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A Brief Overview of Configuration Features

Review features of this init-file configuration below, and when finished, type ‘q’ to exit.

Notable Keybindings

This configuration provides a range of useful keybindings, some standard, some not. An attempt has been made to keep the bindings mnemonic and to arrange them in a thematic hierarchy (key, Control-key, Meta-key, Meta-Control-key, then other modifiers).

On Mac OS X, the modifier keys are set as follows:

• Control is control
• Command is meta
• Option is alt
• Fn is super

For example, to hit M-x, you hold down the Command key and hit x. I recommend rebinding Caps Lock to be control in System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys.

Also note, the configuration turns on which-key-mode by default, so after typing a prefix key (e.g., M-C-h), you can wait for 1.5 seconds to see a popup showing you all the following keys and the commands they initiate.

Help

Default emacs keybindings reserve C-h for help. While help is important and commonly used, it does not need a top-level (control) key. Instead, we do the following:

• C-h – delete-backward-char
• M-h – backward-kill-word
• M-C-h – help

This is much more efficient than the defaults (no more need for backspace and backward-kill-word is very commonly useful). The main complication is that most modes (and to some extend emacs itself, see help-char) assume C-h for help, which requires additional effort to configure.

After evoking help (with M-C-h), there are several additional useful keys included in the key map. Type M-C-h and wait 1.5 seconds to see them (with which-key-mode, which is set by default).

A few notable choices:

• F – describe a face, with completion
• B and M-b – show keybindings with completion by two separate methods.
• M-C-p – Find an emacs package with completion
• i – open up emacs info manuals for detailed help

Scrolling and Cutting

Also in the default keybindings use C-v and M-v for scrolling up and down. This cuts across levels (control to meta) for a comparable-level operation and is slow, as a result. It also leaves C-w, non-mnemonically, for a kill operation. Instead, the keybindings here do the following:

• C-w – scroll down
• C-v – scroll up
• M-w – beginning of buffer
• M-v – end of buffer
• M-C-w – scroll down other window
• M-C-v – scroll up other window
• C-k – kill line
• M-k – kill region
• M-C-k – kill sexp

Again, this requires some remapping in configuring some common modes.

For speed-ups, the basic cursor movement commands have a shifted version that goes five times as fast: S-C-n, S-C-p, S-C-f, S-C-b.

In addition, ‘pages’ are defined here so that two blank lines (or a formfeed) mark a page. Use C-x [ and C-x ] to navigate by pages. This is particularly useful in source code, using double blank lines to demarcate sections that can easily be navigated.

Searching, Special Movement, and Transposition

Several key-chords are prefix keys for menus of useful functions. Try typing each chord and wait 1.5 seconds; which-key-mode will show you the choices.

The prefixes are:

• C-x space – access to emacs plugins for search tools like ripgrep and ack, finding project files, and completion-based search tools like helm and swiper.
• C-x % – String search and replacement in a variety of ways
• M-g – Special movement and view commands, including moving to lines, columns, compilation errors, shell buffers, magit status buffers, org links, urls, and more.
• M-T – transposing objects at various scales from character up.

Win-switch

The win-switch package offers fast and configurable movement among windows and frames in emacs. The key chord C-x o initiates win-switch mode, subsequent commands within a short time window will enable easy movement among windows. The keys i and k move up and down; h and l move left and right, space moves between frames, and u ends win-switch mode (as does waiting).

For more on use and configuration, you can do M-C-h P win-switch and view https://github.com/genovese/win-switch.

Other Useful commands

A few useful command bindings are given as follows. For some of these (e.g., Command-<space> on Mac’s), you might need to unbind system shortcuts that shadow emacs.

• M-space – Marks a balanced ‘expression’ (mark-sexp), very useful!
• M-C-space – Marks an entire function definition (mark-defun)
• C-== – Marks an expanding region on successive uses (expand-region)
• C-c C-return – begin rectangle editing (awesome!) (cua-set-rectangle-mark)
• M-\ – delete whitespace in flexible ways, do C-u M-\ to delete all surrounding whitespace
• C-5 – Search and replace text with querying (query-replace)
• C-6 – Search and replace regex with querying (query-replace-regexp)
• C-7 – Align region by regular expression (align-regexp)
• C-3 and C-4 – begin and end/call a keyboard macro
• C-x * – evoke emacs’s powerful calc facility, try C-x *q for quick calculations.
• C-x M-k – prefix key for keyboard macro commands. Try it and wait 1.5 seconds to see options.

Help Navigation

To make the Emacs help system even easier to use, this adds two mechanisms for navigating. First C-M-h g from any buffer moves to the help buffer, where g moves back to the previous location. Second, C-M-h followed by various navigation commands moves the help buffer without changing the active buffer. These commands are as follows:

• C-w – scroll down
• C-v – scroll up
• M-w – go to beginning of buffer
• M-v – go to end of buffer
• C-b – back to previous help page
• C-f – forward to next help page
• RET – push button
• TAB – forward-button
• S-TAB – backward-button
• q – quit help

Server start

This initialization always starts the emacs-server so you can interact with a running instance using emacsclient.

Components and Mods

The components directory contains files that each load and configure a cluster of related packages and/or modes. This includes specific programming languages, TeX and LaTex, tools such as org and version control, and basic features such as completion, search, and display. For customizing your initialization on these or similar features, I recommend either modifying these components or adding your own. For example, to add customizations for Python or R, you can edit the components python.el and ess.el, respectively.

The mods directory contains mode- or tool-specific modifications and code. These represent structural changes or code that offers new/improved functionality. This includes improved help navigation, directory tracking systems for tcsh and zsh (separately), extensions to dired, and some extra tools for AucTeX and Org. Some of the earlier mods have been spun off into their own packages (e.g., win-switch) or into existing emacs code (e.g., ibuffer).

Zenburn+ Theme

A modified zenburn theme, zenburn+, is available in Extras/themes.