I recently started using Emacs for text editing purposes and was pleasantly surprised. My main goal to learn it was to work efficiently in teams that don’t have a nice local dev environment and you need to have a dev machine running to run, build, and debug your code.
I started with spacemacs because it lets me merge Vim and Emacs bindings and I can choose what’s easier for me to move around in the file/directory I am editing.
Some basics first
Understanding the basic terminology will help make the most out of Spacemacs and allow very effective use.
| Terminology | Description |
|---|---|
| File | A file on the file system |
| Buffer | A container to display a file or other information (file navigation, REPL, data inspector, test report, etc.) |
| Window | Contains a buffer, organises multiple buffers in a frame |
| Frame | Holds one or more windows. Opening another frame gives you another instance of Emacs |
| Status bar | Information about current window and buffer, e.g. window number, buffer mode & name, location of cursor. Also referred to as the mode line. |
| Mini-buffer | A command line for Emacs – shows commands and some results, acts as an interactive prompt for some commands |
Key bindings for spacemacs
C → control
M→ Command (in doom)/ Option in Emacs (need to configure)
SPC→ space
S → shift
shift → shift
Frames
| command | what it does |
|---|---|
| C-X C-F | find a file |
| C-X 2 | horizontal split |
| C-X 3 | vertical split |
| C-X o | change window |
| C-X 1 | delete other windows |
| C-X 0 | delete window |
C-u is universal argument.
C-U 3 C-X o will execute C-X o three times
If you don’t specify a number, it takes four as default.
M-X
describe-key gives you documentation based on what a key binding does. Can also be accessed via
C-h k
describe-function gives you documentation on what the key binding is for a given function. Can be accessed via
C-h f
| command | what it does |
|---|---|
| C-h k | describe-key |
| C-h f | C-h f |
Buffers
Everything in emacs world is a buffer. When you open a file you are essentially creating a pocket of memory to write to that emacs can use to write to disk.
| command | what it does |
|---|---|
| C-x C-b | list buffers |
| M-x rename-buffer | renames buffer |
| C-x k | kills buffer |
| C-x RIGHT | next buffer |
| C-x LEFT | previous buffer |
| C-x C-s | Saves the file |
Working with files
Replacing things
Replace occurrences of FROM-STRING with TO-STRING.
M-x replace-string
Similarly you can also use regexp
with M-x replace-regexp
It replaces things from cursor to end of buffer.
Variations of finding files
C-x C-f
/sudo::/etc/hosts opens the /etc/hosts file with write permissions
/ssh:user@host:/path/to/file opens the file on remote host. Requires ssh keys to have been setup. This opens a readonly buffer. Also requires ssh keys to be already setup.
/ssh:user@host|sudo:host:/path/to/file opens the file on remote host. Requires ssh keys to have been setup. This opens a readonly buffer.Also requires ssh keys to be already setup.
C-x d search in directory
| command | what it does |
|---|---|
| C-x C-f | Opens a new buffer with content from file. Or an empty buffer with given name |
| C-x C-v | find alternate file. Replaces the current buffer with new file |
| C-x C-r | replaces current buffer with a new file(readonly mode) |
| C-x i | insert content from another file to current buffer |
| C-x C-s | ask for file name if non existent, or save existing file. For some reason not working on doom-macs |
Alternatively can use vim binding like <ESC> !wq | | C-x C-w | Like save-as, ask for file name even if buffer sources an existing file | | C-x C-q | toggle read only |
<Space> S P lets you search for a pattern in files
<Space> f t toggles file tree. ? for seeing within dired file tree. Searches in all files
| Keybindings | Description |
|---|---|
| SPC s C | clear helm-swoop own cache |
| SPC s s | execute helm-swoop (search within same file) |
| SPC s S | execute helm-multi-swoop |
| SPC s C-s | execute helm-multi-swoop-all |
| SPC s p | search project |
Dired mode
If you do C-x C-f on a directory you will
you don’t need to press control, just type D to delete a file.
(d) Staged for deletion
(x) Delete staged entries
(u) undo stages
(a) after activation open files or directory in current buffer
(R) rename. note this is Capital R.
(C) copy the current file(you don’t have to press x. Also works on directories)
(!) execute command. You can execute command on particular file/directory, whatever command you type here gets executed on that file/directory
(+) create directory
Move around in file
| command | what it does |
|---|---|
| C-e | move to end of line. <ESC> ^ vim binding. |
| C-a | renames buffer. <ESC> $ vim binding. |
| M – < (requires shift) | move to start of buffer. In vim it is ESC gg |
| M – > (requires shift) | move to end of buffer. In vim it is ESC g |
| C-x LEFT | previous buffer |
| C-s | Isearch-forward the file and find next reference . You can use C-u C-s to do a regexp search over whole document |
| C-u 13 <down arrow> | moves the arrow 13 lines down |
| C-u 13 <up arrow> | moves the arrow 13 lines up |
| C-<space> C-<space> | saves your cursor position |
| C-u C-<space> | go back to save position |
Selecting, Copy paste and delete
| command | what it does |
|---|---|
| C-<space> | Set mark command. You can do in Vim by doing <ESC> v> to go to visual mode and then do select, copy and paste from there. |
| C-w | kill-region. Cut/Delete |
| Additonal notes since in spacemacs <option> is configured as meta key, <Command-C> can copy and <Command-V> can paste | |
| C-k | delete/cut line. In vim done by yy |
| M – w | kill-ring-save. Copy |
| C-y | paste |
| C-x LEFT | previous buffer |
| M-y | replace with previous entry in kill ring. |
| C-x u or C-<shift>-<underscore> | undo |
| M-<shift>-<underscore> | redo |
| C-<delete> | backward-kill-word Deletes the last word. |
additional notes about vim
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| y | copy (yank) selection and add to kill ring |
| x | delete character at point and add to kill ring |
| X | delete character before point and add to kill ring |
| p | paste (put) |
| u | undo |
| Ctrl-r | redo |
Copying (Yanking)
yy– Yank (copy) the current line, including the newline character.3yy– Yank (copy) three lines, starting from the line where the cursor is positioned.y$– Yank (copy) everything from the cursor to the end of the line.y^– Yank (copy) everything from the cursor to the start of the line.yw– Yank (copy) to the start of the next word.yiw– Yank (copy) the current word.y%– Yank (copy) to the matching character. By default supported pairs are(),{}, and[]. Useful to copy text between matching brackets.
Cutting (Deleting)
dd– Delete (cut) the current line, including the newline character.3dd– Delete (cut) three lines, starting from the line where the cursor is positioned,d$– Delete (cut) everything from the cursor to the end of the line.
Pasting (Putting)
To put the yanked or deleted text, move the cursor to the desired location and press p to put (paste) the text after the cursor or P to put (paste) before the cursor.
Look up man pages
M-x man <enter> will give you a prompt to search for the correct man page. this is just a read write text buffer.
C-h shows emacs help menu
b would show the key bindings available.
Terminal Emulator
Shell
M-x shell not a full fledged emulator. Emacs is acting as a dumb shell here. It is a text buffer so you can read, delete file from this.
M-p for going over history of shell
you can even save this shell output <C-X> <C-s> in a file.
terminal
for running a full terminal, use M-x term <Enter>
you can run zsh from this
eshell
it is emacs shell. this is not zsh.
The nice thing with eshell we can do is redirect out put of some commands to some buffer.
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