#+TITLE: My configurations #+PROPERTY: header-args :tangle ~/.config/emacs/init.el #+OPTIONS: toc:2 * Introduction This is an experiment in using literate programming to generate my computer configurations. I want to try it out because my emacs configuration already has a large number of comments, and it seems more fitting to make them first class citizens. Furthermore, i want to reorder some parts of the configurations to put relevant information close together, rather than having to arbitrarily split configuration from different programs into different files. The system should be generated using this command: #+begin_src sh :tangle no emacs config.org --batch -f org-babel-tangle #+end_src ** Inspiration I have consulted [[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rasendubi/dotfiles/master/README.org][Oleksii's configuration]] heavily to get used to how to work with literate programming. Lots of literate configuration attempts are disappointing in that they feature almost no commentary and are strictly linear. In my eyes, these are the two biggest advantages of the literate programming model to begin with. Oleksii's configuration is nice in that it has both lots of commentary, and is non-linear. It also features configuration for more than one program, mixed together with the parts that matter. For this initial test, my configuration fails on both counts. All i've done is put every section of elisp into a code block and turned the comments into normal org text. Over time, i hope to expand it into something which ticks both of those boxes. ** Emacs installation What libraries do we need? Quite a few: #+begin_src sh :tangle no sudo apt install libmagickwand-6.q16-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev libtree-sitter-dev #+end_src #+begin_src sh :tangle no git clone https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs cd emacs git checkout emacs-30 #+end_src #+begin_src sh :tangle no BUILD_OPTS=$(emacs \ --batch \ --eval "(prin1 system-configuration-options)") ./autogen.sh echo "$BUILD_OPTS" | sed 's/^"\(.*\)"$/\1/' \ | xargs ./configure make bootstrap sudo make install #+end_src #+begin_src sh :tangle no ./autogen.sh ./configure --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-imagemagick --with-tree-sitter --with-xwidgets --with-native-compilation=aot --with-mailutils #+end_src We should use all the cores we have to compile. #+begin_src sh :tangle no make --jobs=$(nproc) #+end_src ** What is the purpose of a computer? I think it's a good exercise to consider what exactly i want to use the computer for. This not only gives me some areas to build this configuration around, it also helps me not to lose track of computers as tools, as bicycles for the mind, rather than as an end in themselves. ** Todo - Look at completion-preview-mode - Look at grep-use-headings - Look at elpa-openwith * Configuration I can easily insert new source blocks with ~C-c C-,~. #+begin_src elisp ;;; init.el --- my emacs configuration -*- lexical-binding: t; -*- ;; This file is auto-generated. Please edit ~/data/share/config.org #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (add-to-list 'load-path (expand-file-name (concat user-emacs-directory "site-lisp"))) #+end_src I like to see garbage collection messages. I keep meaning to set up something like the [[https://akrl.sdf.org/#orgc9536b4][garbage collector magic hack]] so that emacs hangs less when i'm running a macro or opening a big web page or whatever. But for now, the default values are adequate. #+begin_src elisp (setq garbage-collection-messages t) #+end_src We set the ~gc-cons-threshold~ and ~gc-cons-percentage~ to be really high in the ~early-init.el~ file. This makes loading emacs a little bit faster. But obviously i don't want that in general usage, so once emacs has finished starting up, i make sure to lower the values again. #+begin_src elisp (add-hook 'emacs-startup-hook #'(lambda () (message (format "Initialised in %s seconds with %s garbage collections." (emacs-init-time) gcs-done)) ;;; reset garbage collector (setq gc-cons-threshold 800000 gc-cons-percentage 0.2))) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt user-full-name "noa") (setopt user-mail-address "noa@noa.pub") #+end_src Properly distinguish these chords from their ascii legacy #+begin_src elisp (define-key input-decode-map [?\C-m] [C-m]) #+end_src * Packages For a long time i used use-package to manage emacs package configuration. Over time, i decided it was a bit too magic for me. The syntax is quite different to everything else in the configuration, and most of the options i was using were fairly simple. I had a very brief excursion into using ~package-vc-install~ to manage packages directly from source, but i found this was too fragile, especially without relying on use-package. For now, i've modified a little defun from acdw i used for that purpose to simply install packages using package.el. #+begin_src elisp (defun package-ensure (pkg) (unless (package-installed-p pkg) (package-install pkg))) #+end_src ** Installed packages These are the packages i use that aren't packaged in the debian repositories: - 0x0 - isearch-mb - jinx - org-modern - ox-rss - valign #+begin_src sh :tangle no sudo apt install elpa-aggressive-indent elpa-consult elpa-dired-du elpa-htmlize elpa-jabber elpa-marginalia elpa-markdown-mode elpa-nov elpa-orderless elpa-vertico elpa-visual-fill-column elpa-ebib elpa-vc-fossil #+end_src * Modern keybindings A lot of people say that you get used to emacs keybindings over time, and this is true. But i find it hard to maintain two sets of keybindings in my head: those for emacs, and those for everything else. So i think that it's best to make emacs use the same bindings as everything else. For now, we do that with wakib mode. #+begin_src elisp (require 'wakib-keys) (setopt wakib-keys t) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (with-eval-after-load 'wakib-keys (add-hook 'after-change-major-mode-hook 'wakib-update-major-mode-map) (add-hook 'menu-bar-update-hook 'wakib-update-minor-mode-maps) ;; Modifying other modules ;; When remap is used it exits isearch abruptly after first instance ;; Use explicit keybindings instead (define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "C-f") 'isearch-repeat-forward) (define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "C-S-f") 'isearch-repeat-backward) (define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "M-;") 'isearch-repeat-forward) (define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "M-:") 'isearch-repeat-backward) (define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "C-v") 'isearch-yank-kill) (define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "M-d") 'isearch-delete-char)) #+end_src * Executing commands I make my caps lock a menu key, so i can open the command palette with it: #+begin_src elisp (define-key context-menu-mode-map (kbd "
tag :html-head " " :auto-sitemap t :sitemap-filename "~/data/website/archive.org" :sitemap-title "Archive" :sitemap-style list :sitemap-sort-folders ignore :sitemap-ignore-case t ) ("website-assets" :publishing-function org-publish-attachment :base-directory "~/data/website" :publishing-directory "/home/noa/data/public_html" :base-extension "css\\|js\\|png|\\jpg|\\ico" :recursive t) ("website-feed" :base-directory "~/data/website" :base-extension "org" :publishing-directory "~/data/public_html" :publishing-function (org-rss-publish-to-rss) :html-link-home "https://noa.pub/" :html-link-use-abs-url t :exclude ".*" :include ("index.org" "boke.org")))) #+end_src We also need to install a newer version of htmlize so that we can properly convert syntax highlighted code into html. I wish there was a way to turn this off, but i couldn't easily find it, so we're stuck with it for now. #+begin_src elisp ;; (package-ensure 'htmlize) #+end_src * Getting help Emacs is great because of its great built in help system! ** Close help buffers more easily By default, opening a help buffer keeps the original window active, but this means that i have to go into the help buffer to close it. Some people might like to always have the help buffer hanging around, but i like my screen empty of distractions. Luckily there's a simple setting to select the help window so that i can easily close it again with q. #+begin_src elisp (setopt help-window-select t) #+end_src Also to that end, we use the same window as the help buffer to open source files. #+begin_src elisp (setopt help-window-keep-selected t) #+end_src ** Better aesthetics Help buffers put quotes around links in the buffer. I don't think this adds anything to the output. #+begin_src elisp (setopt help-clean-buttons t) #+end_src The arguments are shown in upper case. I don't want to be shouted at! I already define them to be bold, this is all the attention they need. #+begin_src elisp (setopt help-downcase-arguments t) #+end_src ** Edit variables from help buffers Often, i will look at the documentation for a variable and immediately want to play with it. This removes one step between wanting that and being able to do that. #+begin_src elisp (setopt help-enable-variable-value-editing t) #+end_src * Web browsing I hear it's now possible to run a full fat browser inside emacs. But this is surely quite heavyweight, and doesn't get to take advantage of things like ublock origin. When it comes to alternative browsers, it's always the same story; i like the concept, but most websites are a horrific experience without a good ad blocker. Instead, i use eww, a browser more closely aligned with browsers for the terminal. Despite the name, eww is a delight to use for text-heavy websites. If a website doesn't render well in it, because it uses fancy layout tricks or lots of javascript, we can press ~&~ to open the url in firefox. #+begin_src elisp (setopt browse-url-browser-function 'eww-browse-url browse-url-secondary-browser-function 'browse-url-default-browser) #+end_src For the kind of sites i use eww to visit, i've not had a use for cookies. We can tell emacs that we don't trust cookies from any sites, we don't trust cookies from all sites, and frankly, we don't want to use cookies. #+begin_src elisp (setopt url-cookie-trusted-urls '() url-cookie-untrusted-urls '(".*") shr-cookie-policy nil) #+end_src Eww has rudimentary support for colours. But i don't want web pages to be able to specify their own colours, because i like the colours i already have set. #+begin_src elisp (setopt shr-use-colors nil) #+end_src Shr has the ability to break paragraphs to fit on the screen. Instead of this, we set it to not break any lines, and use visual-fill-column-mode to do this for us instead. #+begin_src elisp (setopt shr-max-width nil) #+end_src We can set what the maximum size of an image in a window should be. This is a fraction of the total window width or height, and if the image would be bigger than this, it'll be resized to fit. It's useful to have it smaller because emacs still sort of chokes on scrolling when there are large images in a buffer. This is the default value of this option. #+begin_src elisp (setopt shr-max-image-proportion 0.9 shr-discard-aria-hidden t) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt shr-bullet " • ") #+end_src The default name for the eww buffer is *eww*. This is unhelpful because it makes having more than one eww buffer open a bit of a chore to navigate. We can set it to 'url, 'title, or a function. I set it to 'title because marginalia already shows me the url. However, this means that i can't search for a url name when switching buffers. See the help for this variable for an example of a function which gives the page title and the url. #+begin_src elisp (setopt eww-auto-rename-buffer 'title) #+end_src Goto address mode makes urls and email address in a buffer clickable. I want these clickable links to look like links, because that's what they are. The two mouse face variables are what face is used on hover, which at the moment i ignore. It might also be worth setting them to 'highlight. #+begin_src elisp (setopt global-goto-address-mode t) (setopt goto-address-mail-face 'link) (setopt goto-address-mail-mouse-face 'highlight) (setopt goto-address-url-face 'link) (setopt goto-address-url-mouse-face 'highlight) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt global-eldoc-mode t) #+end_src Use a bar cursor and blink it and don't stop blinking it. i don't know how i feel about this yet to be honest, but it helps me know which window is active so for now i'm keeping it #+begin_src elisp (setopt cursor-type 'bar blink-cursor-mode t blink-cursor-interval 0.7) #+end_src * File management Dired is a really nice package which, as with a lot of emacs, has some dodgy defaults. Here we round off some of the sharp edges to make it more enjoyable to use. By default, dired permanently deletes files. But i have quite a bit of storage and also make bad decisions regularly, so it seems fitting to make use of the wonderful invention that is the trash. People who have used systems from the last forty years or so will likely be familiar with this innovation. #+begin_src elisp (setopt delete-by-moving-to-trash t) #+end_src It's not fun to be asked every time whether we want to delete a directory recursively. It's an understandable default for safety reasons, but because we are not deleting permanently but rather just moving to the trash, it's not such a concern. #+begin_src elisp (setopt dired-recursive-deletes 'always) #+end_src Recursive copying isn't even destructive, so i definitely don't want to be asked about that. #+begin_src elisp (setopt dired-recursive-copies 'always) #+end_src After we delete some files or directories, it makes sense to get rid of any buffers which are looking at those files or directories. #+begin_src elisp (setopt dired-clean-up-buffers-too nil) #+end_src With this set, if we have two dired buffers open next to one another, a rename operation in one will default to the directory shown in the other. In this way, we can pretend we are using some kind of norton commander like file browser instead of slumming it in emacs. #+begin_src elisp (setopt dired-dwim-target t) #+end_src These are some useful ls switches. We have to keep -l. To show dotfiles as well, we use -a. To sort numbers by number order instead of lumping together ones, twos, and so on, we use -v. Because we don't have colour, it's nice to have a clear indicator of what is a file and what is a directory, as well as other different things like symlinks which i never remember. By using -F, a forward slash is appended to every directory. And to get more easily understandable file sizes, we use -h, which will tell us the file size in kilobytes or megabytes rather than a huge number that means nothing to me. I won't explain the meaning of the long flag. #+begin_src elisp (setopt dired-listing-switches "-alvFh --group-directories-first") #+end_src By default, don't show dired details #+begin_src elisp (add-hook 'dired-mode-hook #'dired-hide-details-mode) #+end_src I find it useful to see the recursive sizes of directories. This can be a little slow, so setting it as always on might not be the best idea, but the longest i've had to wait is about a second, and that's only if i run it on my home directory, so i think it's worth it at the moment. #+begin_src elisp ;; (package-ensure 'dired-du) (setopt dired-du-size-format t) (add-hook 'dired-mode-hook #'dired-du-mode) #+end_src ** Version control I don't use magit. I tried it once, but my use of version control is very limited to just making some changes and then committing them. I don't work in programming and my projects are simple. ** Tramp Some tramp settings. #+begin_src elisp (setopt remote-file-name-inhibit-locks t) (setopt tramp-inline-compress-start-size 1000) (setopt tramp-verbose 3) ;; (add-to-list 'tramp-remote-path 'tramp-own-remote-path) #+end_src The version control system will try each of these methods in order. Because almost everything source controlled i do uses git, i put it first in the list. But at the moment, because i don't think i actually use any of the other methods, i remove the rest of them from the list. #+begin_src elisp (setopt vc-handled-backends '(Git)) ;; (setopt vc-handled-backends '(Git RCS CVS SVN SCCS SRC Bzr Hg)) #+end_src It seems that tramp can also be made faster with these .ssh/config settings. #+begin_src conf-unix :tangle no Host * ControlMaster auto ControlPath ~/.ssh/master-%h:%p ControlPersist 10m ForwardAgent yes ServerAliveInterval 60 #+end_src * Behaviour ** Switching buffers There is a distinction in emacs between manual buffer switching that i initiate, and automatic buffer switching when emacs wants to show a buffer. In practice this means that any rules i write for where to display buffers get ignored if i try to show that buffer myself. This line changes that behaviour. #+begin_src elisp (setopt switch-to-buffer-obey-display-actions t) #+end_src ** History #+begin_src elisp (setopt history-length 250 kill-ring-max 25) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt savehist-file "~/.config/emacs/savehist") (setopt savehist-additional-variables '(kill-ring command-history set-variable-value-history custom-variable-history query-replace-history read-expression-history minibuffer-history read-char-history face-name-history bookmark-history file-name-history)) (setopt savehist-mode t) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt window-divider-mode t) (setopt window-divider-default-right-width 1) (setopt window-divider-default-bottom-width 1) (setopt window-divider-default-places t) #+end_src Taken from configuration for the vertico stack: Add prompt indicator to `completing-read-multiple'. We display [CRM], e.g., [CRM,] if the separator is a comma. #+begin_src elisp (defun crm-indicator (args) (cons (format "[CRM%s] %s" (replace-regexp-in-string "\\`\\[.*?]\\*\\|\\[.*?]\\*\\'" "" crm-separator) (car args)) (cdr args))) (advice-add #'completing-read-multiple :filter-args #'crm-indicator) #+end_src Do not allow the cursor in the minibuffer prompt #+begin_src elisp (setopt minibuffer-prompt-properties '(read-only t cursor-intangible t face minibuffer-prompt)) (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook #'cursor-intangible-mode) (setopt battery-mode-line-format "🔋%p%b ") (setopt display-battery-mode t) (setopt display-time-default-load-average nil) (setopt display-time-24hr-format t) (setopt display-time-mode t) #+end_src Support opening new minibuffers from inside existing minibuffers. #+begin_src elisp (setopt enable-recursive-minibuffers t) #+end_src Whether to drop into the debugger on any error. This seems cool, but in practice is a bit annoying. #+begin_src elisp (setopt debug-on-error nil) #+end_src Hide commands in M-x which do not work in the current mode. #+begin_src elisp (setopt read-extended-command-predicate 'command-completion-default-include-p) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt recentf-max-menu-items 25 recentf-save-file "~/.config/emacs/recentf" recentf-mode t bookmark-default-file "~/.config/emacs/bookmarks") #+end_src ** Undo Undo is on C-/ and redo is on C-S-/. It's not standard, but these bindings are easier to remember. And with this setting, it behaves for the most part like undo in other programs, which isn't as good as i'd really want, but is something i can reason about much more easily than the default undo. #+begin_src elisp (setopt undo-no-redo t) #+end_src ** Saving Backups are pointless in long emacs sessions imo, but autosaves are useful. #+begin_src elisp (setopt remote-file-name-inhibit-auto-save t) (setopt remote-file-name-inhibit-auto-save-visited t) (setopt backup-directory-alist '(("." . "~/.config/emacs/backups/")) make-backup-files nil backup-by-copying t create-lockfiles nil auto-save-mode t auto-save-interval 6 ;; every six keystrokes auto-save-timeout 5 ;; every 5 seconds auto-save-default t auto-save-no-message t save-silently t version-control t ;; this will auto save to the current file auto-save-visited-mode t) (add-hook 'focus-out-hook (lambda () (interactive) (save-some-buffers t))) (add-hook 'mouse-leave-buffer-hook (lambda () (interactive) (save-some-buffers t))) #+end_src ** Unfill commands #+begin_src elisp (defun unfill-paragraph () "Takes a multi-line paragraph and makes it into a single line of text." (interactive) (let ((fill-column (point-max))) (fill-paragraph nil))) (global-set-key (kbd "M-Q") #'unfill-paragraph) #+end_src The following functions were written by acdw for use with buffers like dict and help, where it's often ugly to read them with their hard wrapping #+begin_src elisp ;; unfill/refill a buffer ;; unfill makes all paragraphs 1 line (defun unfill-region (beg end) (let ((fill-column most-positive-fixnum)) (fill-region beg end))) ;; this command is what you'd run in a hook ;; visual-line-mode makes it so it doesn't look shit (defun unfill-buffer-force () (interactive) (let ((buffer-read-only nil)) (unfill-region (point-min) (point-max)) (visual-line-mode))) ;; refill makes the width equal to the window-width minus 2 ;; (you could change it ofc) (defun refill-region (beg end) (let ((fill-column (- (window-width) 2))) (fill-region beg end))) ;; this command is what you'd run in a hook or w/e (defun refill-buffer-force () (interactive) (let ((buffer-read-only nil)) (refill-region (point-min) (point-max)))) #+end_src ** Better control l C-l goes in order, rather than first centering the cursor. This is particularly pleasant with a ~scroll-margin~ greater than the default of zero, which serves to keep a line of context at each edge of the screen, as well as triggering a scroll when the point is that far away from the screen edge. #+begin_src elisp (setopt recenter-positions '(top middle bottom)) (setopt scroll-margin 1) #+end_src ** Smooth scrolling Emacs uses choppy scrolling by default. If i scoll with my trackpad, it's nice to have it move tiny amounts at the same time as my fingers, which pixel-scroll-precision-mode allows for. This also has the benefit of making scrolling over images a little bit of a nicer experience. This doesn't work well sometimes for some reason, so i've disabled it for now. #+begin_src elisp :tangle no (setopt pixel-scroll-precision-mode t pixel-scroll-precision-use-momentum t) #+end_src ** Remember my position in files #+begin_src elisp (setopt save-place-mode t) #+end_src ** More pleasant prompts The former means that when given a list of choices, we can use single character abbreviations to answer. The latter is a fancy way of defaliasing yes-or-no-p to y-or-n-p. #+begin_src elisp (setopt read-answer-short t) (setopt use-short-answers t) #+end_src ** Disable disabled commands #+begin_src elisp (setq disabled-command-function nil) #+end_src ** Don't save changes in the customize interface #+begin_src elisp (setopt custom-file (make-temp-file "custom")) #+end_src ** Scrolling in compilation Scroll along with text in compilation mode, and stop scrolling at the first error. #+begin_src elisp (setopt compilation-scroll-output 'first-error) #+end_src ** Don't advertise gnu on startup #+begin_src elisp (setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message "noa") ;; #userfreedom #+end_src ** Better buffer naming #+begin_src elisp (setopt uniquify-after-kill-buffer-p t uniquify-buffer-name-style 'forward uniquify-ignore-buffers-re "^\\*" uniquify-separator "/") #+end_src ** Emacs server #+begin_src elisp :tangle no (unless (server-running-p) (server-start))) #+end_src ** Automatic help at point This puts some help in the minibuffer when we leave the point on some interactive text. #+begin_src elisp (setopt help-at-pt-display-when-idle 'never) #+end_src ** Long lines Better support for long lines. #+begin_src elisp (setopt global-so-long-mode t) #+end_src ** Kill processes without asking This will stop us being prompted before killing a buffer with a running process: #+begin_src elisp (setopt kill-buffer-query-functions (remq 'process-kill-buffer-query-function kill-buffer-query-functions)) #+end_src ** Automatically revert buffers Automatically revert buffers when they change on disk. This doesn't apply to tramp. #+begin_src elisp (setopt global-auto-revert-mode t) #+end_src ** Visit symlinks This behaviour changes how we visit symlinks. #+begin_src elisp (setopt find-file-visit-truename t) (setopt vc-follow-symlinks 'ask) #+end_src ** Ibuffer Use ibuffer instead of list-buffers #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key [remap list-buffers] 'ibuffer) #+end_src ** Clicking around By default, clicking on a character will always put the point in front of that character. But it generally feels nicer for a click to put the point on the nearest side of the character to where the mouse clicked, to allow for slightly sloppier clicking. #+begin_src elisp (setopt mouse-prefer-closest-glyph t) #+end_src ** Completing-read everywhere with consult Consult is a package to provide navigation commands that take advantage of completing-read. I set up a nice completing-read environment earlier with vertico. There are a lot of commands built in to consult, and it's possible to define more. But i use it very simply. #+begin_src elisp ;; (package-ensure 'consult) ;; (package-activate 'consult) #+end_src Consult buffer can be used instead of the default buffer menu. It lists recently used files and bookmarks as well as open buffers. #+begin_src elisp (autoload #'consult-buffer "consult" nil t) (global-set-key [remap switch-to-buffer] #'consult-buffer) #+end_src These are some other almost default functions but with extra interactivity. #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key [remap yank-pop] #'consult-yank-pop) (global-set-key [remap goto-line] #'consult-goto-line) (global-set-key [remap imenu] #'consult-imenu) (with-eval-after-load 'org (bind-key [remap imenu] #'consult-org-heading #'org-mode-map)) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key [remap info] #'consult-info) #+end_src ** Annotations for completing-read Marginalia provides us with annotations for candidates in completing read functions. This is things like docstrings for functions, file permissions in find-file, and so on. It's a small quality of life improvement. #+begin_src elisp ;; (package-ensure 'marginalia) (setopt marginalia-mode t) #+end_src We want to always show the relative age of a file. By default, files which haven't been modified for more than two weeks will display an absolute date. #+begin_src elisp (setopt marginalia-max-relative-age most-positive-fixnum) #+end_src My keyboard has a tab key and an i key. For legacy reasons, by default emacs converts C-i to mean the same thing as the tab key, but i don't really want that. The tab key is called and it gets translated to TAB. C-i is TAB, but i'd rather it by C-i. That's what this decode line does. #+begin_src elisp (define-key input-decode-map [?\C-i] [C-i]) #+end_src Now that tab and C-i are properly distinguished, i can bind C-i to completion at point. #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key (kbd "") 'completion-at-point) #+end_src I also want to make the completion at point function a bit more friendly than the default, so i ask consult to provide the completion functionality. #+begin_src elisp (setopt completion-in-region-function 'consult-completion-in-region) #+end_src ** Minibuffer candidate completion Vertico is a package for a nice minibuffer completion experience. It displays a vertical list of candidates. It integrates well with the emacs ecosystem and lets me use other packages that also play nicely. #+begin_src elisp ;; (package-ensure 'vertico) (setopt vertico-mode t) #+end_src We want vertico to take up a maximum of 12 lines on the display. My screen is quite small, so that's fine, but if i had a bigger screen, i might want to look into setting a percentage or increasing this. #+begin_src elisp (setopt vertico-count 12) #+end_src By default, vertico uses a font-face trick to put a horizontal line across group titles. It looks quite nice, but doesn't really conform to my design sensibilities, so here i redefine the group format to not have this. Because we no longer have the line, we also align the group name to the left edge. #+begin_src elisp (setopt vertico-group-format #("%s " 0 3 (face vertico-group-title))) #+end_src We also want to be able to jump to the bottom of the list by moving up from the top of the list, and the opposite. I've rarely made use of this functionality and i don't know if it's actually a best practice from an interaction perspective, but i'm going to keep it on until it causes an issue for me. #+begin_src elisp (setopt vertico-cycle t) #+end_src And of course, i want to be able to interact with vertico with the mouse. #+begin_src elisp (with-eval-after-load 'vertico (setopt vertico-mouse-mode t)) #+end_src When completing a filename, i want to be able to easily delete directories in one fell swoop, instead of character by character or word by word. Usually C- would be fine, but if directories have a hyphen or space in their name, i have to press multiple times, which is almost never desirable. #+begin_src elisp (with-eval-after-load 'vertico (bind-key (kbd "RET") #'vertico-directory-enter 'vertico-map) (bind-key (kbd "") #'vertico-directory-delete-char 'vertico-map) (bind-key (kbd "") #'vertico-directory-delete-word 'vertico-map)) #+end_src If i type ~/ etc in a find-file prompt, get rid of the preceding directory names for a cleaner look. #+begin_src elisp (add-hook 'rfn-eshadow-update-overlay-hook #'vertico-directory-tidy) #+end_src ** Better default completion Some settings for nicer completion with the default emacs completion buffer. I don't use this, because i use vertico. #+begin_src elisp :tangle no (setopt completion-auto-help 'lazy completion-auto-select 'second-tab completion-show-help nil completions-sort nil completions-header-format nil) #+end_src ** Completion styles When given a prompt to select from a list of candidates, there are quite a lot of things we can tweak to improve the experience. The first thing we do is to ignore case, which in these cases is rarely useful. I find that thinking about the case of a candidate is slower than just typing more to narrow down the options. I don't actually know if these make any difference when i've specified a different completion style. #+begin_src elisp (setopt read-buffer-completion-ignore-case t) (setopt read-file-name-completion-ignore-case t) (setopt completion-ignore-case t) #+end_src Next, we want to set orderless and basic as the two completion style. Basic matches candidates with the same text before the point, and the text after the point as a substring. Orderless takes any number of space separated components and displays candidates that much every component in any order. We specify basic first. What this means in practice is that first we will try and complete exactly what i've input, and if that fails, widen the search with orderless to pick up more options. #+begin_src elisp ;; (package-ensure 'orderless) (setopt completion-styles '(basic orderless)) #+end_src By default, emacs overrides the completion styles for email address, but i'm happy with my configuration above. #+begin_src elisp (setopt completion-category-defaults nil) #+end_src * Programming ** Indentation: tabs and whitespace settings In general, my rules for inserting tabs are that the tab key should insert tabs. I personally prefer tabs to spaces, because tabs work reasonably well whatever font or tab width one chooses to set, whereas spaces are the same width for everyone, except when someone uses a proportional font in which case they are narrower than expected. Furthermore, people tend to use spaces for alignment, which looks bad when you can't rely on every character being the same width. However, i'm in the minority, and fighting with the very complicated emacs indentation systems is simply not fun. That said, i refuse to use a monospaced font. Luckily the minority is more than one and someone has already done the hard work for me of writing a mode to make spaces for indentation work reasonably well with a proportional font. That mode is elastic-indent-mode, and it very simply makes leading whitespace characters the same width as the characters on the line above. It's a simple solution but most of the time it does what i want. #+begin_src elisp (require 'elastic-indent) (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook #'elastic-indent-mode) #+end_src Elastic-table-mode is similar; for tab characters within lines, ensure that they change width to make subsequent lines form a table-like layout. #+begin_src elisp (require 'elastic-table) (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook #'elastic-table-mode) #+end_src Previously i used a function to naïvely copy the whitespace from the line above. This is the way that vi, nano, and acme all implement auto-indentation. However, for now i'm experimenting with using the built-in indentation functions again. I'm leaving this defun here for posterity. #+begin_src elisp :tangle no (defun noa/naive-return-and-indent () "Insert a newline and copy the indentation of the previous line, vi/nano style." (interactive) (open-line 1) (let* ((start (progn (beginning-of-line) (point))) (indent (progn (back-to-indentation) (point))) (end (progn (end-of-line) (point))) (whitespace (buffer-substring start indent))) (delete-trailing-whitespace start end) (beginning-of-line 2) (insert whitespace))) #+end_src We will only be trying to indent at the start of a line, and sometimes we will want to insert a standard tab character. We can also set this option to 'complete, which will run completion at point if the region is already indented. #+begin_src elisp (setopt tab-always-indent nil) #+end_src Usually, we want indentation to be done with tabs. Some modes make more sense to use spaces to indent. Lisp is a particular example, and emacs's default behaviour of converting tabs into spaces is frankly horrific. I've taken the below code from acdw to use spaces in these modes. #+begin_src elisp (defvar space-indent-modes '(emacs-lisp-mode lisp-interaction-mode lisp-mode scheme-mode python-mode) "Modes to indent with spaces, not tabs.") (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook (defun indent-tabs-mode-maybe () (setq indent-tabs-mode (if (apply #'derived-mode-p space-indent-modes) nil t)))) #+end_src * Sentences I prefer to double space sentences. But it seems that most other people do not, and the sentence navigation commands still work for my sentences with this set to nil, but don't work for other people's with it set to t. There are of course some little errors with this, like ending a title with a full stop, but for the most part it's fine. #+begin_src elisp (setopt sentence-end-double-space nil) #+end_src If i write a script, i will always run chmod +x after saving it. This command means i don't have to do that. #+begin_src elisp (add-hook 'after-save-hook #'executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p) #+end_src We are on a unix system, so it makes sense to end files in the unix system way. I'm surprised this isn't the default. #+begin_src elisp (setopt require-final-newline t) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt window-min-height 1 window-combination-resize t window-resize-pixelwise t frame-resize-pixelwise t) #+end_src elisp * I-ching I don't know why but it seems cool #+begin_src elisp ;; (package-ensure 'i-ching) #+end_src * Keybindings ** Zap up to char #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key (kbd "M-z") 'zap-up-to-char) #+end_src * Search in buffer Isearch is good, but it has some rough edges. The easiest way forward was just to use ctrlf, which fixes most of them. But i still had some gripes with ctrlf, like that it doesn't play well with a lot of other commands and packages and the general ecosystem built around isearch. So i've tried to fix as many of the issues as i can while keeping real isearch. It makes more sense to go to the start of the match, because i start searching where i want to be. #+begin_src elisp (defun isearch-exit-at-front () "always exit isearch, at the front of search match." (interactive) (isearch-exit) (when isearch-forward (goto-char isearch-other-end))) (defun isearch-exit-at-end () "Always exit isearch, at the end of search match." (interactive) (isearch-exit) (when (not isearch-forward) (goto-char isearch-other-end))) #+end_src My preferred behaviour is for the point to be at the start of the match. Because the search is incremental, usually i won't finish typing something useful before exiting the search, but i always start searching at a place i can reason about. However, i can't figure out how to get this to work along with isearch-mb #+begin_src elisp ;; (define-key isearch-mb-minibuffer-map (kbd "") #'isearch-exit-at-front) ;; (define-key isearch-mb-minibuffer-map (kbd "C-") #'isearch-exit-at-end) ;; Make isearch always quit on C-g (define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "C-g") #'isearch-cancel) (define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "C-o") #'isearch-occur) (setopt search-whitespace-regexp ".*?") (setopt isearch-lax-whitespace t) (setopt isearch-lazy-count t) (setopt isearch-allow-motion t) (setopt isearch-repeat-on-direction-change t) (setopt isearch-wrap-pause 'no) #+end_src Okay, i lied about being vanilla. I want isearch to use the minibuffer like a good normal part of emacs #+begin_src elisp :tangle no (package-ensure 'isearch-mb) (setopt isearch-mb-mode t) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key (kbd "M-o") 'other-window) (global-set-key (kbd "C-x k") 'kill-current-buffer) #+end_src ** Smart scan This is a nice package to easily jump between identical things at point, like the * operator in vim. I disabled it because i'm trying out using the same keybindings to jump between compile mode errors. #+begin_src elisp :tangle no (use-package smartscan) (global-set-key (kbd "M-n") #'smartscan-symbol-go-forward) (global-set-key (kbd "M-p") #'smartscan-symbol-go-backward) (global-set-key (kbd "M-n") #'next-error) (global-set-key (kbd "M-p") #'previous-error) #+end_src ** Jef Raskin's leap As a concept, i really like the canon cat. As described [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33286408][here]], it has two leap keys to navigate the buffer. [[https://dercuano.github.io/notes/eink-design.html][According to Kragen Javier Sitaker]], you could move side to side with the arrow keys, but not up and down. The idea was that any up and down movement would be better served by incremental search. This is something that i want to explore. #+begin_quote If you press and release the LEAP key, it advances the cursor one character forward (or backwards if you hit the left leap key.) If you press down (but do not release) the LEAP key you enter a search semi-mode. As you type a search term in this semi-mode, the cursor moves to the first instance of that search term it finds. After moving to the first instance of the search term, you release the leap key to exit the search semi-mode. If you want to move the cursor to a subsequent instance of the search term, you press (and do not release) the "USE FRONT" key and press the leap key again (whose key front is labeled "Leap Again.") #+end_quote Semi-modes seem hard to implement in emacs, although in a lot of ways they are already here. I am not a fan of modes in the vi-sense at all, and isearch in emacs is a mode like this. That is, keybindings work differently when isearching, and you have to press C-g or RET to go back to the normal editing flow. * Window management My computer has a small screen, so i find that it's more beneficial for me to split the frame into columns, so i get more context. However, splitting in this way only gives me a (window-width) of 61, so emacs will always split into vertically stacked windows. By setting this to 80, the first split should always be vertical. #+begin_src elisp (setopt split-width-threshold 80) #+end_src * Global text search Define a handy function that allows me to do a full text search of every file in my home directory. For the most part, this works well; ripgrep avoids binary files. However, in some files with embedded images, it can add a lot of junk to the output. #+begin_src elisp (defun noa/consult-rg-home () (interactive) (consult-ripgrep "~/")) (global-set-key (kbd "M-") #'noa/consult-rg-home) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt shell-file-name "/bin/sh") #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (defun snarf-song (url) (interactive "sYoutube url:") (async-shell-command (concat "yt-dlp -x --audio-format=mp3 -o " (shell-quote-argument "~/media/music/%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s") " " (shell-quote-argument url)))) #+end_src Put a quote in the scratch buffer #+begin_src elisp (setopt cookie-file "~/data/quotes") (setopt initial-scratch-message (concat (with-temp-buffer (emacs-lisp-mode) (insert (cookie cookie-file)) (mark-whole-buffer) (comment-region (mark) (point)) (buffer-substring (mark) (point))) "\n\n")) #+end_src * Password management I mostly don't use emacs for passage management. Instead i use the wonderful [[https://keepassxc.org/][keepassxc]]. Keepassxc has many great features i make use of, including one time passwords, an ssh agent, and checking if my password appears in leaks. I used keepassxc for over a year, before deciding to throw the towel in and move to bitwarden for the convenience of having my passwords easily on multiple devices. It turns out that things i took for granted with keepassxc, like not having to pay for one time password support, the ssh agent, browser integration that worked well all the time, and a decent desktop application, were not present in bitwarden. Instead of running back to bitwarden, i moved again, first to pass, the so-called standard unix password manager, and then to passage, which does the same thing but uses age encryption instead of the fire-engine-on-fire that is gpg. The motivation for this move was because i wanted to start using a hardware token as extra protection for the passwords. But sadly, the infrastructure around this solution just isn't there and it became a pile of jank. I stopped accessing my email and xmpp from my computer, because it felt like too much of a headache. And so i'm back with keepassxc. Luckily keepassxc supports the secret service api, and so does emacs's very own auth-source package, so everything should be perfect. Right? Not quite. The keys that auth-source expects don't quite align with the keys that keepassxc has. So any passwords i want emacs to be able to easily deal with have to be moved around a little. Luckily the passwords key itself is just where it should be, but i had to go the advanced options in my keepassxc entry and add things in the :user, :host, and :port slots. I probably won't be updating these very often, so it's not a big deal. But i'm writing it here because otherwise i will forget. #+begin_src elisp ;; (start-process-shell-command "keepassxc" nil "keepassxc") (require 'secrets) ;; (secrets-open-session) (setopt auth-sources '("secrets:Passwords")) (auth-source-forget-all-cached) #+end_src * Other #+begin_src elisp (setopt confirm-kill-emacs 'y-or-n-p) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key (kbd "C-=") #'calc) #+end_src * Email I like to have my email offline. Of course my preference is also to have it inside of emacs for consistency with everything else. I use some external tools to fetch and send the mail. #+begin_src sh :tangle no sudo apt install mpop msmtp #+end_src ** Fetching mail #+begin_src conf-unix :tangle ~/.config/mpop/config defaults tls on tls_starttls off auth on port 995 uidls_file ~/data/mail/mpop-uidls/%U_at_%H account noa.pub keep on host mail.noa.pub user noa@noa.pub delivery mbox ~/data/mail/inbox/noa.pub.mbox account gaiwan.org keep on host pop.fastmail.com user noa@gaiwan.org delivery mbox ~/data/mail/inbox/gaiwan.mbox passwordeval "cat ~/.mpop-pass" #+end_src ** Reading mail I have experimented with lots of different methods of reading mail, both in and out of emacs. But i keep coming back to rmail, despite its many, many warts. #+begin_src elisp (setopt rmail-primary-inbox-list (directory-files "~/data/mail/inbox" t "^[^\.]")) (setopt rmail-file-name "~/data/mail/rmail.mbox") (setopt rmail-user-mail-address-regexp (rx "noa@noa.pub")) (setopt rmail-mime-prefer-html nil) (setopt rmail-mime-attachment-dirs-alist '(("" "~/media"))) (setopt rmail-displayed-headers (rx bol (or "To" "Cc" "From" "Date" "Subject") ":")) (setopt rmail-secondary-file-directory "~/data/mail/archive/") (setopt rmail-secondary-file-regexp "\\.mbox\\'") (setopt rmail-delete-after-output t) (setopt rmail-default-file "~/data/mail/archive/") (setopt mail-dont-reply-to-names rmail-user-mail-address-regexp) (add-hook 'rmail-show-message-hook #'visual-line-fill-column-mode) (setopt rmail-display-summary nil) (setopt rmail-redisplay-redisplay-summary t) (setopt rmail-summary-line-count-flag nil) (setopt rmail-summary-window-size 12) (defun noa/message-default-headers () (format "Fcc: ~/data/mail/outbox/%s.mbox" (format-time-string "%Y-%m"))) (setopt message-default-headers #'noa/message-default-headers) #+end_src ** Composing mail Setting this to nil stops auto-fill from being automatically enabled in message buffers. #+begin_src elisp (setopt message-fill-column nil) #+end_src It's nice to have a message signature. I want the signature to be loaded from a file, which is stored in my configuration directory. #+begin_src elisp (setopt message-signature t) (setopt message-signature-file "~/.config/signature") #+end_src #+begin_src text :tangle ~/.config/signature ~noa (https://noa.pub) I queue replies and batch send them at intervals; excuse my untimeliness. #+end_src ** Sending mail #+begin_src elisp (setopt message-send-mail-function 'message-send-mail-with-sendmail) (add-to-list 'exec-path "/home/noa/.config/Scripts") (setopt sendmail-program (executable-find "msmtpq")) (setopt message-sendmail-extra-arguments '("--read-envelope-from")) (setopt message-sendmail-envelope-from 'header) (setopt message-kill-buffer-on-exit t) (setopt message-sendmail-f-is-evil t) (setopt message-forward-as-mime t) (setopt message-interactive t) #+end_src #+begin_src conf-unix :tangle ~/.config/msmtp/config defaults auth on tls on account fastmail host smtp.fastmail.com port 465 tls_starttls off from noa@gaiwan.org user noa@gaiwan.org passwordeval "pass msmtp-baby | head -n1" account noa.pub host mail.noa.pub port 465 tls_starttls off from noa@noa.pub user noa@noa.pub account default: noa.pub #+end_src * System administration ** Eshell Eshell is a command shell written in elisp. It integrates with emacs in a more consistent manner than the other shells available, although it still has its own quirks. In general, i try and avoid using a shell if possible, because i think that bespoke emacs interfaces to different commands tend to have more pleasant interaction methods. But there are still lots of things which are simply easier to do with a shell. *** Set the eshell banner This is equivalent to the message of the day present in some shells. I wanted it to print a new quote every time eshell opened, but when i tried that eshell refused to load. Probably some mistake on my end. #+begin_src elisp (defun noa/eshell-banner-message () (concat (cookie cookie-file) "\n\n")) (setopt eshell-banner-message (noa/eshell-banner-message)) #+end_src *** Environment variables #+begin_src elisp (setenv "PAGER" "cat") (setenv "TERM" "dumb") (setenv "NO_COLOR") (setenv "GPG_AGENT_INFO" nil) #+end_src ** Network management #+begin_src elisp ;; (package-ensure 'enwc) ;; (setopt enwc-default-backend 'nm) #+end_src * Dictionary Emacs has built in support for interfacing with dictd. With dictd and some dictionaries installed on debian, this works fine out of the box. Unfortunately, dictionaries in this format tend to be hard wrapped and there isn't a lot of coverage outside of english #+begin_src elisp (setopt dictionary-search-interface nil) #+end_src Dictionary tooltip mode lets me hover over a word to view the definition. #+begin_src elisp (setopt dictionary-tooltip-mode t) #+end_src * Unsorted Just a few settings i haven't put into another category yet. #+begin_src elisp (setopt save-interprogram-paste-before-kill t mouse-yank-at-point t require-final-newline t load-prefer-newer t ediff-window-setup-function 'ediff-setup-windows-plain) #+end_src * Bibliography management We use ebib to browse the bibliography. #+begin_src elisp (setopt ebib-preload-bib-files '("~/data/references.bib")) #+end_src The biblio package allows us to import references from online sources. #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'biblio) (require 'ebib-biblio) (define-key ebib-index-mode-map (kbd "B") #'ebib-biblio-import-doi) (define-key biblio-selection-mode-map (kbd "e") #'ebib-biblio-selection-import) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt biblio-download-directory "~/media/papers") #+end_src Taking notes on papers: #+begin_src elisp (setopt ebib-notes-directory "~/data/notes") (setopt ebib-notes-locations '("~/data/notes")) (setopt ebib-notes-storage 'multiple-notes-per-file) (setopt ebib-notes-use-org-capture "b") #+end_src