Our newbie tips are our way of expressing emacs features we might otherwise take for granted. We hope they help beginners climb the learning curve faster. This particular tip is one that I wish I knew far sooner when I first started using emacs.
Incremental searching with isearch-forward and isearch-backward (C-s and C-r) is [...]
Tags:isearch · newbie · quick · tips
On the surface, it might not sound like editing columns of text is something that happens a lot, but I find myself doing it fairly often. A quick way to enter different values on each line down a column is to use set-goal-column (bound to C-x C-n).
Let’s say we have a block of text [...]
Have you ever wanted to test out regular expressions in emacs? Until I found out about re-builder I used to run M-x isearch-forward-regexp (also bound to C-M-s) in a buffer until I figured out the expression I needed. This works but just having M-x re-builder in your bag of tricks helps. In the words of [...]
I don’t use this minor mode very often, but in rare cases, I find it valuable. When you have your frame split with multiple windows, sometimes it’s nice to scroll all the windows in unison. Try running M-x scroll-all-mode. Afterwards, scrolling commands entered in one window apply to all visibile windows. [...]
Java .properties files are normally formatted using conf-javaprop-mode. Recently, I was frustrated because a single quote in a property was highlighted such that multiple lines were colored like a string until there was another quote on another line. I decided I was going to fix it… It turns out that I didn’t have to look [...]
Zenspider gives us an excellent tip for extending incremental search. Add this to your emacs initialization:
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(define-key isearch-mode-map (kbd "C-o")
(lambda ()
(interactive)
(let ((case-fold-search isearch-case-fold-search))
(occur (if isearch-regexp isearch-string
[...]
Tags:elisp · isearch · quick · tips
By default, dired creates new buffers when visiting new directories. Sometimes this is desired, especially when you need to visualize the contents of two separate directories; however, when you’re just navigating around, all the extra buffers tend to clutter your buffer list.
Typical navigation is done with dired-find-file (bound to f, RET, or [...]
Setting a mark (C-SPC) is probably the most frequent command I use besides basic navigation. The mark not only acts as a saved jump-to point, but it also sets the region. A region is what other editors might call a selection. By default, emacs does not highlight the active region, so it [...]
Many times I use global key mappings for commands that I use every day. For example, I build java projects daily using ant, so I have the following in my .emacs:
(global-set-key [f5] ‘jde-build)
Less frequently, I use the C-c C-v C-. which is the default key binding for the command jde-complete. Both commands are in [...]
Tags:elisp · java · quick · ruby · tips
By default, dired only deletes empty directories. You know the drill. Put your point on the directory, D, y (yes), “file-error Removing directory directory not empty,” (slam fist on table). Doh!
Fortunately, dired supports deleting directories recursively. Add this to your .emacs:
(setq dired-recursive-deletes ‘top)
The dired-recursive-deletes variable decides whether recursive deletes are allowed. [...]