Spacemacs

The best editor is not Emacs nor Vim, the best editor is Emacs+Vim !

Table of Contents generated with DocToc

• Goal
• Who can benefit from this ?
• Install
• Packages and Extensions Organization
• How it works
• How to switch to normal mode efficiently ?
• Evil plugins
• How to use it ?
  • Executing Vim and Emacs commands
  • Key bindings help
  • About helm
  • Navigation (point/cursor)
    • ace-jump mode
  • Navigation (buffers/files)
  • Window manipulation
  • Additional text manipulation commands
  • Spell checking
  • Color theme
  • UI elements
  • Minor Modes
  • Formatting
  • Errors handling
  • Various
    • expand-region mode
    • narrow region
    • auto-highlight-symbol mode
    • and more...
• TODO list

Goal

These configuration files try to bring the power of Vim modal editing to the powerful Emacs editing platform and some more power with the SPC key as a leader key.

To achieve this, Spacemacs uses two modes heavily:

• evil mode
• evil-leader mode

Who can benefit from this ?

Spacemacs is first intended to be used by Vim users who want to go to the next level by using Emacs.

It is also a good fit for people wanting to lower the risk of RSI induced by the default Emacs key bindings.

People wanting to learn a new way to edit files or wanting to learn Vim key bindings.

As a note side, if you are a programmer and you don't know Vim key bindings yet, I deeply recommend you to learn the basics as recommended in Sacha Chua's one-page guide about how to learn Emacs.

Install

Spacemacs is only tested with Emacs 24.3.1.

Backup your current .emacs.d. Clone this repository in your home folder:

cd ~
mv .emacs.d .emacs.bak
git clone http://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs .emacs.d
cd .emacs.d
mkdir .desktop

Get the sub-modules:

cd ~/.emacs.d
git submodule init
git submodule update

Packages and Extensions Organization

Modes/libraries are separated into two categories:

• package: packages installed from package.el compliant repositories.
• extension: modes directly fetched from git repositories (as sub-modules)

There are two types of extensions:

• pre-extensions: loaded before packages
• post-extensions: loaded after packages

Modes/libraries are listed in the following three files depending whether they are packages, pre-extensions or post-extensions:

• packages.el
• pre-extensions.el
• post-extensions.el

A package or extension has a corresponding init-....el file responsible for its initialization, those files are stored respectively in the init-package and init-extension directories.

init-....el files lazy load the modes by using the use-package macro.

How it works

Spacemacs uses the evil mode to emulate Vim key bindings. This is a very complete emulation (the most complete I've seen yet).

Spacemacs heavily uses the evil-leader mode which brings the Vim leader key to the Emacs world.

This leader key is commonly set to , by Vim users, in Spacemacs the leader key is set on SPC (space bar, this is why spacemacs). This key is the most accessible key on a keyboard and it is pressed with the thumb which is a good choice to lower the risk of RSI.

So with Spacemacs there is no need to remap your keyboard modifiers to attempt to reduce the risk of RSI, every command can be executed very easily while you are in normal mode by pressing the SPC leader key, here are a few examples:

Save a buffer:

<SPC> f s

Save all opened buffers:

<SPC> f S

Open (switch) to a buffer with helm:

<SPC> b s

How to switch to normal mode efficiently ?

One of the main design flaw in Vim key bindings is that you often have to press the ESC key to return to normal mode and ESC key is very far from the home row.

The popular way to avoid this is to replace ESC by jj pressed rapidly. In Spacemacs you have to press fd quickly by default.

fd also works to quit minibuffer prompts.

Note that keychords.el mode is not used to achieve this, the reasons for this is latency and the fact that keychords wants you to press several keys almost at the same time which is something very difficult to master correctly on a keyboard. Spacemacs has a special function called fd-trigger to handle the fd key sequence and fix the above keychords issues.

Evil plugins

Spacemacs ships with the following evil plugins:

• evil-little-word: port of camelcasemotion.vim.
• evil-operator-comment: comment/uncomment with CC
• evil-matchit: port of matchit.vim
• evil-visualstar: search for current selection with *
• surround: port of surround.vim

How to use it ?

Every sequences must be performed in normal mode.

Executing Vim and Emacs commands

Vim commands are execute as usual with the : key. To execute an Emacs command:

<SPC> :

Key bindings help

A list of all the key bindings can be accessed by pressing:

<SPC> ?

To narrow the list to Spacemacs specific key bindings set the pattern to SPC

About helm

Spacemacs tries to use helm as much as possible. helm is coupled to popwin so helm window always appears in a new temporary windows at the bottom.

The following helm modes are installed with Spacemacs:

• helm-swoop ( h s): A very cool mode to search for occurrences within a file and edit the result.
• helm-css-scss ( h c): for quick navigation in CSS.
• helm-c-yasnippet ( a y): select snippets.
• helm-themes ( h t): select a theme
• helm-projectile ( p f): select files within a projectile project.
• helm-descbinds ( ?): show key bindings.
• cofi/helm-flyspell-correct ( s c): choose a corrected word.

Navigation (point/cursor)

Navigation is performed using the Vi key bindings hjkl.

The current line of the cursor is always at the center of the buffer. This effect is achieved with centered-cursor mode. It can be toggled on and off with:

<SPC> z z

To move quickly up a buffer:

H

To move quickly down a buffer:

L

Go to beginning/end of line:

<SPC> j h
<SPC> j l

ace-jump mode

I often use ace-jump mode so this key binding does not require the evil leader, just press:

,

To go back to the previous location (pop mark):

<SPC> ,

Navigation (buffers/files)

Spacemacs uses ido for opening files since ido way to navigate the file system is better than helm in my opinion (especially because ido can remember the last selected directories and buffers, maybe helm can do this ?). ido is also used to kill buffers.

Buffer manipulation commands start with b and file manipulation with f.

Open a file:

<SPC> f f

Save a file:

<SPC> f s

Switch to a buffer:

<SPC> b s

Kill a buffer:

<SPC> b k

Kill all other buffer:

<SPC> b K

Rename a buffer:

<SPC> b r

Delete a buffer (well a file...):

<SPC> b d

Move a buffer to the left:

<SPC> b m h

Window manipulation

Window manipulation commands start with w. Split windows are dynamically resized depending on whether they are selected or not. Resizing is performed by the golden-ratio mode.

Every window has a number displayed at the start of the mode-line and can be accessed using <SPC> number. For instance to go to the window number 2, you can press:

<SPC> 2

Split a window horizontally:

<SPC> w b

Split a window vertically:

<SPC> w v

Close a window:

<SPC> w c

Undo close window:

<SPC> w u

Toggle window dedication (dedicated window cannot be used by a mode):

<SPC> w d

Rotate windows clockwise or counter-clockwise:

<SPC> w r
<SPC> w R

Maximize/minimize a window:

<SPC> w m

Additional text manipulation commands

Text related commands start with x.

To move a line of text up or down:

<SPC> x m k
<SPC> x m j

To swap (transpose) two letters/words/lines:

<SPC> x t c
<SPC> x t w
<SPC> x t l

To make the selected text upper case or lower case:

<SPC> x U
<SPC> x u

To translate a word at point with google translate:

<SPC> x g t

Spell checking

Spell checking commands start with s.

Correct word at point with helm:

<SPC> s c

Go to the next spell check error:

<SPC> s n

Change dictionary language:

<SPC> s d

Color theme

Spacemacs uses this Solarized theme. It is possible to cycle between the light and dark themes with.

<SPC> c t

UI elements

The mode line is a powerline customized to show the window number and to colorize the current editing mode.

Some UI indicators can be toggled on and off:

Fill column indicator for 80 columns wide buffers:

<SPC> t 8

I suggest to not always display it since it slow down Emacs.

Toggle line numbers:

<SPC> t n

Idem, I suggest to display this only if required for performance reason.

Toggle fringe mode:

<SPC> t f

Minor Modes

Spacemacs uses diminish mode to reduce the size of minor mode indicators:

• Ⓐ -> auto-complete mode
• Ⓗ -> auto-highlight-symbol mode
• Ⓒ -> centered-cursor mode
• eⓅ -> e-project mode
• Ⓟ -> projectile mode
• Ⓕ -> flymake mode
• Ⓢ -> flyspell mode
• (Ⓢ) -> smartparens mode
• (Ⓟ) -> paredit mode
• Ⓨ -> yasnippet mode

The minor mode area can be toggled on and off with:

<SPC> t m

Note that in terminal the regular indicators are used instead of the utf-8 ones.

Formatting

Spacemacs leverage paredit in all major modes by using smartparens mode.

To join the current line with the next line:

<SPC> j k

To split the current line at point and auto-indent:

<SPC> j j

To auto-indent the line below the current line and jump to it:

<SPC> j i

<SPC> j k, <SPC> j j and <SPC> j i used together are very powerful.

To split a quoted string (ie. "Hello Emacs Hello Vim" to "Hello Emacs" and "Hello Vim", but nobody wants to do that!):

<SPC> l CTRL+j

Ahah a modifier! It should be the only one.

Errors handling

Spacemacs uses Flycheck to gives error feedback on the fly. The checks are only performed at save time by default.

To go to the next/previous flycheck error:

<SPC> f n
<SPC> f p

To display the list of errors/warnings:

<SPC> f l

Could be great to turn this command into a toggle. By the way l is for lisp.

Various

expand-region mode

initiate expand-region with:

<SPC> v

to expand region:

v

to contract:

V

to reset:

r

narrow region

narrow to a region:

<SPC> n r

widen a region:

<SPC> n w

auto-highlight-symbol mode

toggle the mode:

<SPC> t h

edit all highlighted symbols:

<SPC> h e

and more...

There are sets of key bindings for different major modes I'm using, the convention is to start the major mode key sequences by M.

See my-keybindings.el to explore for more key bindings.

TODO list

• Add a way to easily share/activate/deactivate sets of key bindings for major or minor modes key bindings (maybe by leveraging use-package ?).
• Add support for multiple-cursors mode.