If a craftsman wants to do good work, he must first sharpen his tools. —- Confucius

What is sensible.emacs.d?

A clean room implementation of a clean vanilla Emacs configuration that is sanely manageable, and practically useful.

Personable and Sensible Emacs Configuration

This Emacs configuration aims to be uncluttered, clean, vanilla, and practically useful for any day-to-day tasks.

It only has the absolute necessary configurations, tailored to be minimal, practical and useful. It is easy to add any additional feature and package later if you need one.

There are several reasons for keeping the configuration to a bare minimum, one is that it’s easier to keep track of all the packages and keystrokes. It is better to have a setup that you use 90% of the time, than having a cluttered setup that will just make it difficult to keep up with gazillions of preinstalled packages that usually end-up being unused.

This configuration tries not to be a one-size-fits all configuration, but it tries to be an Emacs configuration that suits most of the developers, and I keep it personable, clean, easy and sensible.

Files

The files are structured in the following tree.

├── README.org                // default documentation (shown on start-up)
├── init.el                   // contains the org-directory and about-me settings
├── boot.el                   // loads all the *.el files in the config/ and personal/ directory
├── config
│   └── 00-globals.el         // global configurations
│   └── 01-packages.el        // package configurations
│   └── 02-editor.el          // editor configurations
├── personal/                 // added to .gitignore, to store all custom user configurations
├── pkgs/                     // default packages as git submodules
├── docs/                     // contains docs related files
└── themes/                   // themes

Installation

To install, clone the repository to a .emacs.d directory. Note that is recommended to backup your previous Emacs directory.

$ mv ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.bak
$ git clone https://github.com/jjuliano/sensible.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d
$ cd .emacs.d && git submodule update --init --recursive

System packages

In addition to the Emacs default packages, you need to ensure the following packages exists in your system, which can be installed via your operating system’s package manager.

git

Used by Magit for version control.

ag, rg, git grep or grep

Used by Dumb-jump for code navigation and recursive search in project management

prettier

Used to prettify HTML & JS code upon save. See: development.

multimarkdown

Used for markdown-mode.

LanguageTool

Used for grammar check.

• Preconfigured to look in ~/.emacs.d/data/LanguageTool/languagetool-commandline.jar, see 00-globals.el.

Pygments

Used for code syntax highlighting.

pdflatex

code syntax highlighting when exporting to PDF from LaTeX.

cmake

Used by terminal emulator.

shell-side configurations

shell-side configs needed to be added to .zshrc or .bashrc

aspell

Used for spell checking.

Exuberant CTAGS

Used for indexing symbols on the current project in project management.

OpenJDK

used by languagetool for the grammar check functionality.

Upgrade

To upgrade your local configuration and it’s submodules type:

$ cd ~/.emacs.d
$ git submodule update --remote --merge

Packages

It uses the following packages by default, the individual elisp packages are source directly from the website, while other packages are hosted and are managed by git submodules.

general

no-littering

ensure .emacs.d folder is clean

backup-each-save.el

backup files on each save

better-defaults.el

the base defaults

exec-path-from-shell

made $PATH available inside Emacs

practical.org.el

practical org-mode GTD and Zettelkasten workflow presets

bbdb

The Insidious Big Brother Database, an Emacs address-book database

multiple-line-edit.el

select lines simultaneously

zoom

auto-resize active windows

textsize

auto-adjust text size based on screen/monitor dimension

perspective-el

workspace management

unicode-fonts

configure unicode-fonts for Emacs with the following dependencies

font-utils

Utility functions for working with fonts in Emacs

ucs-utils

Utilities for Unicode characters in Emacs

list-utils

List-manipulation utility functions for Emacs

artificial-intelligence

ChatGPT.el

ask an AI for any topics or to generate documentation, suggest code or improve your code. (see Setting Up ChatGPT for instructions on how to setup ChatGPT for Emacs.)

C-c q

opens the ChatGPT prompt where you can freely type your questions or inquiry.

with selected text

brings up the following functions

doc

generate a documentation of the selected text/code

improve

suggest improvement to the selected text/code

bug

find a bug on the selected text/code

understand

explain the selected text/code

custom

tell ChatGPT what do do with the selected text, see https://github.com/f/awesome-chatgpt-prompts for sample.

project-management

projectile

integrated project management for Emacs

C-c p

opens the projectile command menu

0

opens the projectile multiview

d

add a new project (by opening a file, the directory will be added automatically)

D

opens a directory of an existing project

p

opens an existing project

e

switch to a recently opened file

s s

search current project using ag

x v

open a vterm terminal on the current buffer directory

R

regenerate searchable tags on the current project

j

find a tag on the current project

!

run a shell command on the current buffer directory

&

run a background shell process command on the current buffer directory

S

save all buffers in the current project

v

opens magit (see version control)

C-u C-c p f

force projectile to re-initialize project

term

vterm

terminal emulator based on libvterm C library

M-x vterm

runs the terminal

C-c C-t

turns-on vterm-copy-mode to treat the terminal like a text-file

eat

more modern terminal emulator

M-x eat

runs the terminal

C-q

Send next key to the terminal.

C-y

Like `yank’, but send the text to the terminal.

M-y

Like `yank-pop’, but send the text to the terminal.

C-c C-k

Kill process.

C-c C-e

Switch to “emacs” input mode.

C-c M-d

Switch to “char” input mode.

C-c C-l

Switch to “line” input mode.

version-control

magit

a complete text-based user interface to Git.

C-x g ?

Git status then press ? to display all git actions

q

quit the Magit status window

s

git add

b b

git checkout <branch>

k

git checkout <file>

c c

git commit

C-x s and C-c

save and apply commit

a

git commit –amend

P p

git push

F p

git pull

g

refresh Magit window

C-c M-g

open common git shortcuts

s

stage current buffer

c

commit current buffer

b

show git blame on the current buffer

C-RET

opens the actual file in the diff window

development

auto-complete

provides auto-completion

org-ac

provides auto-completion on org-mode

web-mode

major mode for editing web templates and CSS files

js2-mode

improved JavaScript editing

tern-mode

Javascript code analyzer (requires to run npm install on pkgs/tern)

prettier-rc

auto beautify both HTML & JS files on save (per project, using local rc files), requires prettier to be installed via npm or package manager.

eslint-rc

apply ESLint rules on save (per project, using local rc files), requires eslint to be installed via npm or package manager.

tide

TypeScript IDE for Emacs, pre-configured for company mode

add-node-modules-path

add the per project’s node_modules/.bin/ to the exec-path

emacs-direnv

load .env files inside Emacs

emacs-hcl-mode

HCL minor mode editing

terraform-mode

major mode for viewing Terraform files

code navigation

dumb-jump

jump to definition, requires ag or grep (pre-configured)

M-.

jump to definition

M-,

jump to next definition

spell check

wucuo

provides a fast spell checking using built-in Flyspell library, if found, it will use this library instead.

flyspell-popup

provides pop-up menu selection on a wrong spelled word.

C-;

display the pop-up menu

grammar check

langtool

provides an Emacs interface to LanguageTool (pre-configured)

• Download the desktop version of LanguageTool from https://languagetool.org/.
• Modify the config/00-globals.el to point to your languagetool-commandline.jar
• Change the default language from en-US to your preferred locale
• Keystrokes

  C-x 4w

  check spelling and grammar

  C-x 4W

  end all check

  C-x 4l

  switch default language

  C-x 44

  show message at point

  C-x 4c

  correct buffer

code syntax check

flycheck

code syntax checking for Emacs (pre-configured)

• install the supported flycheck supported languages.
• Keystrokes

  C-c ! l

  pop-up list of all errors in the current buffer

  C-c ! n and C-c ! p

  next/previous errors in the current buffer

  C-c ! v

  show current setup on buffer

markdown-mode

markdown-mode

markdown-mode using multimarkdown binary (pre-configured)

• Install multimarkdown.
• Note to disable zoom-mode when using live preview.
• Keystrokes

  C-c C-c l

  live-mode using eww buffer

  C-c C-c m

  preview raw HTML on buffer

  C-c C-c p

  preview on the browser

code syntax highlighting

minted

built-in code highlighting for LaTeX

• Install Pygments (i.e. pip install Pygments)
• add #+ATTR_LATEX: :options frame=single and #+LaTeX_HEADER: \usepackage{minted} on top of org-mode file

structural templates

org-tempo

required to support structural template via keyboard shortcut.

<s [TAB]

insert a new inline #+BEGIN_SRC...#+END_SRC line.

C-c C-’

creates a new window for editing the inline code.

minibuffer information display

emacs-which-key

displays keybinding on minibuffer

vertico

vertical completion on minibuffer

marginalia

provides more useful info on minibuffer completion

embark

provides actionable items on the minibuffer

orderless

regexp support for minibuffer matching

consult

search and navigation command

company-mode

modular in-buffer completion

themes

uwu-theme

default dark theme

nord-emacs

nord dark theme

starlit-emacs

starlit dark theme

faff-theme

faff light theme

Font size

Text size is automatically calculated using the textsize package. To override the default text size, type M-x customize-group then textsize. Then change the default text size point.

Overrides and personal configurations

Settings can be overridden by creating the elisp file in the personal/ folder. All configurations on this folder will be loaded right after the initialization of the configurations and packages is completed, however, appending pre, i.e. pre-<file>.el on the config file will preload the file.

All overrides and personal configurations in the personal/*.el folder is added to .gitignore file, to avoid committing any personal information in VC.

Default File Locations

All personal configurations, org-notes, backups and auto-saves are stored in the ~/Documents/Emacs/ directory. Those files should not be committed to GIT, but they should be managed via your file-sync utility (i.e. iCloud, Dropbox, etc.).

Package configs and variable files are stored in ~/Documents/Emacs/config/ and ~/Documents/Emacs/data/ respectively.

Org workdir are set to ~/Documents/Emacs/org/.

However, you can override it by creating a personal config file in the personal/ folder.

For example, create a file ~/.emacs.d/personal/org.el which contains the following overrides.

(setq org-directory "~/Emacs/org")
(setq org-mobile-directory (expand-file-name "~/Emacs/mobile"))

Behavior

On startup, Emacs will present this README.org document.

The default Emacs pulse.el is pre-configured to provide visual feedback on the current line when switching buffers.

Buffers are automatically-sized using zoom when created.

Emoji display support is handled via unicode-fonts package.

Window Transparency Mode

Window transparency can be enabled by defining transparent-windows-mode variable to t.

For example, if you create a personal/pre-variables.el file with the content (setq transparent-windows-mode t), this will turn transparency mode on.

Workspace

This configuration uses perspective-el for managing and switching to different workspace.

Initially, workspace are numbered from 0 to 5. The default workspace is 0.

To switch to a workspace, type C-M-<0 to 5>.

C-x x ?

show persp-mode keys

C-x x s

switch or create workspace

C-x x n or C-c x p

next/previous workspace

C-x x c

delete workspace

C-x x r

rename workspace

Commenting

Commenting and uncommenting a line is mapped to CMD-/ or S-/.

Multiple select and edit

Here’s the key-stroke to use the multiple select and edit feature.

C-c C-SPC

Select and edit leading edges

C-c M-SPC

Select and edit trailing edges

Sorting and deleting duplicate lines

CMD-[ or S-[

To sort a selection

CMD-] or S-]

To delete duplicates from selected lines

Themes and Appearance

Themes can be changed via M-x load-theme, or modifying the config/02-editor.el file.

(load-theme 'uwu t t)
(enable-theme 'uwu)

GTD+Zettelkasten org-mode files

I created practical.org.el GTD+Zettelkasten configuration and presets for managing my tasks, notes, routines, habits and agenda. All the org files should be put relative to your org-directory path. The plugin has pre-configured org-files by default which is included in the repository under the files/ folder.

Please refer to the practical.org.el’s installation instructions.

Org-mode GTD+Zettelkasten Key Bindings

Aside from the classic default keys. Here’s important key-strokes for using the practical.org.el presets.

Command	Bindings	Mode + where
Agenda	C-c a	any
Agenda for today	C-c a a	any
Capture menu	C-c c	any
Add new inbox items (inbox.org)	C-c c i or C-c i	any
Create new Scheduled agenda item (agenda.org)	C-c c a	any
Create a new note entry (notes.org)	C-c c n	any
Create a note as a new org file	C-c c n or C-c b	any
Add/Remove tag	C-c C-c	org-mode on headline
Update progress indicator	C-c C-c	org-mode on [/]
Update all progress indicators	C-u C-c #	org-mode
Enter estimated effort	C-c C-x e	org-mode on headline
Refile section	C-c C-w	org-mode on headline
Move to next TODO state	S-right	org-mode on TODO
Clock in	C-c C-x C-i	org-mode on headline
Clock out	C-c C-x C-o	org-mode on headline
Plain timestamp	C-c .	org-mode
Scheduled timestamp	C-c s	org-mode
Deadline timestamp	C-c d	org-mode
Inactive timestamp	C-c !	org-mode
Show all contacts	C-c c C	any
Create a new contact	C-c c c	any
Regexp search all contacts	C-c c s	any
Create a new contact	c	bbdb-mode
Edit contact	e	bbdb-mode
Insert a line	i	bbdb-mode
Copy the contact	Cr	bbdb-mode
Save the contact	s	bbdb-mode

Setting Up ChatGPT

Here’s a suggestion on how to install ChatGPT in your local system.

1. Setup pyenv in your local machine and install Python
   • Once pyenv is installed, install the latest Python version
     • e.g. pyenv install 3.11.1
   • Next reference the latest Python version as your default python bin
     • e.g. pyenv global 3.11.1
       • With pyenv installed, the pip3 becomes pip and python3 becomes python
   • Finally, add the pyenv init shell variables to your shell
     • See pyenv init for instructions
2. Install local ChatGPT Python libraries and dependencies
   • pip install epc
   • pip install git+https://github.com/mmabrouk/chatgpt-wrapper
   • pip install pytest-playwright
   • Next, execute playwright install, which will install a headless browser for ChatGPT authentication. It is important that you exit any existing browser instance that playwright is using. (i.e. Firefox)
   • Finally, run chatgpt install, which will bring up the ChatGPT interactive prompt. And just restart Emacs.

Further Customizations

Some packages are easy to include in the configuration, while other packages requires post-installation procedures. In those packages, it’s recommended to use GNU ELPA and MELPA.

The default packages includes a custom configuration that contains the basic necessary settings to readily use it, you can modify the settings in the ~/.emacs.d/config/01-packages.el file.