if you bought my emacs tutorial years ago, you are probably not on the update announcement list. Please email to xah@xahlee.org with subject “emacs tutorial update”. Thanks.
new version of emacs tutorial. If you are a scientist, or other fields but are not a dedicated professional programmer reading lots emacs blogs, then this tutorial just might help you get all the fundamentals of emacs and emacs lisp quickly. Buy Xah Emacs Tutorial. Thank you for support.
in emacs 24.3, the name ucs-insert is now alias to insert-char. A great change.
That command lets you insert Unicode character, or any character. 〔☛ Emacs & Unicode Tips〕
when it comes to typing and hand health, put weight on professional typist's opinions. Because, they actually type a order of magnitude more than programers.
Emacs: Why Does Cursor Move into Prompt by Default?
Got a very nice accolade for ErgoEmacs keybinding from a emacs oldbie, at ErgoEmacs forum. Thank you Paul Michael Reilly. (and thanks to David Capello and Matthew L Fidler for taking it much further than i can.)
The Classic Microsoft Natural Keyboard is Discontinued
The classic Microsoft Natural keyboard is discontinued. Get a few of them while they are still out there.
In terminal, when you press arrow keys, ErgoEmacs will insert gibberish. This is a semi-bug in emacs.
In emacs, put this in your init:
(global-set-key (kbd"M-O") 'forward-char)
nothing but just that line. Then, start emacs by emacs --no-window-system. Then press any arrow key, you'll see that it insert gibberish.
This is related to escape sequence in terminal. Kinda have to do with terminal history. The arrow keys actually send escape sequences, and somehow, so does emacs's 【Meta+O】. (this is why emacs's Meta can also be pressed by Esc)
From user's perspective, this is clearly a emacs bug, but it might be such historical issue that it's hard to fix or can't be fixed. A related issue is that in emacs running in terminal, it can't distinguish between 【Ctrl+A】 and 【Ctrl+a】 (same for other letters).
ErgoEmacs has a new version, lots improvements in past month by Matthew L Fidler. Matt also created a new home page for ErgoEmacs keybinding minor mode. This should be the new home page going forward for community. At http://mlf176f2.github.io/ErgoEmacs/
The video presentation is pretty bad. I have much to learn, tech and presentation. I was using Google Plus hangout feature with Hangout On Air to record directly to YouTube. Not sure what's a good solution on Linux yet.
also, i need to write code so that whatever command i called is displayed in a pane. So viewers can see it without me going over.
Dear all, a new version of my tutorial is out. I'm making this a special version, for $40. If you support it, i'd be greatful, and i'll add your name to the Xah's Emacs Tutorial: Acknowledgment as sponsor.
Another way to voice your support is funding a emacs major mode that you might want. Please visit http://pledgie.com/campaigns/19973. Please let me know if you have questions..
i was calling unix uniq from emacs. Got a unexpected result. I thought it's Unicode data passing screwup. Turns out, the bug is in uniq itself.
Unix Shell Util uniq Unicode Bug
Functional Programing Meta Language (ML) in Emacs Lisp!
discovered that emacs has a bundled library for functional programing pattern matching! The package file is pcase.el. It's part of GNU Emacs 24.3.1.
it's written by Stefan Monnier, a professor of functional programing research, and one of the two current leader of emacs dev.
you can get to the file by calling describe-function then pcase-let, then click on the file name.
Note: ML stands for Meta Language. It was a family of languages. Current popular descendants include OCaml and Microsoft's FSharp.
〔☛ Xah's OCaml Tutorial〕
Among functional programing languages, OCaml is one of those that's heavily used in the industry (⁖ Mldonkey, Unison
〔☛ Unison Tutorial〕), especially in math formal proof systems ⁖ Coq. And it's famously used in JaneStreet.
〔☛ OCaml Use in Industry: Janestreet Talk by Yaron Minsky 📺〕
more improved. Emacs: Xah CSS Mode. You can now convert RGB hex color under cursor to HSL format (⁖ #aabbcc ⇒ hsl(210,25%,73%)). Call xcm-hex-color-to-hsl.
why should you convert? because, #rrggbb is one of the hack from history. HSL model isn't perfect, but is much more intuitive. You can change the hue, saturation, and lightness. For some explanation of HSL model and color samples, see: CSS3 HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) Color Samples.
Emacs: new major modes for HTML, CSS, PHP, ELISP, and Lean Emacs LISP Manual