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GNU Emacs ported to Android

131 points| cycojesus | 13 years ago |play.google.com

44 comments

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[+] babarock|13 years ago|reply
Just downloaded it. Here are a few things to note:

- As soon as installed, the app will download emacs from a 3rd party repo. You have the option to specify your own, I picked the default one.

- The app consists apparently of a terminal emulator and a Bourne shell (clone?). emacs will reside inside this emulator and the shell.

- The app seems very young, segfaults are frequent. A common cause seems to be font-size. If font size != 20px at startup, app will segfault. (you can change it once the app is running).

- The buffers do not resize dynamically when I show/hide the keyboard. On my SGS2 in landscape mode, that leaves very little screen space for the buffers.

- The app greatly benefits from Hacker's Keyboard or any similar advanced keyboard.

[+] sigzero|13 years ago|reply
Err....Emacs is probably a better OS than Android. :)
[+] gcp|13 years ago|reply
Which is coincidentally likely why you can never have it on iOS (interpreted code and all...)
[+] e40|13 years ago|reply
This is just silly. Emacs isn't an OS. It provides an API to some library and system calls, but it isn't even multi-threaded.

If your comment was meant as a hat tip to the Symbolics Genera system, that was a full-fledged OS, then there could be debate. I love Lisp and would dearly love to customize my Jelly Bean experience with it, but then we'd need to get into a discussion of what is really better, and 80's OS or Android.

[+] CmdrKrool|13 years ago|reply
Anyone trying to use this on a device with its own keyboard? eg. http://www.androidauthority.com/best-keyboard-qwerty-android...

Be interested to hear how usable you can make it. Whether you can remap keys or buttons to all the major modifiers.

Emacs 23 on the Nokia N900 is the reason I recently bought that phone even though Nokia is so uncool now and everything (works excellently, BTW).

[+] npsimons|13 years ago|reply
Second this; having Emacs with org-mode, plus git, flymake and Python in the palm of my hand is just awesome. Now, if only I could upgrade the processor and RAM, get better battery life, and get a screen that worked better in sunlight . . .
[+] malkia|13 years ago|reply
It segfaulted here (11). Since the shell was available, ls -l revealed that only directories had +x on them, and none of the scripts. Not sure whether that makes any sense (or simply was not compiled for the right arm architecture).

It does not work from both Nexus 7 Tablet, and Google Nexus phone (latest)

[+] drcube|13 years ago|reply
Every couple of weeks since I started using Android, I've checked the Play store to see if Emacs was there. So even though I don't know what I'll do with it yet, I'm excited to download the GNU Emacs app.

Anybody have any ideas for what to do with Emacs on a phone?

[+] Kototama|13 years ago|reply
Taking notes with org-mode and synchronizing them to Dropbox.
[+] vinayan3|13 years ago|reply
Good work but I have some issues with the concept. I mean using all the keyboard shortcuts must be a pain. Did they try to make it use the touch interface at all?
[+] pbnjay|13 years ago|reply
Now the editor's kitchen sink also includes phone calls!
[+] laconian|13 years ago|reply
I don't know if I could adapt to Emacs with another input device. Part of being good at Emacs is training your muscle memory. I probably can't even describe half of the inane chords I do unless I was able to observe my hands performing them.
[+] kelvie|13 years ago|reply
Doesn't this have to be open-sourced? Emacs is GPL'd. I might want to help out with the development.
[+] rbanffy|13 years ago|reply
It depends. It seems to be an Emacs installer rather than Emacs proper.

Didn't try it myself.

[+] rogcg|13 years ago|reply
We are on the way to start good development on an Android tablet! FTW
[+] samuel1604|13 years ago|reply
seg11 on nexus 7 :(
[+] malkia|13 years ago|reply
Same here... after downloading a bunch of files.