SlowValue

joined 2 years ago
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How do I Install Emacs to the Host that I Built in a Virtual Machine? in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

creating a virtual machine build environment so I didn't have to litter my main computer with 100s of packages to build emacs.

That's is a good idea! Despite what all others say. I'm doing this since years with my Linux box(es).

But you need to know, that self compiled programms should be stored below the filesystem tree /usr/local/.
There is a tool called stow, it has a package in most Linux distributions.
Install stow into host and VM and create a directory /usr/local/stow/ in both (host an VM).
When compiling Emacs or other programs use the --prefix option of configure. E.g. cd emacs-src; ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/emacs-v29.1. Then compile Emacs and install it in the virtual machine. After that, tar the folder /usr/local/stow/emacs-v29.1 and unpack it onto the host into the same directory. Then change dir into /usr/local/stow and run sudo stow emacs-v29.1. Maybe you need to install some libraries onto the host, use ldd /usr/local/bin/emacs to see, what libs you need. Then you are ready to use emacs. It is possible to have multiple versions of emacs installed and only one needs to be "activated" via stow.

calc's elisp function documentation. in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks for your answer, though it does not help me with the issue (read below , why). I updated my question with screenshots.

What you call online documentation is just the package manual.

I wrote "on-line" within quotation marks. What I called "on-line" documentation is the function documentation (aka docstring). But I feared, when I would use function documentation every one would point me to the official calc manual ...
"On-line documentation" is (imho) just 1980s terminology for documentation readable within the program.

[...] helpful [...] puts links to the calc manual in the function documentation [...].

I updated my Question with screenshots, those screenshots are intended to make it more clear. Using helpful's WWW link in an emacs help buffer is like walking to the public library and reading a book (for my intended use case). (Don't get me wrong, reading a book from a public library is nice, I'm glad such things are possible.)

2
calc's elisp function documentation. (alien.top)
 

Calc'c elisp functions (imho) all have the prefix calcFunc-. So in order to use a calc function like vlen in an org table lisp formula, one could use calcFunc-vlen. That's nice.

What bothers me is the lack of "on-line" documentation (i.e. usable with eldoc or completion frameworks).

All calc functions are nicely documented here: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.html , thats good.

It is possible to modify a elisp's function documentation. e.g. like so:

(put 'calcFunc-vlen 'function-documentation
     "Computes the length of a vector.
The length of a non-vector is considered to be zero.
Note that matrices are just vectors of vectors for the purposes of this command.")

Now calcFunc-vlen would have a nice "on-line" documentation, usable with C-h f, autocompletion and eldoc.

Has anyone already bothered to gather some of those strings from the manual, in a more machine processable form? So I could save some work to create "on-line" documentation of the calc functions?

How can swiper or some other search be restricted to a range of columns in a buffer? in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the explanation, that possibility did not cross my mind, since I'm used to use swiper. :)

TIL
So then it is / n.

How rewarding learning Elisp can be? in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 2 points 2 years ago

Let me cite RMS to answer that:

The editor itself was written entirely in Lisp. Multics Emacs proved to be a great success—programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they could do useful things and they learned to program.

source: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html

Programming in elisp is fun, too. Since it's (typical for Lisp!) interactive programming features.

How can swiper or some other search be restricted to a range of columns in a buffer? in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What is the meaning of that?
Just typing this at the swiper prompt searches for /-n....

Request for help fixing a font display issue with Emacs 29.1, X11 in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

This is for documentation, in case someone else has a similar problem.

I sort of worked around Emacs weird choosing of fonts, since I do not know the real problem. Maybe it is a bug?

I put following in my init.el (I'm not fully satisfied, yet):

  (set-fontset-font "fontset-startup" '(#x2190 . #x21fe) "-misc-fixed-*-*-*--*-*-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1") ;; unicode arrows
  (set-fontset-font "fontset-startup" #x2026 "-misc-fixed-*-*-*--9-90-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1") ;; the …

Docs say it is possible to define a fontset in .Xresources, but I did not try.

You can check your current fontset via M-x describe-fontset.

My configuration uses fontset-startup primarily and fontset-default as fallback. So I modified fontset-startup.

The codepoint for characters (required second parameter for set-fontset-font) can be retrieved via C-u C-x =. All that is documented in the Emacs manual, btw.

Test if those settings work, by opening a org-mode buffer and using bold (*TEST*) and italic (/TEST/) on characters you want to test.

1
Request for help fixing a font display issue with Emacs 29.1, X11 (alien.top)
 

Screenshot: https://0x0.st/Hwru.jpg

In this Screenshot you see the frames of two Emacs processes. The left frame has been started by emacs -q, while the right frame has been started by emacs -Q. So no personal configuration (besides .Xresources) is used. The version is Emacs 29.1., X11, Linux.

The left frame shows the font I'd like to use, and used since many years with Emacs already. But the left frame also shows a "distorted" display of example characters. The important character is …. It is clearly visible in this screenshot, that Emacs changes the font (glyph?) to display this character if the character needs to be rendered in bold. (similar things happen to other characters or itallic)

Each frame has 3 windows. The top window shows an org buffer with various characters.

The second from top window is the output of what-cursor-position, of the normal rendered character.

The bottom window shows the output of what-cursor-position with a bold character where Emacs changed the font to display this character. (This lines are much wider and taller, even though they contain the same number of monospaced letters.)

Emacs did not had this behavior of changing fonts to display certain characters in versions v28.x and older (at least I never noticed it). I did not change OS installed packages, fonts, setting and stuff, so I'm pretty sure it's an Emacs v28.x to v29.1 related change.

What can I do to make Emacs behave like in older versions, i.e. not changing fonts to display those characters?

I tried various things (i.e. disabling HarfBuzz), but I am clueless what I need to configure.

I know that the problematic setting is a *font: line in my .Xresources file. But finding a suitable font was some time consuming frustrating process, because I didn't like other fonts for various (mostly readability or size) reasons.

TL;DR: Question: how can I make Emacs v29.1 to not change fonts to display certain characters?

Ivy/counsel results order in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

Not sure how plain ivy sorts its candidates, but do you have by chance any additional package installed? A package, which re-sorts the candidate list? A Package like prescient, smex, flx, historian, ...?

Why the journey of learning Emacs and Elisp in 2023 is so hard ? in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

regarding Elisp:
Consider using and contributing to the packages helpful and/or elisp-demos.

Can Emacs do this? – Yes, Emacs can do this in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

Here is a video showing two more variants:

https://0x0.st/HJF3.mkv

ISEARCH tips, settings, options and uses (Advanced Topic) in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

Yes isearch is powerful, but you have to learn and remember its keybindings, because if you don't: isearch quits (and I need to start that search at the beginning).

Isearch's help C-h b doesn't make it better, because I would need to scroll that long list in the help window, but if I do so .... isearch quits.

Therefore I installed the package isearch-mb (*) and used easy-menu to add a drop down menu for isearch. Now, if I can't remember an isearch keybinding, I am able to look at the menu bar, without isearch quitting.

(*) As always with Emacs: there are other ways to solve that.

Emacs 29, native-comp, why jit compiling same files on every start? in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

thanks!

I found this: https://lists.gnu.org/r/bug-gnu-emacs/2023-07/msg01135.html

From above link:
Those files have set no-byte-compile to t, but Emacs needs to open those files (and reports it) in order to see this setting.

So, setting native-comp-jit-compilation-deny-list won't do any harm here. I will use it to suppress this messages.

3
Emacs 29, native-comp, why jit compiling same files on every start? (alien.top)
 

With every start of Emacs 29, native comp starts compiling the files cl-loaddefs.el and tramp-loaddefs.el, but I can't find corresponding *.eln files in (all) native-lisp directories. (Native compiling other (internal & extra) packages works, it is not an issue with access rights.)

What is the use of that behavior?

I could disable that native jit compiling, by putting following line in my early-init.el

(setq native-comp-jit-compilation-deny-list '(".*-loaddefs.el.gz"))

Would that break some facilities within Emacs, if I do so?

Casting spells in PlantUML as a wizard in org babel to translate words to graph in c/emacs@communick.news
[–] SlowValue@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You got me interested, but I never worked with ob-plantuml before. I'd like to try it myself.

Could you please give a full working example? One with org-block arguments and working export to latex/pdf.
Or link a tutorial?

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