Episode: 3892
Title: HPR3892: Emacs package curation, part 1
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3892/hpr3892.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 07:32:40

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3892 for Tuesday 4 July 2023.
Today's show is entitled Immax Package Curation Part 1.
It is hosted by DNT and is about 36 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, let's go through every single package installed in my Immax configuration.
Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio.
This is your host DNT.
It has been a while since my last one but I am back and today I would like to talk to you
about some Emax Packages.
To paraphrase class 2 I am going to say, let's go through every single package installed
in my Immax configuration.
So I have been using Emax for maybe 6 years or so and probably most of what I use is just
org mode to organize some of the stuff I do to think about it and write about all kinds
of things.
I used to use one of those so-called Emax distributions which is kind of like a pre-configured
distribution of Emax that you can kind of further configure yourself but that somebody
else took care to set up a lot of things and that's really handy because often when you
first download Emax the thing is so minimal that you can struggle to figure out what to
do.
That's not really true, that's a bit of an exaggeration I think but that's what a lot
of people feel like when they first open Emax after downloading it and I certainly
remember having that experience and then there are some distributions of which the most
popular ones are called Doom and Space Max that kind of ease that experience and make
it feel more like a more feature full text editor like the other ones we may be used to.
That's a really handy thing to use.
Those distributions it's an excellent way to use Emax but a lot of people will eventually
move to having their own configuration which tends to be simpler and only limited to what
you actually use because these Emax distributions there, you would have to be a developer who
can understand, I don't know, tens of languages to actually be able to use all of that.
Essentially it's trying to serve a lot of different people and you can actually make
an Emax configuration that's just meant to serve you.
What's interesting too is that the people that make these distributions like Space Max
and Doom, they also do in addition to providing the distribution which is very fancy in itself.
They also do a significant service in curating the packages that are out there and this is
a little like, Emax is a little like Lattec, the type setting system otherwise known
as latex where there's like thousands and thousands of libraries and packages created
by others, not created by those who make the system itself and without using those packages
you're really pretty limited.
It's kind of like the actual experience of using Emax in my opinion involves using packages
that people have written that make Emax what it is to most people.
In building my own configuration eventually I did go through a lot of the modules that
I used in Doom before doing this and I actually looked into what all those packages were,
what they do and then I picked the ones I actually want to use.
Of course I did this over a long time, I started making this my own configuration a while
ago and I would just basically test it.
I wouldn't really use it, I still used Doom for my everyday work but then eventually as
tends to happen then you get to a point where the thing is usable and then you can start
using it and then you speed up improving it until it gets to a stable point so that's
where I'm at now.
Anyway, I made a configuration that's made up of three files and the purpose of it is
that I will load the first file and then the other two files will load conditionally depending
on my environment and the purpose there is so that I can have the same configuration
on my Linux laptop, on my Windows computer that I use for work and also on Termux on Android
which I don't use very much there but anyway I figured I would do that anyway.
So basically Termux will load only the first file then on Windows it will load the first
and the second file and on Linux it will load all three files so that allows me to have
a configuration that works on all three and I don't have to make changes to the configuration
I can basically, I can push a change to it on my Linux laptop and then I can pull it
later on, Windows and it will still work there as well.
And then the other thing that I think maybe a good reason to use your own configuration
is that it's a lot easier to make it light enough to work well on different systems especially
Windows because Emacs on Windows is pretty tricky.
It gets slow very fast so all these distributions I think are nearly unusable on Windows but
my configuration is perfectly usable on Windows it worked very well for me.
Starting with the first file.
We start out with this Bootstrap boilerplate stuff that's supposed to pull in a package
that's called Strait and Strait is one of the package managers that exist for Emacs
so Strait is going to install the other packages that I'm going to use.
So we install Strait then using Strait we install another package manager of sorts that's
called Use Package that's a very popular one.
It's so popular that you will often have packaged developers will have use package snippet
for installing and configuring their package.
It's very common to see that.
Then the rest, pretty much the rest of my configuration is just a series of Use Package
incantations, let's say.
Then we start off with a package that's called Diminish.
It's a very simple one.
So Emacs is mainly made up of major modes and minor modes.
So major modes are generally associated with the type of file you're opening.
So for example, there could be a major mode for viewing your emails and there could be
a major mode for editing Python files or org mode is a major mode.
For example, for editing org files.
So the major mode will make a bunch of key bindings and things syntax highlighting and
all that kind of thing available to you when you are in this mode.
And obviously you will want to enter this mode automatically when you open a file in
which would be appropriate to have this mode turned on.
And then minor modes are modes that you can have multiple of them activated at the same
time.
So minor modes are like more minor tweaks to your experience of using Emacs.
Whereas a major mode, you can only be in one major mode at a time, right?
So minor modes, they can do things like check your syntax or spelling and highlight words
to like underlying a misspelled word, for example, let's say they can also, I don't know,
do things like restrict the width of your text block on your screen or that kind of thing.
So well, anything else you can imagine, probably.
So when you have a minor mode activated, the name of this minor mode in this kind of a
shorthand form will appear in your mode line.
The mode line is this line at the bottom of your screen in Emacs.
So the minor modes will all appear there.
But there are some modes that you basically have them on all the time so you don't really
care to see them there all the time.
So the package diminish helps you hide these minor mode flags based on the mode, right?
So it integrates with use package so that when I make my use package incantations to pull
in all my packages, I have an option that says diminish and then I can, if I just turn
on that option, then this minor mode that's associated with the package or a minor mode
that I can name explicitly will be diminished, which means it will not be reported in my
mode line.
Okay.
Next we have evil evil is the Emacs via layer.
It's for, there's a saying that goes Emacs is like the only thing, something like the
only thing that Emacs is missing is a good text editor.
So evil is a package that fixes that by making it work like a modal editor in the sense
of a VIM or a VI.
So yeah, it basically just implements the modes, the editing modes, like insert mode and
normal mode, visual mode and so on.
And it implements all of your key bindings just like in VIM.
So if you're used to VIM, you can use VIM in Emacs and then it's going to be pretty good.
Not that I really think that Emacs keep bindings and that whole thing is necessarily terrible,
but in my opinion it's like the VIM way of editing a text file where you have these modes
you switch between, you enter insert mode and then you exit it and so on.
It's objectively better in my opinion.
Because it's like a transient mode, you don't have to keep holding down a key to remain
in this mode that you generally are going to stay in for a bit when you enter it, right?
So I guess when you leave it, it's kind of more temporary, but that's the risk that happens
with Emacs modes and that kind of mode is accidentally editing your text, right?
And that's what VIM editing helps with, you don't, you're less likely to edit your text
accidentally.
So in the use package and plantation here, we can create some configurations like binding
keys and setting other variables to configure the behavior of this package.
So that's what the use package package does.
It just helps you kind of have a very tidy looking configuration.
You just make this one self-contained declaration, use package, evil and then all your configuration
and all your bindings so that if you stop using evil, all of a sudden you could just delete
that entire block and you wouldn't have to do anything else.
So moving on, we have evil collection and that's a whole bunch of kind of other bindings
and integrations with other packages.
Just like sometimes you install evil collection and then you start using not much for your
email in Emacs, for example, and then you don't even realize that the evil bindings for
the not much mode actually come from the evil collection package.
You would have to go in and read the package, the evil collection package files to even
realize that that's the case.
Then I have a package that's called evil surround and I think there is a corresponding
VIM package that's surround so this provides those commands where you can select some text
and then press a key and then press another key and you will surround the text with something.
So like I can select a word, press the S key and then the parenthesis key and it will
surround my word in parenthesis, right, the opening and the closing parenthesis.
Next we have company, company is an in buffer completion package.
In buffer completion means you're in the buffer, you're editing your text file or whatever
and you can start typing something and this package will provide completion, it'll show you
or show you options by while you're trying to type that in the buffer, right, when you're
editing your actual file and then we have company box that's a connect with company and company
box is it just shows kind of like a fancier completion and I think it's this package that provides
a pretty nice thing where if I'm editing an elisp file for example, which is the type of file
that a max is configured with, I can start typing the name of a function and then it will show me
the completion options and I can press up and down to view each one and it will actually show me
the documentation of the function in another kind of tooltip thing. So that is pretty cool to
be able to see all that so quickly. But there are other ways to do it if you prefer, if you prefer
a more quiet experience. So all right, next is the package called which key and which key is another
essential one where you as you start typing keys to activate commands which key will show you
what are the options you have now and what they will do. So for example, in EMAX there are two
very important keys that are control X and control C. So control X is basically about the application,
options about the application will be behind the control X binding and option about modes,
especially major modes will be behind control C. So then I might press control C and then after
about like half a second or something which key will show me on the bottom of my screen, it will
kind of expand the area where the mode line is and show me all the different options that I can press
next and what they will do. For example, it might show me, let's see, control C, then I'm seeing
exclamation point as a prefix. So if I press that it means I'm going to go to another set of options
and if I press alt P, I will open the perspective map which is to do with another package that we'll
see later on that's kind of like workspaces and if I press G, I activate right good mode which is
another package we'll see later on. So this means if I press G now, I will turn on right good mode.
So the full command I ran was control C and then G. Anyway, so that's what which key does.
Next we have Anzoo ANZU. No idea if that's the right way to say that but the Anzoo, I believe it gives you
feedback about your search queries when you're when you're doing a search in your buffer.
It shows you everywhere the term occurs as you are typing it. I've never really tested disabling
this package to see what it will do, what this will look like without that so I don't know I could
be slightly wrong about what this package does but anyway I have it installed that's yeah that might
happen. Next we have Vertico. Vertico is I guess they call it vertical completion and this is
completion in the mini buffer. The mini buffer is the area at the very bottom of your screen
under the mode line where you enter commands and things like that where you see commands at times
for example if you run something that requires decrypting something using your GPG key the mini buffer
might be where you type your your GPG key pass phrase for example. Vertico is one of the nice
things about it is in comparison to other mini buffer completions I guess if that makes sense
is that others you have to rebind a lot of keys for things to go through the completion
and it seems like Vertico somehow does it on its own so if you have Vertico installed
and then so for example if you're going to search files you're going to search a file to open
right normally you would type in at the bottom of your screen in the mini buffer and I think by
default there is some completion but it's like horizontal so the different completion options
appear side by side only on the bottom line of your screen and then with one of these vertical
completion packages it shows as a list right vertically and a lot of these other packages you have
to remap the key that the command to open files which is control x control f you have to remap that
to a different command that would be called I don't know maybe like council find file for the council
completion package and with Vertico you don't have to do that I don't know why it is I haven't
looked at the code but anyway so I copied a bunch of I guess boilerplate from the Vertico
GitHub they have a few other commands that they suggest you use in your configuration
and within a use package declaration for emax itself I don't know you could do that and I to be
honest I haven't really looked through this to understand very well what it does I just copied
and paced it sorry about that but it's pretty short I don't think it's doing anything very revolutionary
and so next we have the package orderless orderless is a pretty cool package it's anytime you're
using the vertical completion it allows you to type terms not in the same order as they appear
in your match so let's say if you have a file called fubar in your home directory and you want to
open it you can press control x control f and then you could type bar space foo and the
Vertico would still find the file for you it would still show you as a match even though you typed
bar and then foo but the family was foo bar next we have marginalia that's a very nice one too
marginalia is in vertical as well it will show you a bunch of information alongside the match
it's showing you so for example when you can when you put press alt x which is the command to just
it's to run an emax command not by a key binding but by just typing out the command so this
is similar to pressing the colon key on vim you you can type your commands there this is using
Vertico to show me all the options I have to choose from and then it actually tells me to the
right of it it actually says what the command does this is taken from the the functions from the
commands doc string right that short little string that explains what the what the command does
so marginalia is to be thanked for that that's the package that makes that happen so it does that
for all kinds of different things as well like it will show you some of the permissions information
when you're looking at files it's pretty clever so all right moving on this is all I think this
is all coming mostly from the the vertical snippet they kind of suggest you use a bunch of other
packages alongside it as you can see all these packages integrate pretty closely with vertical
and they provide all the use package declarations for you so you can just copy and paste all this
if you want so the next one is called consult and this is about searching for text it has a bunch
of new commands related to searching for text in your in your files in your buffer et cetera okay the
next one is called perspective and that's kind of like workspaces so you know let's say I'm working
here I have my my main org file and then I call up my agenda then I'll see the agenda on the
right side of the this the window will be split and on the right I'll see the agenda on the left I'll
see my main org file and then let's say all of a sudden I want to quickly open this other file but
I want to be able to come back quickly to this arrangement I have here that's what perspective is
for you just create a new perspective give it a name then do whatever you want to do then you
can switch back to the old perspective and it's right there just like you left it all right then
next we have doom themes doom themes is provided by doom emax the emax distribution it's all of
their themes so this affects all the colors and including the syntax highlighting et cetera
um so I like those they're they're pretty good so I use the default one from doom that's called
doom one so I just call in this package dome themes and then I load the doom one theme
next we have power line power line is um is a mode line theme so the mode line is that bottom
of the screen there um power line is uh you know it defines what will appear in the mode line exactly
so it adds a bunch of different things it shows like the VM uh the mode that I'm on it shows what
branch uh I'm on if um if the file is uh get is under get um and it shows the name of the
perspective I'm on and all that kind of thing then next um so uh next I have airline themes
so airline themes is a different theme for power line so there's uh this is exactly like the
the vim airline package that exists for vim that some of you may know so it just changes the look
of your mode line I like the way it looks uh next we have solar mode solar mode um all it does is
whenever you create um a buffer that is not showing you a file that buffer will be darker than
the the regular buffers so uh let's say I again that example where I'm looking at my main org file
where all my to-do's are listed and uh project notes or whatever it is um or things that have come to
my attention they're all in there and I open the uh my agenda the agenda is one of these kind of
fake buffers let's say so that'll be shown on the right and then the background will be darker
than my regular buffer it's kind of nice to have that distinction between these sort of transient
buffers in your actual editing buffers so I like that next we have yes snippet why a snippet it is
yet another snippet management package it's a very popular one I think pretty much everybody uses
this one um and you know you have uh snippets you can make keep them in a directory
and then you can quickly paste them into your file nothing much to say here not much of mystery
there next we have projectile um that's to do with project management I to be honest I don't use
it a whole lot I mainly just use it for the projectile rip grab command which is it just runs a search
in all the files that are in the same um uh get checkout that I'm in so yeah I'm you know you're
in a repository and you want to quickly search through everything you can use the this projectile
grab command it does a whole bunch of other stuff I'm sure but I don't use much of it
and next we have rgrgs just to use rip grab within emax that's all it does rip grab is like a pretty nice
grab command that'll basically grab all the files in the directory you're in so it's like
grab from multiple files I guess then we go on to org so org is org mode it is that um
sort of project management document um document uh writing package and syntax format
whatever you want it's that one that you should never decide you're gonna stop using it because
you're just gonna come back to it later so um it is that thing that's um humanity has been trying
to reinvent ever since it first came into existence and it has so far failed so like I was just saying
if you use org and you start thinking about stopping and switching to something else just don't
because you're just gonna come back to it and if you don't use org you know hopefully you will soon
um we could spend hours and hours talking about this so let's not
moving on org up here is a package that when you're editing your org file um
there are some things that by default the um org mode the major mode will hide from you and it'll
to make it look more readable right and there's a command that's called visible mode that makes
everything show all the actual plain text will actually be displayed in buffer so a lot of times
you want to do that you want to turn on visible mode quickly to make a very targeted edit let's say
so this org up here makes it so when you enter insert mode in a line just that line will have
visible mode activated uh and next we have evil org which is just key bindings for um
uh vim um vim-like key bindings for org mode then moving on we have some kind of general settings
here we um i guess i'll call out just uh you know i hide the scroll bar i hide the menu bar and the
toolbar so there are no window decorations at all um i set up where my custom file is gonna be
which is uh this file that it's gonna store some um information some some kind of transient
configuration information let's say i'll i'll make it i'll say that so yeah yeah you're supposed to
tell it where uh you want it to be otherwise it's just gonna put it at the bottom of my um
configuration file but i don't want that because then it's gonna keep showing up and get um as
changes right and then i have a conditional commands here when i have a window system running
i already touched on those the scroll bar menu bar and toolbar so i'm turning those off when
there's a window system on because if there's not the commands are just gonna fail
and uh then i have display time display battery mode the the display those two things in my
mode line here because otherwise don't have any kind of taskbar or anything next we have server
start and what that allows is for you to um quickly and i'm in kind of an easier way just
um open a new buffer in this emax instance instead of uh opening a new instance right i guess
that's kind of a decent way to explain that anyway so then i have the conditional logic here for
loading the other two files so if i am um if there's a window system i'm gonna load the next file
that i call init base and then if my window system is from Microsoft then i will load i mean
unless it is from Microsoft excuse me then i will load the next one which is init extra so
basically the only case where there's not gonna be a window system is gonna be termux or if i
happen to open emax in the terminal before starting x um in the console excuse me or um if i'm
on termux on my phone so that will load only this stuff which is basically just the the basics for
me to look at or and even more than that honestly but i don't know it's fine and then if there is
a window system we will load the next file which is init base which has a few more things that i
use both at work and on my Linux laptop and um finally if uh if we are not on that Microsoft
display server then we'll load the last file so that file will only be loaded when i open emax
on my Linux laptop and finally we have the line that says provide init provide init
it's uh it just tells emax that uh this is what we're gonna call the stuff that this file is
providing we're gonna call it init in this case it doesn't do anything um i will come back later
with another one where i'll go through the packages in init base in init extra so my hope is
that you know maybe you'll learn about a couple packages here and there uh that maybe you didn't
know about um if you use emax and maybe you'll try them out um otherwise um hopefully
this will lead you to try out space max or doom or even my configuration here which all make
available in the notes okay i thank you for tuning in now if you have time you can do like i'm
doing here and uh after work you just get in front of your computer pick up your phone and start
talking into it just go on and on about uh you know this stuff that um maybe there'll be like two or
three other people who will be interested in uh listening to it right um hopefully there are some
emax fans out there that'll sit through three minutes of this all right anyway so i hope we will
hear from you soon um just record your episode and send it into hacker public radio so you
we can get to know you and listen to you thank you and come back tomorrow for another one
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