Thinking of introducing a mode line with proportional fonts into Emacs (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Thinking of introducing a mode line with proportional fonts into Emacs (2021)

lars.ingebrigtsen.no

43 pointsmooreds11 comments

This will definitely require rewriting some large bits of my modeline definition (or - more likely - switching the font back). As one of the comments mentions, `window-text-pixel-size` is finicky at best.

On one hand, I like the speed Emacs development is moving lately, especially in some core work that has languished for too long. On the other hand, I am starting to get some whiffs of immature stuff getting released too fast (flymake "v2" but still without a diagnostic overview buffer) and churn for churn's sake (why a whole new project.el instead of adopting or at least compatibility with projectile)?

> menus and the toolbar

The what now? :)

>> menus and the toolbar

> The what now? :)

My response was: Is it possible? Is it possible that Lars uses the menus and the toolbar?

>why a whole new project.el instead of adopting or at least compatibility with projectile

Probably because projectile is not FSF compatible and getting all of the copyright assignments would be way more expensive.

Wonderful. For folks wanting to look into emacs I actually just direct them to doom-emacs (and maybe with the suggestion to turn off evil-mode to make it a liiiittle simpler). It looking easy on the eyes goes a long way in making the user-experience a little less weighty, especially if starting out.

I think this is definitely the best starting point. Doom is a great setup, and it offers a lot of configurability that is well supported (it's fast, too!). I have my own setup I'm just too attached to atm, otherwise I'd just switch over.

For clarity's sake, evil-mode (emacs-vim) is a vim binding layer on top of emacs, like vim plugins in other editors. Leave it off if you're starting out and don't know vim, enable it if you are comfortable with vim.

Given the recent flush of emacs postings making it into the HN newsline, I wonder if we have emacs-friendly mods or is emacs seeing a renaisance?

I'm a recent convert as of this year! However, (and I don't know if this will surprise people, I suspect not) I actually use it primarily for org-mode, for note-taking, to-do-lists, documenting and thinking through small bits of code that require careful thought.

It's also my version of powerpoint, e.g. recently I was sharing my thoughts with someone and made use of folding to guide the ideas I wanted to communicate to them. I use VSCode for code.

I think org mode and magit are the two main drivers to Emacs.

It's been a slow renaissance for about a decade. Compared to when I got serious about Emacs in 2009, there are just a lot more Emacs related activity these days. It's been a gradual growth.

Long time after various Xerox publications on desktop computing, after long time of crappyfication of desktops to lock users, some people start to realize that a desktop is a nice thing and... There are no desktops around in the modern world. So some try exotic little WM, perhaps tiling, some try to go a bit more in Unix CLI, some try Emacs as a 2D CLI or something better then Unix + (Vim, GUIs etc) to discover that's good and powerful.

Perhaps in 10 more years Emacs will have something Tioga has had in the past (like a bit more graphics capabilities)...

Definitely something of an Emacs renaissance, I'd say. Personally, I have been on a 2 year experiment using doom-emacs as my primary IDE. Doom really helped ease me into the Emacs world, by vastly improving and modernising the UX for new users (let's be frank, Emacs has an awful UX out of the box).

I have to say though, I'm actually starting to migrate back to purpose built tools. Obsidian over org-roam/org-mode, and VSCode/IntelliJ for coding. Magit/forge are still irreplaceable for me though - such great software.

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