#+TITLE: My configurations #+SUBTITLE: Version 0.2 #+DATE: 2024-06-23 #+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. * 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 * 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 "") nil) (global-set-key (kbd "") 'execute-extended-command) #+end_src I also unbind ~M-x~ so i can use it as another keybinding. #+begin_src elisp (global-unset-key (kbd "M-x")) #+end_src It is often useful to be able to run a command while i am already in the process of running a command in the minibuffer. This is rarely two extended commands; usually it is completion. #+begin_src elisp (setopt minibuffer-depth-indicate-mode t) #+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 * Aesthetic changes ** Colour theme This is my emacs theme. It's a monochrome theme which, unlike most monochrome themes, really does have only two colours. I define a few faces, and set every other face as one of them. There are a few things i want to do with it before i make it properly public: make the colours configurable and able to update on the fly, and in general iron out some of the janky parts. A few things defined it are quite specific to this configuration, like the way i define the borders for the tab and header bars, and there is no mode line configuration because i don't use it. #+begin_src elisp (require 'tubthumping-theme) (load-theme 'tubthumping t) #+end_src ** Fonts My current favourite font is sn pro, which feels like comic sans for grown ups. It's friendly but consistent and well thought out. However, it's also a proportional font, which obviously is the right way to do things, but emacs is very old and comes from a time before the innovation of legibility. As a result, there are some things that require a monospaced font, so i set one here. I chose go mono for two reasons: the first is because i think it looks really nice; the second is because it has serifs and is very visually distinct from sn pro, so i can notice and shame those buffers which require a fixed width font to operate properly. #+begin_src elisp (custom-set-faces '(fixed-pitch ((t (:family "Go Mono" :height 110)))) '(variable-pitch ((t (:family "SN Pro" :height 110))))) #+end_src For some frustrating reason, emacs does not respect fontconfig font settings. What this means in practice is that emacs by default draws cjk characters with the korean variant. Luckily emacs has its own obscure and poorly documented way of doing things, so i can iterate over the relevant charsets and set the font specifically for those characters. #+begin_src elisp (dolist (charset '(han cjk-misc)) (set-fontset-font t charset (font-spec :family "Noto Sans CJK SC"))) #+end_src Similar to the above, we have to manually set the font we want to be used for emoji. I like the cute style of the emoji in fsd emoji, but it doesn't have very good coverage, so we also set noto emoji as the backup. Note that noto emoji is not the same as noto color emoji, which uses coloured emoji. That's clearly against the vibe of this emacs! #+begin_src elisp (set-fontset-font t 'emoji (font-spec :family "FSD Emoji") nil 'prepend) (set-fontset-font t 'emoji (font-spec :family "Noto Emoji") nil 'append) #+end_src While we're here, let's set up emoji input. #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key (kbd "C-.") #'emoji-search) #+end_src Describe a key based on a string like "C-SPC" #+begin_src elisp (defun describe-key-shortcut (shortcut) (interactive "MShortcut: ") (describe-key (kbd shortcut))) #+end_src Update the calendar. We want weeks to start on a monday, the first day of the week. Holidays should be highlighted, and the date format should put the year first. #+begin_src elisp (setopt calendar-week-start-day 1 calendar-mark-holidays-flag t calendar-date-style 'iso) #+end_src *** Monospace font fallback This is my own version of fixed-pitch, which has some changes to it. No hooks are added by default. Updating the whitelist automatically applies the hooks. And there is no functionality for changing the cursor type. #+begin_src elisp (use-package fixed-pitch) (setopt fixed-pitch-whitelist-hooks '(calendar-mode-hook dired-mode-hook ibuffer-mode-hook magit-mode-hook profiler-report-mode-hook jabber-roster-mode-hook mu4e-headers-mode-hook proced-mode-hook rmail-summary-mode-hook)) #+end_src *** Transient variable font While we're at it, ensure that transients look nice with a variable pitch font. #+begin_src elisp (setopt transient-align-variable-pitch t) #+end_src ** Replace the mode line with a header line First, we set the mode line to nil. On my graphical display, this collapses it so all i get is a thin black line separating the buffer from the echo area. But the mode line still holds some useful information that i want to see. I would rather that be in the header line, because to me it makes sense for this kind of metadata to be /above/ the buffer it is describing. First, in white on black text, i want the information about the state of the file. This will show three hyphens in the top left corner of the header line. The first two hyphens mean that the file is both writable and unchanged. If the buffer has been changed, they will change to two asterisks. If the buffer is read only, they will change two percentage symbols. And if the buffer is read only and has been changed, the first will change to a percentage symbol, and the second will change to an asterisk. The final hyphen represents that the file is local, specifically that the default-directory variable is local. If it is remote, an at symbol will be displayed instead. Next, we want to display the buffer name. For buffers which belong to files, this will usually be the file name, but it is likely to be something more informative for special buffers. Below that, show a line and column coördinate. There are special minor modes that will enable or disable this for the default mode line, but i ignore that and put the formatting code here directly. The docstring for the mode-line-format variable suggests that the column might not be displayed correctly in some situations without enabling the minor mode, but i haven't noticed that yet so i don't bother. This column number is zero-indexed; a capital c would make it one-indexed. For now i stick with zero-indexed as that's the emacs default and i'm not sure which is better. I guess it makes a bit more sense that the first character on a line is labeled "1". I don't know exactly what the final variable covers, so i keep it here so that if something shows up i know that it gets put here. Because i have a global mode line in my tab bar, some of the things that would otherwise be here (like the time, battery percentage, and notifications for chat buffers) don't show up. #+begin_src elisp (setq-default mode-line-format nil) (setq-default header-line-format '("%1*%1+%1@ " "%b:%l,%c " mode-line-format-right-align "♥️")) #+end_src ** Flash the current line This function was taken from a karthinks blog post. Previously i was using an external package, [[https://github.com/Malabarba/beacon][beacon]], and i still think that functions better. But this is adequate enough that i'm happy. I'd like to change the face, but ~pulse-highlight-face~ has *DO NOT CUSTOMIZE* in the docstring so what am i meant to do!? #+begin_src elisp (defun pulse-line (&rest _) "Pulse the current line." (pulse-momentary-highlight-one-line (point))) (dolist (command '(scroll-up-command scroll-down-command recenter-top-bottom other-window)) (advice-add command :after #'pulse-line)) #+end_src ** Make wide windows narrow with visual-fill-column Reading prose with long lines is a chore. Luckily there are several packages in emacs to make the windows squeeze text into a more legible sliver. Previously i used olivetti, which is a really nice package, but it's quite heavyweight and broke on me with no explanation more frequently than i appreciated. I've switched to visual-fill-column and been quite satisfied. #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'visual-fill-column) (setopt visual-fill-column-enable-sensible-window-split t) (setopt visual-fill-column-center-text t) (advice-add 'text-scale-adjust :after #'visual-fill-column-adjust) (add-hook 'text-mode-hook #'visual-line-fill-column-mode) (add-hook 'eww-after-render-hook #'visual-line-fill-column-mode) (add-hook 'nov-post-html-render-hook #'visual-line-fill-column-mode) #+end_src The fringes of a window can show useful icons relating to the text in the buffer. For example, when using org modern, blocks get a line in the left fringe to show their content more clearly, Because of this, i prefer for them to be right next to the buffer text. #+begin_src elisp (setopt visual-fill-column-fringes-outside-margins nil) #+end_src Adaptive wrap will indent visually wrapped text to match the indent at the start of the line, for example in lists. This works... fine. However it's adapting the prefix, it doesn't indent nicely with proportional fonts, but you can't win them all. #+begin_src elisp ;; (use-package adaptive-wrap :ensure t) ;; (add-hook 'visual-fill-column-mode-hook #'adaptive-wrap-prefix-mode) #+end_src ** Interface I want to make sure that various bits of the interface are hidden. but this isn't an "all gui chrome is useless" rampage. I personally think the scrollbar is useful, i like the visual indication it gives of how far i am through a file. At the moment, explicitly disabling the menu bar and tool bar does nothing, because i already set there to be no lines displayed for the tool and menu bars in my early-init.el file. #+begin_src elisp :tangle no (setopt menu-bar-mode nil tool-bar-mode nil) #+end_src Tooltips are little popups next to the mouse cursor. I think this information is helpful, but i like it to appear in a more consistent position, because i find it frustrating when popups cover parts of the ui that i wanted to see. By disabling tooltip-mode, the contents that would be in a popup is instead shown in the echo area. #+begin_src elisp (setopt tooltip-mode nil) #+end_src I see no reason not to immediately show which chords in a key sequence i have already pressed. Emacs does, however, and instead of letting me set the value of echo-keystrokes to zero to wait zero seconds to show that information, it repurposes zero as a method of disabling the functionality altogether, and provides no special functionality for setting it to nil that would explain why that's not an acceptable method of disabling a feature. Instead, i have to deal with setting it to nearly zero, and luckily i can't tell the difference. #+begin_src elisp (setopt echo-keystrokes 0.1) #+end_src A useful feature when programming is to show matching parentheses. Show-paren-mode is a global mode. By default it runs in all buffers except those inheriting from special mode. #+begin_src elisp (setopt show-paren-mode t) #+end_src This variable means that if there is no non-whitespace character in between the point and the paren, it will be highlighted. It's useful to highlight parentheses if the point is at the start of the line and the paren is indented. #+begin_src elisp (setopt show-paren-when-point-in-periphery t) #+end_src By default, the point has to be after a paren for it to be highlighted. But often the point will be just inside, in which case it's also helpful for the pair to be highlighted. #+begin_src elisp (setopt show-paren-when-point-inside-paren t) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt tab-bar-mode t) (setopt tab-bar-format '(tab-bar-format-menu-bar tab-bar-format-history tab-bar-format-tabs tab-bar-separator tab-bar-format-add-tab tab-bar-format-align-right tab-bar-format-global)) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt global-font-lock-mode t) (setopt font-lock-maximum-decoration nil) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt inhibit-startup-screen t mouse-drag-and-drop-region nil mouse-yank-at-point t ;; deleting should be an explicit action delete-selection-mode nil) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key (kbd "C-t") 'tab-new) #+end_src Shift click to select region with the mouse. This annoyingly rings the bell for an error. It also interferes with my input method switcher, which doesn't notice the mouse click and thinks i've pressed shift with no other keys. #+begin_src elisp (global-unset-key (kbd "S-")) (global-set-key (kbd "S-") 'mouse-save-then-kill) #+end_src * Xmpp Jabber.el is an xmpp client in emacs. I don't actually use xmpp as xmpp that much. But i do use it to connect to irc, and this package lets me do that. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly well-behaved package; by default it clobbers some keybindings and floods the echo area with unhelpful messages. #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'jabber) (setopt jabber-account-list '(("noa@noa.pub"))) #+end_src So now what we're going to do is get it to stop showing a bunch of channels in the mode line, because there will always be new activity and i want to drop in when i feel like it, and not always have a reminder of that fact. The defun below is copied from jabber-activity-show-p-default but with an extra condition plopped in. #+begin_src elisp (defcustom noa/jabber-activity-dont-show '("#tildetown%town@irc.hmm.st" "#meta%tilde.chat@irc.hmm.st" "hmm@conference.hmm.st") "List of JIDs not to show in the modeline." :group 'jabber-activity)(defun noa/jabber-activity-show-p (jid) "Return non-nil if JID should be hidden. A JID should be hidden when there is an invisible buffer for JID, when JID is not in `noa/jabber-activity-dont-show', and when JID is not in `jabber-activity-banned'." (let ((buffer (jabber-activity-find-buffer-name jid))) (and (buffer-live-p buffer) (not (get-buffer-window buffer 'visible)) (not (cl-dolist (entry jabber-activity-banned) (when (string-match entry jid) (cl-return t)))) (not (cl-dolist (entry noa/jabber-activity-dont-show) (when (string-match entry jid) (cl-return t)))))))(setopt jabber-activity-show-p #'noa/jabber-activity-show-p) #+end_src Because i have a lot of irc channels shown, a lot of the jids are quite long and ugly. Mostly i know what irc server a channel belongs to, so i want to cut off the parts after the percentage symbol. I might want to look at the jabber-jid-username function which seems to do this. #+begin_src elisp (defun noa/jabber-activity-make-string (jid) "Return the nick of the JID. If no nick is available, return the user name part of the JID. In private MUC conversations, return the user's nickname." (if (jabber-muc-sender-p jid) (jabber-jid-resource jid) (let ((nick (jabber-jid-displayname jid)) (user (jabber-jid-user jid)) (username (jabber-jid-username jid))) (if (and username (string= nick user)) username nick)))) (setopt jabber-activity-make-string #'noa/jabber-activity-make-string) #+end_src I'm on a laptop, so whenever i shut it i get disconnected. Jabber can query auth-source for my password, so automatically reconnecting is useful and doesn't need me to do anything. #+begin_src elisp (setopt jabber-auto-reconnect t) #+end_src Because my xmpp server supports message history, i don't need to worry about exiting without seeing all messages, as they'll be there when i get back. #+begin_src elisp (setopt jabber-activity-query-unread nil) #+end_src The default buffer names are a bit ugly to look at, so i change them to a similar format as eww. Which is still pretty ugly, welcome to emacs #+begin_src elisp (setopt jabber-chat-buffer-format "*%n | jabber*" jabber-groupchat-buffer-format "*%n | jabber*") #+end_src As alluded to above, jabber.el also has a terrible terrible habit of sending a message to the echo area for every change in online state of my contacts, and every single message in any channel. Obviously this gets annoying fast, especially if i'm using the minibuffer at that time. Thank you to acdw for pointing me towards these helpful hooks to remove. #+begin_src elisp (remove-hook 'jabber-alert-muc-hooks #'jabber-muc-echo) (remove-hook 'jabber-alert-presence-hooks #'jabber-presence-echo) #+end_src Also stop jabber from clobbering the dired-jump binding and instead use something on C-c like a good child. #+begin_src elisp (with-eval-after-load 'jabber (keymap-global-set "C-x C-j" #'dired-jump)) #+end_src Finally, have a binding to jump to a buffer in which there's been some new activity. Better than always using switch-to-buffer to get there. #+begin_src elisp (keymap-global-set "C-c C-j" #'jabber-activity-switch-to) #+end_src * Nov.el #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'nov) (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.epub\\'" . nov-mode)) #+end_src * Writing prose The majority of the work i do in emacs is writing documents, so it's nice to know that the words coming out of my fingers are the ones i expect them to be. ** Org mode I thought it would be a good idea to have the ability to set headings in my notes as things i wanted to recall later, as i store most of the things i think about in an org file. I still do think that, but the package isn't in melpa right now and i'm lazy and i'm not in education, so i haven't got around to it yet. #+begin_src elisp :tangle no (use-package org-fc :disabled :ensure t :custom (org-fc-directories (expand-file-name "~/data/notes/"))) #+end_src If we enable this, emphasis markers will be hidden for a more word processor feel. This has the downside of meaning you have to delete a hidden character to get rid of bold or italic text. I don't have much of a problem with seeing the emphasis markers so i'm willing to put up with any aesthetic shortcomings for a better user experience. The package org-appear solves this by hiding them, but showing them when the point is over them, but i don't think having a whole package just for that is worth it. #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-hide-emphasis-markers nil) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-startup-with-inline-images t) (setopt org-image-actual-width '(300)) (setopt org-auto-align-tags nil) (setopt org-tags-column 0) (setopt org-catch-invisible-edits 'show-and-error) (setopt org-special-ctrl-a/e t) (setopt org-insert-heading-respect-content t) (setopt org-ellipsis "…") (setopt org-display-custom-times t) (setopt org-time-stamp-custom-formats '("%Y-%m-%d" . "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M")) ;; (setopt org-time-stamp-formats '("<%Y-%m-%d>" . "<%Y-%m-%d %H:%M>")) (setopt org-extend-today-until 4) (setopt org-adapt-indentation nil) (setopt org-log-done 'time) (setopt org-return-follows-link t) (setopt org-agenda-files '("~/data/notes/notes.org")) (setopt org-capture-bookmark nil) (setopt org-capture-templates '(("j" "Journal" entry (file+olp+datetree "~/data/notes/notes.org") "* %?\n" :empty-lines 1) ("w" "Website" entry (file+olp+datetree "~/data/notes/notes.org") "* %a\n%?\n" :empty-lines 1) ("c" "Contact" entry (file+olp+datetree "~/data/notes/notes.org") "* %^{Name} :PROPERTIES: :ADDRESS: %^{Address} :BIRTHDAY: %^{yyyy-mm-dd} :EMAIL: %^{EMAIL}p :NOTE: %^{NOTE} :END:" :empty-lines 1) )) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-agenda-block-separator nil) (setopt org-agenda-include-deadlines t) ;; Always start the weekly agenda for a week from today (setopt org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil) ;; Show week of agenda by default (setopt org-agenda-span 'week) (setopt org-agenda-prefix-format '((agenda . " %i %?-12t% s") (todo . " %i ") (tags . " %i ") (search . " %i "))) #+end_src The default agenda time grid has thick lines which i don't think add anything to the output. Similarly, the arrow pointing to the current time has a long line which helps me to find it more easily, but by getting rid of the excess of colour and making it bold, i never struggle to find it anyway. #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-agenda-time-grid '((daily today require-timed) (800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000) " " " ")) (setopt org-agenda-current-time-string "◀ you are here") (setopt org-support-shift-select 'always) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp ;; Make org html export more pleasant by default (setopt org-export-with-smart-quotes t) (setopt org-export-with-entities nil) (setopt org-export-headline-levels 5) (setopt org-export-with-toc nil) (setopt org-export-with-section-numbers nil) (setopt org-html-doctype "html5") (setopt org-html-html5-fancy t) (setopt org-html-container-element "section") (setopt org-html-divs '((preamble "header" "preamble") (content "main" "content") (postamble "footer" "postamble"))) (setopt org-export-with-sub-superscripts t) (setopt org-html-head-include-default-style nil org-html-head-include-scripts nil org-html-validation-link "") #+end_src This doesn't work with code blocks at the moment. #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-html-indent nil) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key (kbd "C-c c") #'org-capture) (global-set-key (kbd "C-c a") #'org-agenda) (global-set-key (kbd "C-c l") #'org-store-link) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp :tangle no ;; (package-ensure 'helm-org-ql) ;; (package-ensure 'org-super-links) ;; (setopt org-super-links-search-function #'helm-org-ql) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'org-modern) (add-hook 'org-mode-hook #'org-modern-mode) ;; (add-hook 'org-agenda-finalize-hook #'org-modern-agenda) #+end_src There are three ways to make bullet lists in org mode, which seems a bit excessive to me. I almost always only use the hyphen, but i like my bullet points to look like bullets, so here i overwrite the hyphen display to show a bullet point. While i'm at it, i overwrite the others too, because they are functionally identical so should probably look the same too. #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-modern-list '((?+ . " • ") (?- . " • ") (?* . " • "))) #+end_src This doesn't respect my timestamp custom format configured above. #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-modern-timestamp nil) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-modern-star nil) (setopt org-modern-keyword nil) (setopt org-modern-checkbox '((88 . "☑") (45 . #("□–" 0 2 (composition ((2))))) (32 . "□"))) (setopt org-modern-table nil) (setopt org-modern-block-name nil) (setopt org-modern-internal-target nil) (setopt org-modern-tag nil) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt org-id-link-to-org-use-id 'create-if-interactive-and-no-custom-id) #+end_src *** Nicer org-mode tables #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'valign) (add-hook 'markdown-mode-hook #'valign-mode) (add-hook 'org-mode-hook #'valign-mode) (setopt valign-fancy-bar t) (setopt valign-max-table-size 0) #+end_src ** Website generation #+begin_src elisp (defun read-file-as-string (filename) "Read file contents from FILENAME." (with-temp-buffer (insert-file-contents filename) (buffer-string))) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setq noa/website-header (read-file-as-string "/home/noa/projects/org-website/templates/header.html")) (setq noa/website-footer (read-file-as-string "/home/noa/projects/org-website/templates/footer.html")) #+end_src The index page generation functions were taken from Dennis Ogbe. Thank you! #+begin_src elisp (defun my-blog-parse-sitemap-list (l) "Convert the sitemap list in to a list of filenames." ;; LIST looks like: ;; (unordered ("[[file:uses.org][Things i use]]") ("[[file:media.org][Media Diary]]") ("[[file:tanklobsters.org][Tank lobsters]]")) (mapcar #'(lambda (i) (let ((link (with-temp-buffer (let ((org-inhibit-startup nil)) (insert (car i)) (org-mode) (goto-char (point-min)) (org-element-link-parser))))) (when link (plist-get (cadr link) :path)))) (cdr l))) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (defun my-blog-sort-article-list (l p) "sort the article list anti-chronologically." (sort l #'(lambda (a b) (let ((date-a (org-publish-find-date a p)) (date-b (org-publish-find-date b p))) (not (time-less-p date-a date-b)))))) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (defun noa/naive-org-first-paragraph (file) "Naively returns the first paragraph of FILE. The way that the first paragraph is determined is to assume that there will be an org metadata block beforehand, so look for the first two consecutive newlines and mark the following paragraph." (with-temp-buffer (insert-file-contents file) (goto-char (point-min)) (re-search-forward "\n\n") (mark-paragraph) (let ((beg (mark)) (end (point))) (buffer-substring beg end)))) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (defun noa/website-sitemap (title list) "Generate the index page for my website." ;; LIST looks like: ;; (unordered ("[[file:uses.org][Things i use]]") ("[[file:media.org][Media Diary]]") ("[[file:tanklobsters.org][Tank lobsters]]")) (with-temp-buffer ;; mangle the parsed list given to us into a plain lisp list of files (let* ((filenames (my-blog-parse-sitemap-list list)) (project-plist (assoc "website-pages" org-publish-project-alist)) (articles (my-blog-sort-article-list filenames project-plist))) (message (concat "PLIST: " (plist-get project-plist :base-directory))) (insert "Several parts of this website are broken as i wrangle with the monstrosity that is programming in emacs lisp. The content should still be fine, but for further cosmetics please hold <3\n\n") (dolist (file filenames) (let* ((abspath (file-name-concat "/home/noa/data/share" file)) ;; (abspath (file-name-concat (plist-get project-plist :base-directory) file)) (relpath (file-relative-name abspath "/home/noa/data/share")) (title (org-publish-find-title file project-plist)) (date (format-time-string (car org-time-stamp-formats) (org-publish-find-date file project-plist))) (preview (noa/naive-org-first-paragraph abspath))) (insert (concat "* [[file:" relpath "][" title "]]\n")) (insert (concat "*" date ":*" preview)) (insert "\n"))) ;; insert a title and save (insert "#+TITLE: noa.pub\n") (buffer-string)))) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setq org-publish-project-alist `(("website" :components ("website-pages" "website-assets")) ("website-pages" :publishing-function org-html-publish-to-html :base-directory "/home/noa/data/share" :publishing-directory "/home/noa/projects/org-website" :base-extension "org" :with-drawers t :html-link-home "/" :html-head-include-default-style nil :html-head-include-scripts nil :html-doctype "html5" ;; :html-validation-link nil :html-preamble "" :html-postamble ,noa/website-footer :html-home/up-format "" :html-link-up "" :html-html5-fancy t :html-indent nil :html-head "𰻝\">\n " :auto-sitemap t :sitemap-filename "/home/noa/projects/org-website/index.org" :sitemap-title "noa.pub" :sitemap-style list ;; :sitemap-format-entry :sitemap-function noa/website-sitemap :sitemap-sort-folders ignore :sitemap-sort-files anti-chronologically :sitemap-ignore-case t) ("website-assets" :publishing-function org-publish-attachment :base-directory "/home/noa/data/share" :publishing-directory "/home/noa/projects/org-website" :base-extension "css\\|js\\|png|\\jpg" :recursive t))) #+end_src ** Markdown #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'markdown-mode) (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.\\(?:md\\|markdown\\|mkd\\|mdown\\|mkdn\\|mdwn\\)\\'" . markdown-mode)) #+end_src ** Autocorrection Abbrev mode expands one string into another string. I use it as a simple autocorrect mode. If i misspell a word, i run C-x a i g which will prompt me for what to expand the previous word into. I type the correct spelling, and whenever i make that mistake again, it will automatically be corrected. It's important to be careful not to set something that could be a typo for two words though, because otherwise it gets even more annoying. Luckily it's easy to update the abbrevs which are stored in ~/.config/emacs/abbrev_defs. M-x list-abbrevs is also a nice command which shows all the saved abbrevs and how many times they've been expanded. #+begin_src elisp (add-hook 'text-mode-hook #'abbrev-mode) #+end_src ** Spellcheck Jinx is a package for spellchecking. Previously i used [[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Spelling.html][flyspell]], which is built in, and [[https://codeberg.org/ideasman42/emacs-spell-fu][spell-fu]]. Flyspell is not ideal because it only checks the word under the point. Furthermore, the correction interface is not pleasant to look at with a proportional font as it uses spaces to align the candidates. Spell-fu checks all the words that are visible, thereby behaving much more like a traditional spell checker. Jinx improves on spell-fu by interacting with the spellcheck process in a more efficient way, and has a nicer interface to corrections. #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'jinx) (setopt global-jinx-mode t) #+end_src Replace the default spellcheck binding with jinx #+begin_src elisp (keymap-global-set "M-$" #'jinx-correct) (keymap-global-set "C-M-$" #'jinx-languages) #+end_src *** Add corrected words to abbrev This is a cool function i took from the jinx wiki. It automatically creates an abbrev for words i correct, so if i make the same error again, it gets fixed without me having to do anything! #+begin_src elisp (defun jinx--add-to-abbrev (overlay word) "Add abbreviation to `global-abbrev-table'. The misspelled word is taken from OVERLAY. WORD is the corrected word." (let ((abbrev (buffer-substring-no-properties (overlay-start overlay) (overlay-end overlay)))) (message "Abbrev: %s -> %s" abbrev word) (define-abbrev global-abbrev-table abbrev word))) (advice-add 'jinx--correct-replace :before #'jinx--add-to-abbrev) #+end_src *** Consistent face on hover Almost everywhere else, the ~highlight~ face is used for interactive text on mouse over. However, jinx reuses its own ~jinx-highlight~ face, which i don't really like. This face clashes with the face i use for the active region, which means selecting text across a misspelled word can be a bit confusing. If i change the ~jinx-highlight~ face, it looks wrong when i've activated jinx to correct the word. #+begin_src elisp (put 'jinx-overlay 'mouse-face '(jinx-misspelled highlight)) #+end_src I mentioned that i thought this wasn't the best default behaviour [[https://github.com/minad/jinx/discussions/184][in the jinx repository]], but Daniel seems happy with it. I appreciate that he's made it so easy to change the behaviour to something i prefer. * 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)) (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 * 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 in emacs 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) (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 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 * Dired 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 * 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. #+begin_src elisp (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 ** Ignore the bell Ignore the bell. #+begin_src elisp (setopt ring-bell-function 'ignore) #+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 * Writing code ** 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 I want to ensure that indentation is always correct. The builtin electric indent mode works /sometimes/, but the aggressive indent mode package is more reliable. #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'aggressive-indent) (setopt global-aggressive-indent-mode 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 * 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 text :tangle no Host * ControlMaster auto ControlPath ~/.ssh/master-%h:%p ControlPersist 10m ForwardAgent yes ServerAliveInterval 60 #+end_src ** 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 (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-this-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. ** Replace Anzu provides real-time updates to the replacement string when running query-replace. #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'anzu) (global-set-key [remap query-replace] 'anzu-query-replace) (global-set-key [remap query-replace-regexp] 'anzu-query-replace-regexp) #+end_src 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 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 * 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 * Pass(1) The auth-source library allows packages to request password information. It has a password store backend, which is nicer to work with than netrc files. #+begin_src elisp (require 'auth-source-pass) (add-to-list 'auth-sources 'password-store) (auth-source-forget-all-cached) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (package-ensure 'pass) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (setopt confirm-kill-emacs 'y-or-n-p) #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (global-set-key (kbd "C-=") #'calc) #+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. * 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. Currently i use mu4e as my mail user agent, which relies on an external tool. I also use two small command line programs to download and send mail. #+begin_src sh :tangle no sudo apt install maildir-utils isync msmtp #+end_src ** Fetching mail with mbsync Mbsync is downloaded with the isync package. The configuration is not complicated. I use fastmail to host my email. #+begin_src text :tangle no IMAPAccount fastmail Host imap.fastmail.com User noa@gaiwan.org #+end_src The ~passcmd~ is run to fetch my password. I should put this into pass, but this isn't an ordinary password. It's an app password, and needs to be updated on every new system. #+begin_src text :tangle no PassCmd "cat ~/.config/mbsync-pass" #+end_src #+begin_src text :tangle no SSLType IMAPS IMAPStore fastmail-remote Account fastmail MaildirStore fastmail-local SubFolders Verbatim Path "~/mail/" Inbox "~/mail/Inbox" Channel fastmail Far :fastmail-remote: Near :fastmail-local: Patterns * Create Near Expunge Near SyncState * CopyArrivalDate yes #+end_src ** Reading mail with mu4e #+begin_src elisp (setopt mu4e-headers-skip-duplicates t) (setopt mu4e-view-show-images t) (setopt mu4e-view-show-addresses t) #+end_src In theory i like format flowed, but what i like even more is just not hard wrapping messages and dealing with hacks to get around that to begin with. If software supported soft wrapping at an arbitrary column, the world would be a better place. #+begin_src elisp (setopt mu4e-compose-format-flowed nil) (setopt mu4e-change-filenames-when-moving t) (setopt mu4e-use-fancy-chars nil) (setopt mu4e-confirm-quit nil) (setopt mu4e-headers-leave-behavior 'apply) (setopt mu4e-headers-precise-alignment t) (setopt mu4e-headers-fields '((:flags . 6) (:from . 32) (:subject))) (setopt mu4e-search-threads nil) (setopt mu4e-hide-index-messages t) (setopt mu4e-get-mail-command "mbsync -c ~/.config/mbsyncrc fastmail") (setopt mu4e-maildir "~/mail") (setopt mu4e-drafts-folder "/Drafts") (setopt mu4e-sent-folder "/Sent") (setopt mu4e-refile-folder "/Archive") (setopt mu4e-trash-folder "/Trash") (setopt mu4e-bookmarks '((:name "Inbox" :query "maildir:/Inbox" :key ?i) (:name "Feeds" :query "maildir:/Feeds" :key ?f) (:name "Paper trail" :query "\"maildir:/Paper trail\"" :key ?p))) #+end_src function to move mails to trash #+begin_src elisp (with-eval-after-load 'mu4e (bind-key (kbd "d") #'noa/move-to-trash 'mu4e-headers-mode-map) (bind-key (kbd "d") #'noa/move-to-trash 'mu4e-view-mode-map) (fset 'noa/move-to-trash "mTrash")) #+end_src The first string is for when fancy characters are disabled, and the second is for when they are enabled. But i set them all manually because some of the other characters are ugly in fancy mode, but i like my unicode thread icons. #+begin_src elisp (setq mu4e-headers-thread-connection-prefix '("│ " . "│ ") mu4e-headers-thread-last-child-prefix '("└ " . "└ ") mu4e-headers-thread-blank-prefix '(" " . " ") mu4e-headers-thread-root-prefix '("□ " . "□ ") mu4e-headers-thread-child-prefix '("│ " . "│ ") mu4e-headers-thread-orphan-prefix '("♢ " . "♢ ") mu4e-headers-thread-duplicate-prefix '("≡ " . "≡ ") mu4e-headers-thread-first-child-prefix '("⚬ " . "⚬ ") mu4e-headers-thread-single-orphan-prefix '("♢ " . "♢ ")) #+end_src 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 store in my configuration directory. #+begin_src elisp (setopt message-signature t) (setopt message-signature-file "~/.config/signature") #+end_src The contents of the signature file is listed below. Currently i only have two bullet points, when i think three would look nicer, but i don't have three things to say. #+begin_src text :tangle ~/.config/signature ~noa (https://noa.pub) • I try to reply to formal emails in three sentences or fewer; excuse my brevity. • I queue replies and batch send them at intervals; excuse my untimeliness. #+end_src #+begin_src elisp (add-hook 'mu4e-view-mode-hook #'visual-line-fill-column-mode) #+end_src ** Reading mail with rmail 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 '("mbox://~/data/mail/spool.mbox")) (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.mbox") (setopt rmail-secondary-file-regexp "\\.mbox\\'") (setopt rmail-delete-after-output t) (setopt rmail-default-file "~/") (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 t) (setopt rmail-redisplay-redisplay-summary t) (setopt rmail-summary-line-count-flag nil) (setopt rmail-summary-window-size 12) #+end_src ** Sending mail with msmtp #+begin_src elisp (setopt message-send-mail-function 'message-send-mail-with-sendmail) (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 * 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