Now that I have customised my emacs extensively, the default configuration is quite uncomfortable for me to use. I have a file called my-defaults.el which is the bare minimum I need to make using emacs a pleasant experience. If I have to sit down at your emacs session, I will probably need to cut and paste these into a temp buffer and call M-x eval-region .

I’ve mentioned some of these modifications before.

I always always use ido and uniquify. Ido makes it so nice for finding files and switching buffers, I now find the default behaviour surprising and sometimes even catch myself waiting for the options to appear.

( require ' ido ) ( require ' uniquify )

flex-matching is a given of course, and I don’t like being prompted unnecessarily for new buffers – I’m always creating them.

(ido-mode t) (setq ido-enable-flex-matching t) (setq ido-create-new-buffer 'always)

The way emacs deals with identically named files by default is poor, but it is great that it is so easy to fix.

(setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'reverse) (setq uniquify-separator "|" ) (setq uniquify-after-kill-buffer-p t) (setq uniquify-ignore-buffers-re "^\\*" )

Since emacs23, fonts now look great. This is from my windows config. Other folks have written about beautifying emacs for other OSes. I summarised those posts here.

(set-default-font "-outline-Consolas-normal-r-normal-normal-14-97-96-96-c-*-iso8859-1" )

It should be obvious what most of these do. The most important ones are setting yes-or-no-p to accept y or n rather than forcing me to type yes<RETURN> and removing the toolbar. Actually no, scratch that, these are all important. (Emacs23 has some of these set by default).

(global-font-lock-mode 1) (setq inhibit-splash-screen t) (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration 3) (setq use-file-dialog nil) (setq use-dialog-box nil) (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p) (tool-bar-mode -1) (show-paren-mode 1) (transient-mark-mode t) (setq case-fold-search t) (blink-cursor-mode 0)

It took me ages to figure out how to prevent emacs converting a bunch of spaces into tabs. And of course, the scrollbar should always be on the right.

(custom-set-variables '(scroll-bar-mode 'right) '(indent-tabs-mode nil))

Where am I?

(line-number-mode 1) (column-number-mode 1)

Keep emacs backup files in one place. This is from my windows config again.

(push '( "." . "c:/home/jared/.emacs-backups" ) backup-directory-alist)

And make it so that when I copy a region, that gets sent to the OS clipboard.

(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t) (setq interprogram-paste-function 'x-cut-buffer-or-selection-value)