My Emacs setup

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In January, I switched to the new Meh-Book Pro (typo intended).

Setting up a new laptop is hard because there are too many things to keep track of. Even so, rather than copying the state of my previous laptop to the new one, I decided to do the setup from scratch as this would help for software rejuvenation and getting rid of all the junk that accumulated on my laptop for five years.

(Side remark: A couple years ago, I heard from a top cloud computing expert say that datacenters also gather junk over time. He told me that once during a renovation of a datacenter they discovered servers that are sitting there without any use --that no one knows of--, and throw them out. He had likened the experience to getting rid of defunct stuff when you migrate to a new laptop.)

Anyways, I was stressed about the task, but then I remembered that past Murat has left me notes on how to setup the laptop. Fantastic!

I found out a couple things past-Murat had missed in the instructions. I am noting them here out of courtesy for future-Murat. I am paying it forward.

Install auctex for latex stuff and ispell for the spell checker Emacs uses. brew install ispell --with-lang-en

Don't forget to "brew cask install" the following: slack, filezilla, adblock, tla-plus-toolbox

Add the "home directory" to finder. (Stupid MacOS.)

Disable bluetooth from waking up the laptop to prevent the phone headphone to connect to the sleeping laptop and wake it up. Duh!

Emacs setup

Most of my new notes is about the Emacs setup, where I spent the bulk of my time.

I installed emacs using cask rather than from binary so I get to enjoy the ELPA package-manager support by typing "M-x package-show-package-list".

I had a problem using the previous starter-kit I had and couldn't get it to work. I searched and found kjhealy's kit highly recommended, so I installed that one.

This starter-kit takes care of everything and is easy to install. It sits in my .emacs.d directory. I also create myusername.el in that folder to add my customization.
(global-set-key (kbd "<f1>") 'org-timer-set-timer)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f2>") 'flyspell-auto-correct-word)
;; F3 store macro
;; F4 apply macro
(global-set-key (kbd "<f5>") 'org-schedule)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f6>") 'org-deadline)
;; (global-set-key (kbd "<f7>") 'org-agenda-do-date-earlier) ;; instead use  M -
;; (global-set-key (kbd "<f8>") 'org-agenda-do-date-later) ;; instead use  M +
(global-set-key (kbd "<f7>") 'org-store-link)
(global-set-key (kbd "<f8>") 'org-insert-link)

(global-set-key (kbd "<f12>") 'org-agenda)


I install visual-fill-column, and add this to myusername.el
;; set line width to 80 characters
;; first do this!! M-x package-install visual-fill-column
(setq-default fill-column 80)
(global-visual-line-mode 1)
(global-visual-fill-column-mode 1)
(auto-fill-mode -1)
(remove-hook 'text-mode-hook #'turn-on-auto-fill)
;;shortcut for auto-fill mode on/off
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c w") 'auto-fill-mode)
;; visual-line-mode for handling long lines
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-visual-line-mode)
(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-visual-fill-column-mode)

Yes, I have a lot of junk DNA in that file.


I found that this starter kit uses the zenburn theme. It is nice pastel colors, but I prefer a light background. To be able to load other themes, I found that I need to remove the background and foreground colors in custom.el. Then  "M-x load-theme" works for loading other themes. I use leuven and sometimes anti-zenburn as my light-background Emacs theme.

I know I can open dozens of buffers in one Emacs windows, but I like to keep three Emacs windows open for better organization:
  • one window is for org-agenda and related files to organize my life (for this I still use the zenburn theme as that looks cool in agenda mode)
  • the other two windows are on research projects (for these I use the leuven theme) 


I simplified my pomodoro setup as well. I use <f1> to invoke org-timer-set-timer, and enter how many minutes I want the pomodoro for. I hooked a function to the org-timer-done, and call applescript to vocalize a celebratory message when the timer expires. This follows from the practices recommended in TinyHabits.
;;(defun my-org-timer-hook ()
;;  (sound-wav-play "~/.emacs.d/Bell.wav"))
(defun my-org-timer-hook ()
  (do-applescript "say \"Well done!\""))

 (add-hook 'org-timer-done-hook 'my-org-timer-hook)

 ;; (setq visible-bell nil)
(setq org-clock-sound t) ;; Standard Emacs beep; visible-bell if above commented

I set the timer to 10 minutes most of the time, because that gets me started.  I can keep going with longer durations.

Related post: My Emacs Journey

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