Irreal

Daniel Ehrman has a nice post on 11 tips for solving everyday editing problems with Emacs. The list is a must-read for Emacs n00bs but even experienced Emacsers might benefit by being reminded of a few of the tips.

I like posts like this because I often learn something but also because it’s interesting to see what others think are important techniques for Emacs use. They often suggest new workflows, something that I’m always on the lookout for. It’s a reasonably short post and well worth a look.

Abo-abo is still blogging up a storm. I haven’t commented on every post because if I did I wouldn’t have time for writing about anything else. His latest post is about a hydra for apropos. My first reaction was, “Meh, just do 【Ctrl+h a】 and be done with it.” But abo-abo’s post reminded me that there’s more to apropos than the single command apropos. There’s also apropos-documentaiton, apropos-variable, apropos-command, apropos-library, apropos-user-option, and apropos-value.

Most of these either have no binding or are bound to a menu so I never think about them. I realized that by having an easy-to-invoke hydra I could make better use of the apropos system. A clear win. Take a look at abo-abo’s post and see if you don’t agree.

How many times have you brought up a file to edit and discovered that you don’t have write permissions? Usually they’re system files but sometimes you’re tying to help a colleague and don’t have the proper permissions. You can always kill the buffer and start over but that’s sort of a pain.

Bozhidar Batsov over at Emacs Redux has a nice solution; actually 3 nice solutions. He provides the sudo-edit function that reopens the file as root. All you have to do is call it and the problem is solved. Batsov suggests binding it to 【Ctrl+x Ctrl+r】 which has a nice symmetry with 【Ctrl+x Ctrl+f】 so it’s easy to remember but, of course, you can use whatever makes sense in your environment.

After using that setup for a few years, Batsov decided that even calling sudo-edit was inconvenient so he advised ido-find-file (or find-file if you’re not using ido) to check the permissions and automatically reopen the file as root if required. That’s nice because you just open the file as usual and Emacs automatically does the right thing.

He also has a solution for emacsclient that I’ll let you explore on your own. Like the others, it’s a nice solution.

Batsov’s post was from a couple of years ago but I somehow missed it. It is most definitely worth your time if you ever have to edit files you don’t have write permissions to.

So much more than a Swiss Army Knife:

How to end any #vi <-> #emacs discussion; Emacs can make coffee http://t.co/xDfQyeuaUV

— Joerg Rings (@JoergR) February 13, 2015

Howard Abrams has a nice post on working with key sequences. He shows how to set up personal key maps with a common prefix. Abrams likes to use 【F9】 as a prefix to several maps. For example, 【F9 m】 is for his music listening. A third character chooses a channel to listen to or, with 【s】, stop the playback.

Next, he considers how to set these key maps from a list of keys and music channels. Nothing too surprising in any of this but then he asks if he can have a single routine to set the keys for all his personal maps based on an input list. To do that you need a macro and Abrams provides one that takes a list containing information about all his personal maps and initializes them.

Finally, Abrams mentions hydra and notes that it’s what you need if you want to be able to repeat a key. For example, you might want a control that adjusts the volume up or down with 【u】 or 【d】. In a case like that, it’s convenient to be able to repeat one of the keys until the volume is at the desired level.