📕 subnode [[@jakeisnt/emacs]] in 📚 node [[emacs]]

I've used emacs as a text editor, note-taking device, email system, and window manager. Its legacy and flexibility are powerful ideas - and the community's ingeniuty is stellar - but using Emacs as an interface operating system isn't the solution, as it's stuck fourty years in the past.

EXWM is a good idea - but the solution should be to implement a better window manager, not to try to reimplement your whole world inside of the legacy GUI toolkit that Emacs provides. It's okay not to do most things in Emacs - the system may have been intended as a lisp machine, but today it's only practical as a text editor for functional programming projects.

It's worth studying and learning from when building a new user interfaces - the Emacs environment has innovated in many ways, particularly with respect to the harmony it creates between system tooling inside the emacs ecosystem - but it's not a complete desktop solution because it doesn't have the robust rendering facilities that the browser and modern GUI frameworks do. I do like the look of the Emacs button rendering system, etc., but when you use EXWM and really try to use emacs for everything, you start to see all of the cracks and hacks in the system used to graft programs to the Emacs text-buffer driven UI.

Tools

cloudmacs
Allows you to self-host your emacs configuration and access it in the browser. Cool!

Package Suggestions

tanglesync
sync org mode files with dotfiles external to them

GitHub - yati-sagade/orch: Send scribbles from an Android phone to Emacs Org …
Renders sketches from your Android phone to org-mode. Useful when taking notes when having to draw something inline! It looks like the associated Android app for this is dead, but it's a cool idea. The ability to "summon" a touchscreen (the phone in your pocket) to help you think is interesting and valuable.

recoll
emacs binding for recoll text search engine

doct
declarative format for org capture templates. use this in the future - seems better!

KeyChord
Bind commands to combinations of keystrokes.

Thinkpieces

Emacs Everywhere : emacs
Where is Emacs actually useful? What do users actually want from the programming environment? What don't people use Emacs for? This is a huge thread from an Emacs maximalist on the benefits of Emacs everything, EXWM, etc… Learn from this when implementing this window management system.

Documentation

EmacsWiki: Directory Variables. If everyone using your project is using Emacs, this is a useful facility for ensuring a reproducible, local editor environment. Brief guide to Emacs hooks Play Emacs like an instrument - YouTube Emacs micro motions and hacks - YouTube

📖 stoas
⥱ context