Many Irreal readers are fans of Spacemacs. The Spacemacs motto is “The best editor is neither Emacs nor Vim, it’s Emacs and Vim!” That’s a good summary of what it’s all about. If you’ve wondered about Spacemacs or are thinking about trying it out, Jack of Some has a nice video introduction to it on YouTube.
The video begins by covering installation and configuration. I’m not a Spacemacs user so I can’t say for sure but it seems as if the configuration is easier than with vanilla Emacs. Regardless, it’s pretty easy to get things set up.
Most of the video discusses navigation. If you’re used to vanilla Emacs, it will seem foreign. You have the normal Vim keybindings, of course, but there are also special Spacemacs shortcuts that start with what they call the “leader key” (defaulted to Space) followed by 1 or more command keys. The command keys are meant to be mnemonic and as Jack says, you can often guess what the shortcut for a command is even if you aren’t familiar with it. As with Vim, these shortcuts are short and fast to type. You also get a which-key-like help screen if you pause while typing. You can, of course, also use the familiar Emacs shortcuts.
Jack is planning further videos on Spacemacs so you can subscribe to his channel if you’re interested in pursuing the Spacemacs way. Even if you aren’t, the video is worth watching so you can read discussions of Spacemacs intelligently.