Suggest me Cool Emacs modes

June 15, 2018 7:36 PM

I've begun getting back into Emacs lately, since it features great support for HTML editing, among other things. I'm wondering what modes MeFi users might enjoy? Bonus points to anything obscure or not related to text editing, per se.

For the curious, Emacspeak is an excellent screen reading program, featuring some very neat tricks to make using the app as nice as possible. It even lets you play accessible Tetris :)

posted by Alensin to Computers & Internet (17 answers total)

Features I was particularly fond of (more easter-eggy than mode-like):

-- the command to add touchy keywords to any email (Meta-X spook, IIRC)
-- the "Zippy the Pinhead" quote generator (can't remember the command, alas)
-- the built-in Eliza analyst program (Meta-X doctor, IIRC), and of course...
-- the built-in Eliza analyst trying to make sense of Zippy the Pinhead quotes (Meta-X analyze-pinhead, IIRC)
posted by cgs06 at 8:04 PM on June 15, 2018

Org mode is itself very nearly a killer feature for getting yourself comfortable in Emacs.
posted by letourneau at 8:25 PM on June 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Towers of Hanoi mode! M-n M-x hanoi, where n is the number of rings.

Also, it's M-x psychoanalyze-pinhead.
posted by sourcequench at 8:33 PM on June 15, 2018

magit is a fantastic revision control system built on top of git & integrated into emacs.

org mode is supposed to be amazing, but I've never put the time into picking it up personally.
posted by pharm at 1:24 AM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Other than Org mode and Magit, there's lots of praise for the tag-based mail indexing tools Notmuch and mu, both of which offer their own Emacs major modes.
posted by Bangaioh at 2:09 AM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

There are modes that integrate with statistical software and let you run analysis scripts from inside Emacs, if that happens to be your thing.
posted by eirias at 4:11 AM on June 16, 2018

I've used John Heideman's Notes Mode for many years as a way to organize and cross-index journal entries and miscellaneous notes. The mode uses several Perl scripts which are automatically run every morning. This mode is similar to Org Mode but not as complex and much easier to learn. Entries are stored as simple text files in a chronological nested directory structure. Notes Mode is one of my favorite pieces of open source software.
posted by Agave at 6:02 AM on June 16, 2018

I keep forgetting Calc mode is there, even though it's a better scientific calculator than anything I own.

For themes, I've chosen Rebecca, even though I don't rock the full-screen tmux session in the docs.
posted by scruss at 7:02 AM on June 16, 2018

Org mode is indeed great, and we also use Ledger as a financial-planning tool
posted by lettezilla at 9:13 AM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

The ediff mode is quirky and take a bit of determination to become comfortable but a really excellent file, directory or even full tree utility.

The tramp remote file editing is really handy.
posted by sammyo at 9:13 AM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the recommendations so far. :)

I love Tramp. It's super useful for editing files on my web host without having to mess with sharing folders, manual downloads, or whatever. I don't even need a password :)

My other contribution to this thread is something EMacspeak-specific, an audio alternative to syntax highlighting. Basically, if you vary the tone/pitch/other vocal characteristics, you can create different audible "fonts," for different elements of code. It's a brilliant concept no one else has used, as far as I'm aware.
posted by Alensin at 9:45 AM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Seconding org-mode, magit, and tramp. I use magit and tramp all the time, and while I only use like 5% of org-mode's features (mostly, outlines), it's still quite useful.

- midnight -- close unused buffers after a couple days.
- paredit -- structural editing for nested parens; it's not really my thing, but several people I know love it.
- lively -- auto-update stuff in a buffer based on timers, for making lightweight dashboard-y stuff.
- deft -- another thing great for taking quick notes.
- pabbrev -- a kind of autocomplete.
- rcirc -- my favorite of the various built-in IRC modes.
posted by silentbicycle at 12:42 PM on June 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

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posted by valrus at 1:31 PM on June 16, 2018

Response by poster: valrus: I'm afraid the point of that was completely lost on me. My screen reader vocalized "Light shade lower half block lower half block lower half…" which was less than informative. ;)
posted by Alensin at 2:25 PM on June 16, 2018

nyan-mode indicates your position in a buffer by drawing a cat on a rainbow in your mode line. It is probably less useful for the visually impaired.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 8:45 PM on June 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh! Yes, my apologies for my completely un-screen-readable comment. As meaty shoe puppet said, the Emacs mode in question would probably not be of much interest either.
posted by valrus at 7:24 AM on June 17, 2018

also probably not very useful to the visually impaired, but I'm a big fan of rainbow-mode, which shows hex codes in the color they represent
posted by anotherthink at 9:57 AM on June 17, 2018 [1 favorite]