
mkdir -p ~/tmp;
curl http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/emacs-24.4.tar.gz | tar xvz -C ~/tmp/emacs-24.4
cd ~/tmp/emacs-24.4;
mkdir -p ~/myemacs/24.4;
rm -rf ~/myemacs/24.4/*;
./configure --prefix=~/myemacs/24.4 --without-x --without-dbus --without-sound && make && make install
Feel free to replace 24.4 with other version number.
Insert below code into ~/.emacs
or =~/.custom.el,
;; Use en_US locale to format time.
;; if not set, the OS locale is used.
(setq system-time-locale "C")
~/.emacs.d/init.el
is the main file. It includes all the other *.el files.
~/.emacs.d/lisp/init-elpa.el
defines what packages will be installed from MELPA.
Packages are installed into ~/.emacs.d/elpa/
.
I also manually download and extract some packages into ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/
. Packages in ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/
are not visible to the package manager.
My own snippets is at ~/.emacs.d/snippets
.
Other directories don’t matter.
Version 1.2 of this setup is the last version to support Emacs v23.
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
Version 2.6 is the last version to support Emacs 24.3
.
Download https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d/archive/2.6.zip and https://github.com/redguardtoo/myelpa/archive/2.6.zip and you are good to go.
- 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. Please read the chapters “Git Basics”, “Git Branching”, “Git Tools” from Pro Git
- You can run
optimize-emacs-startup
to compile “*.el” under~/.emacs.d/lisp/
- Please check EmacsWiki and my FAQ at first to find a solution
- If your issue is still NOT resolved, restart Emacs with option
---debug-init
, runM-x toggle-debug-on-error
in Emacs, reproduce the issue - Send the error messages to the original developer if it’s third party package issue
- If you are sure it’s my issue, file bug report at https://github.com/redguardtoo/emacs.d. Don’t email me directly!
Bug report should include details (OS, Emacs version …).