Emacs Configuration

This file was written using Emacs Org Mode. This makes navigating and modifying my Emacs configuration much simpler as I can place different elements of my configuration under separate headings. The code in this file is placed in source code blocks that are tangled to the init.el file that Emacs will look for upon starting. When this file is saved, the source code blocks that are marked for tangling will write their contents to init.el.

The following code block will add a header to the init.el file when it is generated on saving:

;;; init.el --- Emacs initialization file -*- lexical-binding: t -*-

;; Copyright (C) 2022 Thomas Freeman

;; Author: Thomas Freeman
;; Maintainer: Thomas Freeman
;; Keywords: lisp
;; Version: 0.0.1
;; Created: 09 Jan 2022

;; This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
;; the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
;; (at your option) any later version.

;; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
;; GNU General Public License for more details.

;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
;; along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

;;; Commentary:

;; This file is an init file for Emacs.
;;
;; This file is NOT a part of Emacs.
;;
;; This file IS NOT intended to be edited! It was generated by init.org.

;;; URL: https://github.com/tfree87/.emacs.d

;; For documentation and for editing this file, see the init.org in the
;; github repository tfree87/.emacs.d
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

;;; Code:

In order to slightly reduce the load time for Emacs, the whole init.el file can be wrapped in the following let statement to speed up the load process. This can help a little when Emacs is run as a portable app from a flash drive as I often do.See this Reddit post for more information.

(let ((file-name-handler-alist nil))

Since all of the Emacs configuration is in modules, the modules directory and all of its sub-directories must be added to the Emacs load-path.

;; Add modules to Emacs load path

(let ((default-directory "~/.emacs.d/modules/"))
  (normal-top-level-add-subdirs-to-load-path))

I like to use Emacs at work and at home to boost my productivity, but I often find when I am at work or using another computer using Windows and I cannot always install Emacs to the host system. In this case, I run Emacs from a USB thumb drive so that I can still have access to the power of Emacs even when I am not working on my home personal computer. Running Emacs from a thumb drive has some caveats. For instance, if you are running Emacs from a thumb drive on a work computer and you do not have administrator access, then a lot of features will break. This section contains code that can be used to run Emacs.

In order to keep variables set by the customize interface or set during Emacs at runtime from being placed at the top of init.el, I set the variables set from Emacs customize to be put into a separate file ./custom.el.

;; Set the location of variables set using Emacs customize interface

(setq custom-file "~/.emacs.d/custom.el")

Once the file location has been set, Emacs needs to load the custom file. This needs to be done early in the loading process because it contains the addresses for the package repositories. If this is not loaded before refreshing packages and making calls to use-package, then the :ensure command will not be able to pull the packages and install them.

;; Load the file custom.el file containing variables from Emacs customize

(load custom-file)

In this section, I have included customization to replace the default Emacs package manager with straight.el. Some reasons for making this switch are:

1. It is easier to avoid conflicts with different package repositories such as duplicates packages in ELPA and MELPA.
2. I can define a specific fork to use for a specific package to get bug fixes or modifications.
3. The entire package repository is cloned, which, while it takes up a lot of space, allows for editing the source code directly if desired.
4. Github repositories that are not included in ELPA, MELPA, or marmalade can be pulled used in use-package statements.

This section contains many of the tools used at Emacs startup that are helpful when other packages are initialized.

Emacs has many default options that can be changed to make Emacs more productive in a modern computing environment. Changes to the default settings of Emacs can be found in the defaults module.

;; Load Defaults module

(require 'freemacs-defaults)

Modifications to the coding modes for Emacs are defined in the coding module.

;; Load the coding module

(require 'freemacs-project)

(require 'freemacs-coding)

While Emacs has built-in completion systems, the combination of the following tools makes Emacs completion very powerful:

• Vertico
• Orderless
• Cape
• Consult
• Marginalia
• Embark

The configuration of these elements can be found in the completion module.

;; Load the completion module

(require 'freemacs-completion)

Tools for working with Docker and Docker files are included in the docker module. It configures the following packages:

Docker

Manage Docker containers from within Emacs

Docker Compose

Edit docker-compose files in Emacs

;; Load the Docker module

(require 'freemacs-docker)

General editing tools are configured in the Emacs editing module. This includes:

Multiple Cursors

Edit text in multiple locations in the buffer simulaneously

YASnippet

Insert small predefined templates into Emacs

;; Load the editing module

(require 'freemacs-editing)

Elfeed is a news and RSS reader for Emacs. The configuration for Elfeed can be found in the Elfeed module.

;; Load Elfeed newsreader module

(require 'freemacs-elfeed)

Email is managed using the Mu4e package that uses the Mu backend to search through emails that are stored using the Maildir format. The configuration can be found at email module.

;; Load email module

(require 'freemacs-email)

EXWM is a window manager that runs entirely wihtin Emacs. With EXWM, Emacs frames and windows can be used to manage X11 applications. Each X11 application runs in a separate window and can be accessed as a separate buffer using Emacs commands.

;; Load the EXWM module

(require 'freemacs-exwm)

This section contains tools for working with the file system from within Emacs.

Emacs can be used as an environment to create graphs, plots, and diagrams. Configuration for these are found in the graphing module.

Gnuplot

Create plots using Gnuplot in Emacs

PlantUML

Create UML diagrams with PlantUML

;; Load graphing module

(require 'freemacs-graphing)

This section contains customizations for controlling how to navigate between Emacs windows, frames, and buffers.

;; Load session module

(require 'freemacs-session)

This section contains configuration options for terminals in Emacs.

Changes to Emacs appearance and theme can be found in the theme module.

;; Load theme module

(require 'freemacs-theme)

This section contains customizations for Emacs to improve the environment for writing papers, publishing paper and websites, and reading documents.

The help module contains configuration that adds additional tools for help tools in Emacs:

Helpful

Adds extra information to Emacs help buffers

Which-key

Shows a list of key bindings in Emacs for the current major mode

;; Load the help module

(require 'freemacs-help)

Emacs can be run as a server where all other instances of Emacs can connect to it and have access to the same buffers. This also greatly increases the load time of new Emacs instances as Emacs does not have to go through the initialization process again. The configuration of the Emacs server can be found in the server module.

;; Load server module

(require 'freemacs-server)

This section contains custom functions that I have either created myself or borrowed from others to accomplish small tasks.

;; Custom Function Definitions

When running Emacs as a portable app, I want to pull down the latest versions of my org-agenda-files and other Org Mode files onto my USB flash drive (which has been set as the home directory). I also want to make sure to update the remote location when Emacs is killed so that all of my changes will be synced with the cloud and available for use on other systems.

;; Sync Dropbox containing org agenda files on load and close

(when (freemacs/isportable-p)
  (setq rclone-path "~/rclone/rclone.conf")
  (rclone-run-remote-to-local "sync" "~/Dropbox" "dropbox:")
  (add-hook 'kill-emacs-hook (rclone-run-local-to-remote "sync"
                                                         "~/Dropbox"
                                                         "dropbox:")))

Close off the let statement at the beginning of the init file.

(setq gc-cons-threshold 800000)
)

Add a final comment to indicate the end of the file.

(provide 'init)

;;; init.el ends here