The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Emacs

[@haiteng61]

emacs intro videos like this, willing to reach down to people who don't know much command-line/linux, willing to take time to explain emacs parlance, is really rare. I am a scientist without programming background trying to establish org-mode as my note system, and I want the author to know that your video is immensely helpful

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks Haiteng, I am very glad it was helpful for you!

[@rauljosegarcia]

I'm a "power user", new to Linux, non-programmer and learning about tools commonly used in Linux. I agree, this is a great presentation!

[@LinkEX]

Absolutely seconded! Interesting to hear you are a scientist interested in using it as a notetaking system, because that's what even non-Linux enthusiasts should benefit from.

[@stephenmcconnell7868]

Ok. I am 70 years old and a retired software developer. I have never used Emacs. I used vi and various IDEs. I never even THOUGHT of using Emacs, because it was “too hard and complex”. After being retired for the past 6 years and playing guitar in bars and restaurants, I got bored and started studying programming again. I eventually got interested in LISP and began looking for an IDE to use. Surprise! The one I heard the most about was EMACS. So, I’ve been trying to read the several books out there on EMACS and they were a confused jumble. I stumbled across your Channel and saw this Absolute Beginners guide. Your explaination of EMACS (so far) has been FANTASTIC. It is very clear and (once I get my Linux partition set up on my Mac) I will review this and other videos you have published on KZbin. I feel that in reality, EMACS is actually easy, now. Thank you a million. I’m gonna REALLY have some fun!!! I really love development and your videos have gotten me excited about it again.

[@SystemCrafters]

That's really awesome to hear! Emacs is a ton of fun and a never-ending rabbit hole. You'll get a lot of mileage out of it before it gets boring :)

[@leduke79]

What a heart warming read.

[@Boredcomputerguy]

Hi, hope you're doing well. enjoy a like!

[@zhaowang1730]

dude, you are the hero for someone unfamiliar with english. really save my time to read the mannual.

[@zrodger2296]

I've been using emacs since around 1987. I worked at a company in the 90s writing accounting software. First day on the job, without thinking, I typed "emacs" on my (dumb) terminal. I say "cool, emacs!" Guy in the next cubicle says "you know emacs!?" Lots of emacs nerding out ensued. But over the years I took a break, and this video was great at helping me get back my emacs chops!

[@SystemCrafters]

That's a great story :) Glad to hear you're getting back into Emacs!

[@zrodger2296]

@@lepidoptera9337 I'll start using vi when they move to version vii. 😜

[@billmccaffrey1977]

I used emacs on and off for years, but it has been a decade since I touched it. Your series on emacs is helping me come back up to speed.

[@SystemCrafters]

Awesome, glad to hear that!

[@dipalzambare9257]

Time to learn it again the 'right way'. Thanks for this!

[@fikrirahmatnurhidayat4988]

The only video that makes me want to give emacs a try. Well explained, now I understand that emacs is not a text editor in the first place. It's just like Graphical version of Terminal. The evolution of the Terminal.

[@oryimangabriel660]

Thank you very much. Learning software engineering and learning emacs is part of our curriculum. Your explanation was very clear for a newbie like me. Thanks.

[@SystemCrafters]

Awesome, glad to hear it!

[@LinkEX]

Positively surprised learning Emacs is part of your curriculum.

[@IonizedComa]

@@LinkEX learning Git, Emacs and Vim is part of our curriculum as well

[@adrianlewis7239]

I have been using Vim and Tmux for 10+ years, but I start a job with Clojure on Monday so I thought I'd move to Emacs. This guy has blown my mind,

[@bobanmilisavljevic7857]

How's the clojure going?

[@arionlove1212]

Bless you for making this video, I have been thinking of making my own EMACS instead of using DOOM EMACS and I am being blessed with this video.

[@qsam14]

I am interested in Linux and the world of cloud and data analytics. I have heard of people debating between vim and emacs. I used vim as a terminal text editor but could not figure out the keybindings for the life of me. I would always go back to using 'nano' in terminal. Consequently - I looked up emacs and your video is very straight-forward and I see there is so much more to emacs than just a terminal interface, the fact it has a GUI and many more features is astounding. It also makes for a very aesthetically pleasing pdf viewer.

[@chonkydog6262]

Try micro editor

[@gurriato]

There's some really psychotic advice in the official Emacs tutorial, like how you should spend time practicing C-f/b/n/p instead of the arrow keys because it will make you so much more productive. It's like they're trying to alienate the maximum amount of people they can.

[@CandyCaneChris]

I can already tell this is one of those videos I will have to watch a few times. Thanks for the great Emacs content!

[@phraggers]

Fantastic! I learned the very basics of Emacs around 5 years ago as I was teaching myself C and wanted an oldschool editor. I tend to move between projects and hobbies so it kinda got put to the side and I was exploring other editors, such as VS Code which is really good... but I found I really missed Emacs so I've come back, but suddenly realised I'd forgotten all the bindings lol! So I came to youtube for help and you didn't disappoint, fantastic tutorial, over an hour but it flew by!

[@laserdiscbisque]

Years ago, I flunked out of a Math degree, but my first proper CS lessons were in DrRacket. Although I didn't make it for other reasons, the exposure to the functional-ish paradigm of lisp dialects was the biggest thing that helped me understand computer science. I've gone back to school and am taking a second swing at a CS-adjacent career now, and remembering how much learning Racket helped me, my big extracurricular project has been to learn Common Lisp. Seems like SLIME is a must, and of course Emacs is a must for that. I've been looking for MONTHS for a proper tutorial that could help me tackle the UI that's so unintuitive for a Windows 98 baby like me. But the great things I've heard about Emacs kept me looking, and I'm glad I found a tutorial for honest-to-god know-nothing beginners like myself :) Thanks boss!

[@ChickenMcThiccken]

so you have always loved mathematics?

[@archaiclord]

Thank you! Definitely the first video anyone should watch. Made things clear. Looking forward to starting your Emacs from scratch!

[@pedroaugustosantana793]

People are focusing on the incredible and well explained video but are missing the main point: good lord that org mode font you are using is absolutely gorgeous ! Which one is it?

[@zedrobot5864]

It currently 6Am and I just finished watching ur emacs from scratch 4ep thank u for ur amazing content

[@793Rich]

Best Emacs video for beginners I've seen so far!

[@ameertaweel9278]

Man this video is absolutely amazing. I have been using Vim for almost 6 months now, so I got very used to it. But I also wanted to try Emacs as well, I can't stick to Vim because I just liked it, I might like Emacs even more. The thing is, starting was not as easy as in Vim. It was very easy for me to start learning Vim because I found many great tutorials for absolute beginners to explain the core concepts. When I tried to find such a thing for Emacs, it literally took me three days searching for something good, until I found this video. So thank you so much. I will definitely checkout the "Emacs from Scratch" series, very excited to learn Emacs!

[@SystemCrafters]

Hey Ameer, I'm really happy that you found it and that it was useful for you! Once you get to the third episode of the Emacs From Scratch series, you will feel right at home with evil-mode

[@johnsMITHhhhhh88]

Im curious, how is it for you? I'm a vim user who stubbornly refuses to learn anything else, but I don't know what I'm missing out on!

[@ameertaweel9278]

@@johnsMITHhhhhh88 This channel helped me a lot getting started with Emacs. And I really liked it. I still prefer Vim and use it as my main editor for most things. But for example I use Emacs for anything Lisp-related. But regardless if you will use it practically after you learn it or not, I think it's still a great idea to give it a try.

[@MartinLeggewie]

Thanks again, David, for publishing such a beginner level video. You have explained the basics very well. I guess I have now finally understood the relationships between buffer, window, and frame. Thumbs up!

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks Martin!

[@yixingliu6673]

Thank you so much for making a great video for users of all levels. The emacs concepts are well explained.

[@LiterateProgramming]

Fantastic video. I thought about doing a similar thing for my students, but now I'm just having them watch this. Really digging your style. Thank you!!!!!

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks so much for your support Marcus! Glad that the video might be able to help your students too!

[@cybernit3]

I wish I found this emacs tutorials sooner like 3 years ago, wow you made emacs abit easier for me to understand. I now think it is easier to use than VIM; I just don't like modal text editor. That help for CUA sure helps so use to well known ^c copy ^v paste; but I know thanks to you the prefix keys and trying to get use to me. Thanks System Crafters!!!

[@SachinGopalkrishnan]

This is the best video out there. I need to look at starting from zero as a refresher course. Thank You.

[@ShaunakHub]

Without a doubt the best 'intro to Emacs Video'. Was looking for a similar video for a long time. Thanks a ton!

[@nqobilemdlalose3060]

I like the background music makes it feel like I'm listening to the radio which makes it easier to pay attention.

[@stevenpe781]

Thanks for the very detailed video! Appreciate in particular that you have 2 versions of emacs side by side (fully cutomized, and default), which must be great for newcomers, who hope for the former, and face the later. Downloaded your config, it is clear, well organized, and thorough... a pleasure, I recommend...

[@raulmpad3295]

Really appreciated for all your great job teaching Emacs!! Kudos david!!

[@ediahmadfauziserbhaneka9946]

Dude, this is the only video that works. Thanks for posting!

[@wiktorwektor123]

I have one hint for Emacs/Vim users: rebind your Caps Lock to Left Control Key. It will be really helpfull. Typing many words in capital letters isn't frequent, and you can ease your fingers with this.

[@liquidmobius]

I have emacs installed but I can't figure out how to use it in gui mode. Do you know how?

[@SkipRogersJr]

This was great, I learned alot, but nothing will replace hands on learning. Thanks for this video!

[@michaeldixon5060]

I think the reason Shift+arrow keys wasn't allowing you to select text in CUA Mode (Common User Access Mode) is that Org Mode overrules even the CUA Mode settings, since Org Mode uses Shift+arrows for other things (changing TODO states). If you try it in an Elisp file, it works.

[@SystemCrafters]

I believe you're right about that! Org Mode's bindings definitely get in the way of showing the defaults

[@sheeplord4976]

Thanks so much for the tutorial. I am learning SICP with scheme in Drracket, but wanted more powerful Linux based code editor that I could customize. Emacs looked like the perfect candidate, and so far it is great.

[@lyjeugene4535]

How do you change the area around the address bar which is also the top of the windows to be dark mode too? I turned on dark mode on emacs and it only turns the middle and bottom area dark grey but not the top. So how do you make the top dark too? Someone HELP PLEASE

[@eddas5175]

Your channel is a godsend. Thank you very much for all the effort you put into this!

[@himanshushukla6451]

Just what I was looking for

[@emmanuelchidera1655]

This is a detailed explanation of emacs to beginners. Thank you for simplifying.

[@serene_shepherd]

This is very high quality work - just found your channel and it's awesome!

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks a lot Andrew!

[@ex0ja]

I watched this with the intention to skip through it because it's such a long video, unfortunately/fortunately it was full of great information so I didn't want to skip anything!

[@lyjeugene4535]

Also is there a way to customise your shortcut preferences (eg. instead of C + / I want C +Z)?

[@achimwasp]

Good introduction. That being said - in the end I'm convinced to stay with vim (and sometimes VS Code).

[@encycl07pedia-]

I just cringed when I saw how bad the text editing was... all those finger gymnastics seem like a cramp magnet.

[@christopheroliver148]

Terminal mode may not even have color. Consider running from a vt220. You had one color: amber, green, or white depending on the CRT you specified.

[@gonegoneelwy6945]

awesome content really, as a beginner now am able to completely deal with basics and wanna to thank you aloooooot

[@rp627]

Wow, just went over the outline, and this looks like a legit getting starting guide! Incredible. I’ll def slog through it, though I’ve found DOOM to be pretty intuitive… just need to know things like describe bindings/functions, and how to find most common functions in a mode. Luckily, doom provides much of them under space key chords..

[@eddiehazel1259]

thanks for the vid! very clear and useful! ( : could i ask what font that is please? very nice!

[@LaurieSavage]

10/10 for enthusiasm and generosity of spirit in sharing, 10/10 for presentation, but I'm afraid 3/10 for pedagogy. Slow down, stop rushing away with your ideas, break things into small, doable chunks, and please explain the archaic Emacs terminology - "buffers", "C [Control key]", "M [Meta/Alt]", modes etc. I mean this criticism to be constructive and helpful from a very experienced teacher with 35+ years of experience teaching university and senior high school IT and Physics. I love Emacs but haven't used it for over 10 years, (mostly for R-CRAN, & LaTex editing with AUCTeX). Keep up the good work. 😎

[@wawrzyniecdobrucki8284]

Like always a high quality content. Thanks!

[@noam65]

It is an editor. As an absolute beginner, I want to know: How to open or create a file for editing. How to navigate within that file. How to add or change text. How to save the changes. How to exit the editor. That is it. I am not asking to be drowned in details not relevant to the above actions. Except for installation, the rest is for later.

[@SystemCrafters]

Emacs is more than just an editor and has many concepts and features that are different than other programs one might encounter. I covered things that I consider basic essential information that people will need to know, especially when coming from other editors or IDEs.

[@noam65]

@@SystemCrafters I appreciate that you have vast experience, and I have heard those amazing things about it. I am happy you make your videos. Maybe after a few months of editing files, I will be ready for this video. Maybe you meant intermediate beginner? One day I will be ready to play with more advanced use. I will remember you and these videos then.

[@semdefesas2188]

Pure respect for saying GNU/Linux

[@senkrouf]

how are we (new users) suppoused to follow this tutorial if we get flashabnged every 5 seconds by our Non-Themed Emacs, teach us how to theme emacs first.

[@dinaelorbany702]

Thanx for this helpful video. I really was stucked with Emacs but you helped me to understand it well. but I have a problem, I used this command to install emacs on my macOs and forgot to add --cask, how can I uninstall it and install it again?

[@macellit]

Congratulations for the excellent content. Will definitely check the other videos out. Thanks!

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks a lot, glad you liked it!

[@sjatkins]

I use multiple frames when working on quite different projects/activities. But often only one is up as a desktop window at a time.

[@hurolinci5986]

Blew my mind. I wish I had discovered emacs much earlier!

[@hurolinci5986]

@@lepidoptera9337 hahaha why would you say that?

[@Stratopeter87]

Thanks a lot for making these videos! I was very frustrated running Emacs for the first time being naive enough to think that it was just another text editor that should work like every other text editor that I know. So I returned to VS Code and left it alone until I decided to learn about Common Lisp yesterday and Emacs seemed to be the perfect match for it (besides the fact that the VS Code extension didn't really work for me). I think your videos may convince me to actually switch to Emacs completely, although these weird keyboard bindings will take some more getting used to.

[@SystemCrafters]

Emacs is a different beast but it is unlike anything else out there! Once you invest the time to learn it, it will stay with you forever

[@MichaelDiamondMusic]

Awesome video. You are brilliant at explaining how things work and your presentations never leave any steps out. Thank you!

[@arbernardo7554]

Great didactic! I'm willing to give Emacs another shot pretty much because of your channel.

[@SystemCrafters]

Very glad to hear that!

[@kentwest8831]

About the slashes.... English is read left-to-right. So imagine your slash as a stick-figure person walking in a very strong wind. If the person is making progress, he's leaning forward into the wind; this is the forward slash / . If the wind is too strong, it's blowing the person backwards; this is the backslash \ .

[@LearnITskills]

This is awesome! Thanks so much for sharing!

[@dmitriipetrov2769]

thanks you for this video about starting using emacs in real life! I need that :)

[@hashkeeper]

looking for a new text editor and found so much more! after really getting it maybe i'll run it as DE too! thank you, suuubbed!

[@aritraranjanchowdhury1412]

Hey, can I directly pest my screenshots in emacs? Actually, I want to create a note but I have to save my screenshot at first and then manually set the path to org-mode. It will be better if I directly pest the image from the clip code. please make a video or give the solution about it.

[@stanleykay4196]

I want to use emacs to search through computer scripts ( .R and .sas files) in a folder. Is this possible and have you done a video on how to use emacs for string searches selected drives on the desktop?

[@fabrice9848]

I found a way to prevent Emacs from resizing my frame, but each time I use the minibuffer, it resizes the frame automatically. How can we prevent this behavior?

[@theena]

Thank you, David. 20 minutes in and I already feel a lot more comfortable on emacs.

[@SystemCrafters]

That's great to hear!

[@richardfrangie3518]

58:05 One way to remember if / is backslash or forwardslash, is that this / is the one used by Linux and Linux goes forward, that's why it's for that called forwardslash, instead \ is the one used by Window and they go back, that's why it's called backslash. I recently read something like this, it's good for mnemonics

[@MakuDraw]

Why can't i access to the *Warning* buffer? It's because i need to install something or it's coz is empty.

[@SystemCrafters]

It only shows up when there is a warning that occurs during startup

[@Grobarinho7]

Thank you for providing this really great content!

[@zeocamo]

Yank in Vim is Copy(and add to Register) and Delete is cut "Kill" so maybe it is because they copy Yank from something before them both ?? and Put is paste

[@SystemCrafters]

Maybe! It's even more confusing that the terminology between Emacs and Vim is reversed :)

[@zeocamo]

@@SystemCrafters yes but yank sounds like cut so both programs do it ... Confusing

[@0netom]

My understanding is that the confusion is caused by the different frame of reference we have in mind. According to the Oxford dictionary, yank just means "pull with a jerk". It doesn't imply where are you pulling from. In Emacs, you are pulling from the kill ring and put the pulled out text into the buffer. In Vim, you are pulling from the buffer into a ... register, I guess. The other confusion is whether the thing you pull is a copy or not. Does the pulled thing stays where you pulled it from? In the real world it doesn't...

[@f23anone82]

Thank you very much, you make such a great videos!

[@NguyenKhanh-ct4ig]

What is your current OS, it look nice ❤❤❤

[@SystemCrafters]

GNU Guix

[@NguyenKhanh-ct4ig]

@@SystemCrafters thank you very much

[@Hezkore]

Is "Yank" really "Paste" in Emacs? "Yank" was very often used back in the day for text editors - for example Vi/Vim also has "Yank" - but it's always meant "Copy" in those situations, not "Paste". And as a side note; CUA can sometimes be found in other applications too, it stands for "Common User Access".

[@leduke79]

I was about to hassle the vim guy at work for this, until I found that yank is for rip up or something like that. I agree more to the vim yank than emacs. That said, I guess you could say that you pull the text out of the... ehm... kill ring ? :D

[@demerit5]

Great video! Thank you for the upload. I went to subscribe but it turns out I was already subscribed.

[@charliemagill2112]

Your videos are fantastic. Keep it up!

[@davidvogel2387]

Simple and concise, great video. You can install on freeBSD, and other BSDs

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks David! Yep, I figured someone would notice that I didn't mention BSD, I should have mentioned it in passing, but I figured that people who use BSD would probably know how to find Emacs :)

[@ediahmadfauziserbhaneka9946]

Thank you so much bro. Sending virtual hugs. Worked like a charm ;-)

[@muddyexport5639]

Thank you so much. Great Emacs 101 vid.

[@fabrice9848]

To prevent Emacs from resizing your window: Options > Customize Emacs > Specific Option Enter 'frame-inhibit-implied-resize' Click on 'Value Menu' button and select 'Always' Click on 'Apply and Save'

[@armchairfreedomfighter]

Absolute quality

[@drstkova]

Thanks for the video. Just a small query- when talking about keybindings you have “C-M-s” as an example. Since M is also ESC shouldn’t this more precisely be written “M-C-s” as the former implies pressing CTRL and ESC then (unclear whether you’d continue to hold CTRL or not or even whether you’d even release ESC) hitting s, rather than pressing and releasing ESC then hitting C-s? I hope that makes sense!

[@RagHelen]

I'd rather be dead in Idaho than spend one minute with this.

[@WaichiTsang]

Good tutorial, I was frustrated at getting started with emacs, the huge set of shortcut keys block my way.

[@vasilijrozanov7873]

big Thanks for this /and others/ video! EMACS is awesome! from now EMACS is my Friend. Sic Im on start line but i will continue, thanks one more time SystemCrafters! Have a happy days!

[@SystemCrafters]

Emacs is awesome, have fun!

[@J20BlackEagle]

Thanks bro, you are the best, love it!

[@DiogoNeves]

What theme do you use?

Good basics ! Thanks !

[@andrewwelch5]

Do you have any recommendations of the flavour of emacs that might be most convenient for someone coming from sublime text/ visual studio code?

[@SystemCrafters]

Definitely Doom Emacs

[@IceKuv]

Great content man keep it up

[@yuxiangxiao8222]

very nice emacs tutorial , really thanx

[@ZhengQu]

Thanks for the video! What config/mode are you using to present org file in such a pretty way?

[@SystemCrafters]

It's org-present with my own customizations, check out my configuration link in the description and you will find it there

[@ZhengQu]

@@SystemCrafters Nice. Thanks for the quick reply!

[@geiltonxaviersantosdejesus2240]

Amazing work, thank you so much for sharing,

[@8singularity]

I really appreciate this video, but you missed a step. how do you actually launch the program?

[@alaaiyhab1465]

use your ubuntu terminal

[@Msieurico]

Very useful video. Great job !

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks Eric!

[@noam65]

I now may know enough to get started in making use of these skills, knowledge, and wisdom you're passing along. Thank you, so much!

[@Spectraevil]

I have mainly use VsCode, PyCharm and Atom. This looks like too extreme to me.... Is EMacs good for Full Stack development I use React/Vue for front end and Nodejs, Rust and python on back end? Specially when u code on react and all u need to see the browser. Would EMacs would be an over kill for me? Also does it provide support for JavaScript similar to VsCode? (I mean ofc u could do it with add one n all but is that easy or complicated)

[@SystemCrafters]

I don't think Emacs would be overkill but it might be a little harder to get a comfortable configuration together for this kind of frontend development compared to something like VS Code. That said, I think it's worth trying it out for that!

[@Spectraevil]

@@SystemCrafters Thanks i'll look into it. I am struggling with vscode on very large typescript projects as it isn't able to handle those large files and runtime properly so I was looking into Emac, Vim and all, something lightweight as compared to an Electron app like vscode. Btw great content on Emacs! certainly clarified my many doubts.

[@zenec_]

Thx a lot ! You're a life saver

[@najmasaid9485]

informative.

[@datastudent2880]

Hey, I really appreciate your emacs tutorial vids! Could you do one on using EIN?

[@SystemCrafters]

Thanks a lot! I have never used it before but I'll look into it

[@datastudent2880]

@@SystemCrafters That'd be awesome! I'm actually a Vim user but have to use Jupyter notebooks at work and I cant find a good way to integrate Vim into that workflow... however, EIN seems like a good solution for Emacs users so I'm planning to learn Emacs mainly for using EIN.

[@MertGorMG]

Thanks for the video I learned some good ideas from you See you next time :)