Nice, but this doesn't go far enough imo. I love emacs but keep using Sublime on a daily basis because it has real, native[0] mouse handling and UI. My dream editor would be a Sublime UI on top of embedded emacs. That means:
- Native mouse selection of text, proper copy/paste, ideally with a "narrow caret" instead of block cursor everywhere
- Native graphical file tree with drag and drop
- Native tabs with pretty drag and drop
- Pixel-fine resizing of panes
- Pixel-fine scrolling!!
[0]: Everywhere I say "native" above, I don't really care if it's GTK or electron (provided it's snappy) or whatever. I mean the nebulous feeling of having text areas work like every other text area on my desktop.
VimR (https://github.com/qvacua/vimr) on mac was the closest to this I ever got, and I love that editor, but I'm not on macOS anymore.
edit: Oh g-----, I'm literally describing aquamacs. I wonder if anyone has tried to run it on linux with GNUstep or something ;__;
I don't see why software not having this is apparently acceptable. It's just disorienting to have line jumps. That's not how the real world works.
Modern Linux software is pretty good at it (GTK, Qt) as is much Windows software. However the only git GUI I otherwise enjoy using that has it is Sublime Merge.
I'm not sure this is true. Emacs is fundamentally command driven - everything is a command, and can be invoked, edited or replaced the same way. What triggers those is obviously key bindings for a lot of people but it's not really what makes Emacs powerful or extensible. People have diverse needs when it comes to wanting to interact with a computer, and it's great that Emacs's flexibility allows them to.
Why not? Some things make a lot of sense, like the context menu. The current right-click behavior just sets the text selection mark. This doesn't make much sense anymore: every other editor uses click and drag to select text using the mouse. This frees the right mouse button, and a context menu makes lots of sense. Emacs is a highly complex software, which is then customized with lots of modes. Making functions accessible via a context menu would be awesome for both usability and productivity. The menus could be easily customized to further improve user workflows.
As for the rest: maybe some of the features are nice to have. I don't really care for tabs, and standard shortcuts are usually a non-issue, since everyone ends up using whatever they prefer ("standard", Emacs, or Vim). In any case, most advanced functions are usually accessed by name, whatever the editor.
The important takeaway is that every Emacs user should acknowledge the fact that the mouse is underutilized. We may not need it, but it's a huge barrier to overcome for new users.
I use Emacs as my primary... everything. But I totally see the point and need for mouse-driven functionality. Emacs only works if you have two functioning arms with hands on them. Put a coffee, a sandwich, a cat, a kid, a beer... in one of your hands, and Emacs is unusable. If my cat wants some attention, I can't keep typin' stuff.
Though, not sure why the mouse-driven features are also wrapped up making shortcuts match VS-Code etc. That makes it a lot less useful.
Emacs has thousands of shortcuts for every conceivable piece of functionality. Personally, I will remember shortcuts for commonly used things - and all the other functionality may as well not exist if it is not easily discoverable.
A gui is a nice way to make a lot of functionality discoverable.
The file browser on the left and the general design of it makes me lean towards the author intending this to replace VS Code and other modeless, less keyboard focused editors, not regular Emacs, which I can see the value in because Emacs being written in C and Lisp is probably a lot more performant and lean, plus a lot of people are opposed to Electron apps in general.
I have Emacs pinkies - I see the value in similar efforts. I will try this out for some time to see if it actually helps. But muscle memory is a thing for me, it is hard to undo 20 years of Emacs habits.
Mac has "Aquamcs" which is mac native emacs with a wierd blending of MacOS key commands and emacs commands.
It works better than expected. Its not perfect but maintains the recording/playback of macros I use all the time. The fact that mac shortcuts use "Command" which emacs doesn't use natively helps.
The official Emacs.app also supports using the Command shortcuts while keeping all the normal emacs commands the same. In general I find that the app plays nicely with MacOS and I prefer it over aquamacs since emacs.app is newer (right now version 27 vs 25.) And I think looks nicer once I've removed the menu bars.
I was about to say the same thing! I suggest the author of this digs into acme (easy to run plan9 on a rpi!) and borrows some of the chording, because I'm not crazy about the menu driven mouse commands shown in the repo examples.
An "acmemacs" would be amazing - might be the only thing that could tear me from emacs at this point.
> 3) As someone who's used emacs for a long time, I would hate to have my emacs shortcuts replaced by standard ones. I don't want to remap my brain.
As someone who's used Mac for a long time (and now Linux desktop, with similar shortcuts, plus spending most of my time in a browser like Chromium or Firefox), I chose other editors like Sublime and now VS Code partly because they use shortcuts that feel normal on those platforms so I didn't have to remap my brain. (More like my thumbs I think.) So to me the shortcuts changes in this project may be the most interesting part!
This is the first step only. I remember in 1995 Stallman wanted Emacs to be "like Microsoft Word" with varying fonts and other formatting shit with hidden Tex-coding. Do it.
I do not understand the want to stick with fixed-width fonts in this day and age. We do not use the editor to punch cards anymore, nor do we type text on a character-cell terminal or a typewriter. With the high-resolution displays, code we write should look more like one that is found in some nice programming books - complete with bold-faced reserved words, italicized comments, and even some mathematical typesetting. This could even (re)open the path to the Holy Grail of literate programming!
This seems like a nice extension to Emacs for folks that want to use it but are stymied by the steep learning curve.
Personally I think the learning curve is worth it... especially with an aid like Spacemacs. It gives you the context and quick access without requiring a mouse and thus results in faster and more efficient interaction in the long run.
I believe that all available evidence suggests that keyboard-only editing is not actually faster or more efficient (I say this as a keyboard-only Emacs user).
I see a potential future use case for this when human-computer interaction will be done through brain interface. Will prolly be easier to integrate with nervous signals from brain to one hand (mouse interaction) compared to two hands (keyboard interaction).
One of the things that drew me to emacs initially was that I could customise it to reduce or, in most cases, eliminate mouse usage. Toolbars, scroll bars etc. were the first things to go. Just taking those away makes emacs must more attractive for me.
[+] [-] rjeli|5 years ago|reply
- Native mouse selection of text, proper copy/paste, ideally with a "narrow caret" instead of block cursor everywhere
- Native graphical file tree with drag and drop
- Native tabs with pretty drag and drop
- Pixel-fine resizing of panes
- Pixel-fine scrolling!!
[0]: Everywhere I say "native" above, I don't really care if it's GTK or electron (provided it's snappy) or whatever. I mean the nebulous feeling of having text areas work like every other text area on my desktop.
VimR (https://github.com/qvacua/vimr) on mac was the closest to this I ever got, and I love that editor, but I'm not on macOS anymore.
edit: Oh g-----, I'm literally describing aquamacs. I wonder if anyone has tried to run it on linux with GNUstep or something ;__;
[+] [-] solarkraft|5 years ago|reply
I don't see why software not having this is apparently acceptable. It's just disorienting to have line jumps. That's not how the real world works.
Modern Linux software is pretty good at it (GTK, Qt) as is much Windows software. However the only git GUI I otherwise enjoy using that has it is Sublime Merge.
[+] [-] O_H_E|5 years ago|reply
I would _really_ pay for that.
If you throw in a simple (even if limited) interface to elisp via something like python/lua, the would be IDE nirvana for me.
[+] [-] kleiba|5 years ago|reply
Emacs is so inherently keyboard-focused that I fail to see the point of this... nor the need for it?!
[+] [-] thom|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vvillena|5 years ago|reply
As for the rest: maybe some of the features are nice to have. I don't really care for tabs, and standard shortcuts are usually a non-issue, since everyone ends up using whatever they prefer ("standard", Emacs, or Vim). In any case, most advanced functions are usually accessed by name, whatever the editor.
The important takeaway is that every Emacs user should acknowledge the fact that the mouse is underutilized. We may not need it, but it's a huge barrier to overcome for new users.
[+] [-] mrspeaker|5 years ago|reply
Though, not sure why the mouse-driven features are also wrapped up making shortcuts match VS-Code etc. That makes it a lot less useful.
[+] [-] JetSetWilly|5 years ago|reply
A gui is a nice way to make a lot of functionality discoverable.
[+] [-] melling|5 years ago|reply
Use your imagination and build a different editor.
[+] [-] figgyc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sn41|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trey-jones|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acomjean|5 years ago|reply
It works better than expected. Its not perfect but maintains the recording/playback of macros I use all the time. The fact that mac shortcuts use "Command" which emacs doesn't use natively helps.
https://aquamacs.org/about.html
Look forward to trying mousemacs out.
-A
[+] [-] sgillen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] messe|5 years ago|reply
[1]: http://acme.cat-v.org/
[+] [-] klik99|5 years ago|reply
An "acmemacs" would be amazing - might be the only thing that could tear me from emacs at this point.
[+] [-] Koshkin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] murgindrag|5 years ago|reply
1) I would love to have a better way to manage tabs and multiple files in emacs. This piece seems awesome!
2) Good context menus aren't as important, but a definite win! emacs is useless here. But I'm not sure your context menus are the ones I want.
3) As someone who's used emacs for a long time, I would hate to have my emacs shortcuts replaced by standard ones. I don't want to remap my brain.
I wish there were a way to pick-and-choose.
[+] [-] abrowne|5 years ago|reply
As someone who's used Mac for a long time (and now Linux desktop, with similar shortcuts, plus spending most of my time in a browser like Chromium or Firefox), I chose other editors like Sublime and now VS Code partly because they use shortcuts that feel normal on those platforms so I didn't have to remap my brain. (More like my thumbs I think.) So to me the shortcuts changes in this project may be the most interesting part!
[+] [-] gumby|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s_brady|5 years ago|reply
There is a way to pick and choose :)
The context menu in Mousemacs is a couple of dozen lines of Elisp and would be simple to rewrite. You can simply create your own context menus.
[+] [-] clircle|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nanna|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timonoko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpfr|5 years ago|reply
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2018-03/msg00...
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2020-04/msg01...
And not everybody is happy about it. [Careful, flame ahead.]
http://ergoemacs.org/misc/rms_emacs_tyrant_2018-03.html
[+] [-] Koshkin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _emacsomancer_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hprotagonist|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skocznymroczny|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pelic4n|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MobileVet|5 years ago|reply
Personally I think the learning curve is worth it... especially with an aid like Spacemacs. It gives you the context and quick access without requiring a mouse and thus results in faster and more efficient interaction in the long run.
https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs
[+] [-] s17n|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bthallplz|5 years ago|reply
Do you think it'll still be able to run org-mode?
EDIT: Org-mode is working for me. I still don't know how to use it, but it's nice to be able to navigate through it via the right-click menus.
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[+] [-] lbj|5 years ago|reply