The Basics of Emacs Configuration

[@petarpz1]

i am using emacs for around an year and still learned 1-2 new things :D thanx

[@quillonri]

The more I work in emacs, the more that I like it. I've got this playlist saved and am finding it very helpful! Thank you!

[@meowcus_]

So glad you are making a new series about configuring Emacs. I just finished a project customizing Neovim with Lua and would love to create my own custom config for Emacs and not feel so tied to Doom Emacs. Keep up the great work!

[@ChristianTietze]

Looking forward to refer to the series as a starting point for friends and family :)

[@dilosilv611]

I see he hasn't 'finished' this, the "Emacs From Scratch (New)" playlist on this channel only has 3 videos? I guess I'll watch the older 2020 version...

[@leonhardmay3569]

I'm just slowly switching to emacs, this new series arrived just in time!

[@marcel948]

Although I have setup my Emacs config years ago, it’s a joy to watch your videos, even one that is barely relevant for me. - Keep up!

[@ciaranmulloy8341]

Excellent introduction on starting your emacs configuration. I've been using emacs for a while and I learned several useful tips! Great work!

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks a lot Ciaran!

[@rahulpyd1]

Very helpful. Have used Emacs for a while but got to learn a few new things from this video. Thanks.

[@naolmergia]

Now you made it for me!!!, I've been struggling by the previous videos of yours!!!. this one got me with the questions I had in my mind Thanks a lot!!!

[@SystemCrafters]

Glad to hear that!

[@boyuanning2879]

New video on the 1st day of Chinese new year, nice!!!

[@SystemCrafters]

Happy new year!

[@tessiof]

So excited for this new series!

[@jgowthamraam]

Great. Wow ! . Excited about the video. I was expecting the same for getting started using Elisp and config in Emacs. Expecting more videos from you.

[@Sz3ntAr]

I've got a lot of great ideas from your config from scratch series (also learnt a lot) and I can't wait for the vast knowledge I'll obtain from this time

[@JanneSauvala]

Great start for the series. I cannot wait for the next video.

[@nichtgestalt]

Very cool! I just started today with configuring GNU Emacs and it really does make fun! Keep up the good work!

[@ppali11]

Slow pace but thorough. Activating listeners by pointing what they can check out quickly themselves. To the point elisp explanations. Can this level be maintained? I hope. Good job!

[@SystemCrafters]

That's the plan!

[@eis3nheim]

This is absolutely amazing, I just can't wait for the next video. Superb series.

[@SystemCrafters]

Thank you!

[@oliveiracaio57]

Finally understood the meaning of ' before a name. It's like in Scheme. Nice. (This comment probably shows that I didn't watch the whole series of elisp. :P)

[@dipalzambare9257]

Thanks Devid, love this short and focused format!

[@abarocio80]

Excellent video. A must-watch for newbies Btw, C-x C-e also evaluates the last expression. For some (like me) it is easier to concatenate key-cords than press a single more complicated key-chord. May be you need to explain why to disable the menu-bar (or tool-bar). Some people may have that for a while to not feel too lost as like within vi(m). It also gives discoverability in a more "expected" way. Great work!

[@AndersJackson]

Actually, meny-bar is usefull, but tool-bar not so much, so I do agree with you.

[@pasan.]

Finally I can start to use emacs

[@siljrath]

aces. thanks so much for having, and pointing out, the keybinding thing. had asked for such, really glad you have it now. ace pedagogy dev. (shorter more concise intros might work too... even jumping straight into it.) lovin it. cheers.

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks! In the the next videos we'll definitely jump right into it, this one needed a little extra context since config beginners might need it.

[@martinpetersen3187]

Thank you so much. You know what I thank you for. Really appreciate your new style.👍👍👍

[@wjcwukong]

Great work! Wishing you a happy and prosperous Year of the Tiger!

[@SystemCrafters]

Happy new year, and thank you!

[@haidermirza192]

Thank you for teaching me how to fix the (quite anoyying) visible-bell; Once disabled, it now uses my motherboard's buzzer which is quite dope 🙂

[@haidermirza192]

Realised it was enabled because of some emacs lisp code I copied. Turns out that it is quite important to understand what copied code does.

[@SystemCrafters]

That would be annoying indeed!

[@gabioeste]

I can only say great video!! Super helpful. Now some things become clear ! Thank you for this series

[@albertojorgebaezacampuzano7563]

Hello David, starting a new series of emacs from scratch is a wonderful thing for us, who uses emacs for everything. Look in the case of emacs for windows i notice that visible-bell t does not cause any effect, in other words there are not flashes. However, searching on the web i saw there is a possibility to make only the mode line flash. this is the code: (This might or might not be useful) (setq inhibit-startup-message t visible-bell t ring-bell-function 'flash-mode-line) ;; function to flash the mode line (defun flash-mode-line () (invert-face 'mode-line) (run-with-timer 0.1 nil #'invert-face 'mode-line))

[@SystemCrafters]

Yep, doom-modeline has a similar capability and I use it!

[@RonnieNissan]

Thank you for this amazing video David.

[@артеммамаев-я8л]

keep up the good work! Thanks for the video!

[@malcolmkahora5318]

Great tutorial didn't know about C-h o

[@SivaKumar-ne2wb]

These are the final days for my vim editor:)

[@noam65]

This is awesome! Thank you!

[@charlessmith5465]

11:28 I reflexively lowered the volume when you were about to demonstrate visible-bell 🤣 _THE PC SPEAKER REMINDS YOU IT EXISTS, JARRINGLY._ At least on Linux; I think Windows plays a WAV file through any connected speakers depending on the "sound theme" or whatever they call it these days.

[@SystemCrafters]

Smart move! Luckily my setup doesn't make a bell noise at all in these cases

[@gaialoves]

bonega instruisto!

[@Pedro-jj7gp]

Great intro! I can't wait for the next one. Btw, how are you showing the last command in the modeline?

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks! I write some custom code that emulates tarsius' Keycast package, you can install that package to get a better result than what I'm doing

[@PETKAKK17]

Thank you for your work! I wish I could leave more than one like

[@SystemCrafters]

Your like and comment is plenty, thanks!

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks for pointing that out! I'll update the show notes

[@johannesrodt290]

Happy to see shorter videos again

[@intermarer9145]

Great video! Went to check out your other ones hoping to learn some more and oooof... they are all 1-2 hours long. Just a quick note in the suggestion box - shorter vids :)

[@SystemCrafters]

The 2 hour long videos are stream recordings. Many of my tutorial videos are less than one hour

[@3timeszero]

Time to learn me some emacs. At last.

[@wyfyj]

Thank you for this video

[@davidjeters]

Great Video! I like seeing your startup screen as it let's me know exactly what version of emacs that you are using. Such as 28.0.60 which can be important to users as these videos age. Maybe knowing which version of GTK and cairo could be helpful, but I am not sure.

[@SystemCrafters]

Probably not as important, but couldn't hurt! Let me know if you need to know which ones I'm using and I'll look it up

[@davidjeters]

@@SystemCrafters Maybe there is some confusion about my comment. On your emacs startup message which was inhibited in the video, it provides the following information about the emacs build on your system. Emacs: 28.0.60 GTK version 3.24.30 Cairo version 1.16.0 My point was that startup message can provide useful information and maybe we should not be so quick to dismiss it.

[@alanmauriciocarrascoperez2188]

really nice content!

[@cybu6466]

Really helpful, thank you. Already deepening my understanding! Do you plan to go into org mode using python in :session mode at some point?

[@SystemCrafters]

I really should make a video about that. Literate programming in Org is really nice

[@fabiano9277]

Gosh. Your content is awesome. 🥳👍

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks a lot!

[@fabiano9277]

I also set the variable initial-scratch-message to "" because i like a blank screen or buffer when i start Emacs.

[@SystemCrafters]

That's a cool idea!

[@NelsonIngersoll]

Just a quick heads up... in the section "Setting the theme" you refer to the ' apostrophe as a ; semi-colon. I believe that is a mistake.

[@cfraizer]

Several times starting at timestamp 17:15, you misspeak and say "semicolon" when you mean "single-quote" or "apostrophe". (Oops!)

[@melancholy-engineering]

Thanks for your content! Its amazing! Since you are very powerful emacs user, maybe you know good solution for set up line height how it works in modern editors? In emacs sadly it looks so ugly. For example line-spacing property do only bottom padding and it look awkward.

[@AndersJackson]

Emacs is basically about editing text efficient, and not so much about looking good. That said, you should probably check out the git repository and talk to the programmers that do GTK frontend to Emacs, or what you using. There are different frontends for different OS:es, and if you are good at working with front end programming, they could probably use some help there.

[@КириллСандрыгайло]

Thanks u a lot, bro!!!

[@kozas0]

I don't like global-display-line-numbers-mode, instead I enable it only for prog-mode (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'display-line-numbers-mode) and have a keybind to toggle it for those rare cases I need it somewhere else.

[@AndersJackson]

Great as usually. Some nit picking though. Character " : " is colon, " ; " is semicolon, " ' " is single quote.

[@SystemCrafters]

Yes, someone else pointed out that my mouth said something other than what my brain intended :)

[@AndersJackson]

@@SystemCrafters well, that is what happens at times. 🙂 Still great presentation. I also call " " " double quote and " ` " back tick. " [ " bracket and " { " curly bracket, with prefix left and right if needed and not shown by context. What is " ~ " called?

[@SystemCrafters]

Tilde is what I usually see it called

[@AndersJackson]

@@SystemCrafters then we do agree on that, too. 🙂

[@thomasvoneyben8397]

Minor correction for the content at 17:30: ; is a semicolon ‘ is a single quote, or an apostrophe Just to help in case one listens more than one watches you Greta and thorough video

[@SystemCrafters]

What you saw is the result of me being in a rush to get through the video without making it too long so my brain pulled the wrong name out :)

[@thomasvoneyben8397]

@@SystemCrafters I know that feeling all to much (I'm impressed with how much must be handled while making a YT video (dual emacs, OBS, live chat etc.) - just keep 'em comming

[@AndersJackson]

@@thomasvoneyben8397 you spelled Great wrong. 🙂

[@NiccoSebFischer]

I'm currently using a prebuild emacs configuration (spacemacs) with some modifactions. But I would like to build a configuration from scratch. How do you load the empty emacs instance in your video (maybe at this point it is clear, that I don't have a clue, what I'm doing)?

[@AndersJackson]

You could start Emacs without reading your init files with: emacs -Q But basically just move the old configuration out of the way, and then use the new which you build. You can also look at cemacs2 (I think that is the right name) which allows you to chose which configuration you will us when you start. So you could have many init files and switch between them. But it is a bit compilcated to use. But the easy way is this: mv ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.spacemacs mkdir ~/.emacs.d And now you are done. If you want to switch configuration, just do this. mv ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.vanilla mv ~/.emacs.d.spacemacs ~/.emacs.d And when you start Emacs, it will use Spacemacs. And to return, just stop your Emacs and do mv ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.spacemacs mv ~/.emacs.d.vanilla ~/.emacs.d You could put that in a script like this, so you can easy switch between Emacs vanilla and Emacs specemacs by running ./switchemacs.sh Just do this in a terminal, and it will create the setup so it will work for you. (Have written this without testing, so it might be an error there. If so, tell me here. if [ ! -d ~/.emacs.d.origin ] ; then cp -r ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.origin; fi # Make a backup of your ~/.emacs.d cat > switchemacs.sh

[@gjgitboy9653]

Why did you create this? What was wrong with the old 'Emacs From Scratch'? Thanks..

[@gaialoves]

Try it out!: - I tried the functions hl-line-mode and blink-cursor-mode with value 'toggle, then C-M x and the result was WOOF! -I have a question, can a symbol be a variable and also a function? For example what happens with indent-tabs-mode.

[@AndersJackson]

Symbol in lisp, and elisp, is a value of its own. The value is the symbol itself. So 'noerror has the value noerror. Useful as you can compare if some variable got that value. Yes, the value of a symbol can be converted to a string and back. But that is usually not don that often, not in programs. functions are just a value associated with the function value of a symbol. A function value can be a native function or a lambda expression. variables are just a value associated with the value value of a symbol. That can be anything. indent-tabs-mode are a function. It can be called with or without an argument. Functions which control modes, that usually ends with suffix -mode do toggle the mode on or of when called without a value, and turn it off with the argument nil (which is also false) and turn it on with value integer 1. You can always read the manual page for a variable or function with C-h f or C-h v in Emacs. Default is chosen by the word the cursor points at.

[@blackslav1497]

So just to be clear... When i hit ctrl x, ctrl f I save to the file init.el or ~/.config/emacs/init.el ? What if I created the file just init.el ? Is that ok?

[@SystemCrafters]

It has to be in one of the expected directory locations for Emacs to find it, you can create the file however you like as long as it's in the right place

[@blackslav1497]

@@SystemCrafters Ok is that the reason probably when I save it doesnt erase the menu like in your case... Cause I cant even get past step 1...This is ridiculous...I just got linux and learning code for the first time...Sorry

[@blackslav1497]

@@SystemCrafters I just realized if I cant even make it past this step Im done....

[@richardfrangie3518]

👍

[@atahanozbayram1619]

I don't know if this comment will get where it is supposed to, but I am about to loose my mind over the tab key not putting tabs in emacs, and since you seem to have good understanding and experience with emacs maybe you can answer. I tried googling but couldn't resolve it yet.

[@niksingh710]

Font?

[@gopakumarp3615]

Hi There, How are you?

[@miko007]

imagine not using doom emacs in 2022 :D

[@SystemCrafters]

No need to imagine it, no need to use it either.

[@grudgemonkey6590]

Could not have been better timing lol.

[@zukxxxx0]

Just pay attention to Distro Tube KZbin channel how to introduce from scratch and setting up. You say your absolute beginner video will help no it didn't to complete beginner who do not know any sort of niches about emacs. This is my criticism on your content. Show up your setup to motivate not teach within it it really do not help or useful to a noob. Hope you will get what I'm trying to say

[@themlk]

you obviously have a lot of knowledge but for the love of your viewers, try to be more concise, otherwise many won't even try watching anything by you

[@SystemCrafters]

How would you suggest I make this material more concise?

[@AndersJackson]

I don't understand what you mean? I find it very concise? But I am convinced David will think of and constructive critics you can make. If you explain what it is.

[@артеммамаев-я8л]

For me (Emacs 27.1, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS (Focal Fossa)) the path ~/.config/emacs/init.el for config file seemed not working (old ~/.emacs was deleted), but ~/.emacs.d/init.el did the trick.

[@AndersJackson]

Strange, it should work with ~/.config/emacs directory. Emacs looks up configuration in the order ~/.emacs ~/.emacs.el ~/.emacs.d/init.el and ~/.config/emacs/init.el You are shore that you had removed the previous config files to get ~/.config/init.el to work? Anyways, it works, so it probably doesn't matter.

[@richardfrangie3518]

When I make the changes to the init.el file inside "emacs" and press C-M-x, the changes are activated, but when I close the program and reopen it, the changes are not active, why? I have Debian and I have the init file in this path ~/.config/emacs/init.el

[@richardfrangie3518]

In case someone has the same doubt. Reading the manual I managed to fix it this way First, I moved the file to this path ~/.emacs.d/init.el but it didn't work so, I created the same file but with this name ".emac.el" and it worked perfectly, It remained like this ~/.emacs.el

[@chillydonuts]

@@richardfrangie3518 Thank you so much! I use Ubuntu and renaming the file to .emacs.el and then moving it to my home directory worked. :D

[@JohnBortins]

I am excited to get started! GNU Emacs 27.1 here in the form of Doom-Emacs. Can I have additional init.el files? Did "find ~ -name init.el" and found 6 outside of Trash.

[@SystemCrafters]

Interesting! Maybe from git repositories that you've cloned? Where were they?

[@AndersJackson]

No, you can't have additional init.el files that your standard Emacs will use when you start. Doom Emacs uses its own configuration functions, started from the init.el file. So if you change the used init.el file, you basically will stop using Doom Emacs settings. The Examples are built on you configuring plain Emacs, not using Doom Emacs at all. Emacs use the first init.el file found in the order mentioned in the video. The rest will be ignored, unless loaded explicitly by the selected init.el file.

[@JohnBortins]

@@AndersJackson Thanks for these ideas! You spurred me to look at the init.el files, which increased my understanding..

[@AndersJackson]

@@JohnBortins thanks, you took my suggesting right. 🙂 Doom Emacs and Space Emacs (there are some other Emacs distributions) is nice starting point to use Emacs. But you should consider turning their key bindings off and use Emacs instead, I think. Unless you already know VIM, then you probably could continue to use Emacs Evil-mode (the VIM key bindings). I have no problems switch between VIM and Emacs key bindings, but I prefers using Emacs key bindings in Emacs. Especially since those important basic Emacs key bindings are the defaults in Bash (try C-r, C-a, C-e, C-t, M-t, C-b, M-b, C-f, M-f etc). But anyways, Doom and Space Emacs have their own ways to modify Emacs, so you could look into that. As I have not used Doom nor Space Emacs that much, I don't know much about configure them. There are some other channels that take up those. But yes, under the hood, behind the key bindings, they all work the same. Because they are Emacs. Happy hacking and Best of Luck with Emacs!

[@AndersJackson]

@@JohnBortins I made a script for @Nicco Sebastian Fischer to use to switch between Vanilla Emacs (plain standard is called vanilla) and his Emacs spacemacs. You could probably use it to switch between your Doom Emacs and a vanilla configured Emacs. Just make the obvious changes (or don't, it will just name your Doome version of ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.spacemacs when not used. But the changes is basicly just query replace in Emacs M-x query-replace it think). You can tell me if there are any bug there.

[@allenamenbesetzt]

Regarding location of init.el: I just installed emacs on Ubuntu 22.04.1 via apt (version 27.1), and it does not seems to ignore .config/emacs/init.el. Instead it creates the .emacs.d folder if it doesn't exist.

[@lucasrodrigues9766]

Putting the configuration file in ~/.config/emacs/init.el did not work on me debain, I had to put it in ~/.emacs.id/init.el

[@twingo1952]

same it's pissing me off