Emacs

I remember, when I first learned it, the Org Manual mentioning I could have code, quotes, poetry and sundry self structured blocks of text, where the text in that block would flow like I wanted it to. I could have indentation or line breaks as I pleased. And then I promptly forgot about it. The only thing I did remember were code blocks. And that I needed to do a #+begin_src and then a #+end_src and put my code in the middle. And all this while, I would keep typing it in, by hand. ...

I often fat fingered the file name / buffer name / Org Roam link name when launching something new. And then when I am busy and knee deep in work, I glance up to see the error glaring at me. I figured out, looked up how to fix it Hit C-x d to flip into a dired buffer Find my filename in the list. (C-s can help search and narrow stuff) Then C-x C-q to go into Wdired mode Change the file name to whatever I want it to C-c C-c to be done with it. Et voilà! (If you are editing an Org Roam node, M-x org-roam-db-sync to keep everything shipshape)1 ...

More diving into Org Mode and Emacs. I have a stuff-to-do.org file, that serves as an inbox for most long term tasks that I want to tackle. Stuff that needs doing, books that I want to buy, books that I want to read, courses that I want to learn, movies or tv shows that I want to watch, stuff on the web that I want to catchup on, etc. etc. etc. ...

I started with a very simple init.el when I started using Emacs. Rather than learning it in a structured manner, I just decided to jump in at whatever end of the pool and figure it out as I go. I may not know Emacs, but I do know what I want out of a general purpose text editor. And bending Emacs to do my will, to do what I want it to do or behave in the manner I want it to behave. And Emacs to my eternal gratitude, is flexible to do all I want, thanks to the last forty six years worth of hard work and ideas of people from all over. ...

Org mode is slowly spreading its tentacles increasingly becoming something, I cannot live without, to manage my day. And I’m getting pretty consistent with it too! Like you see above, I use dates as my headlines, below which I list the various tasks for the day.1 And that’s where I run into my current itch to scratch. ...

Originally published 2021/10/27. Updated to include the .xssessionsrc point I run pretty often into this issue, so this is a checklist for me. Issue being, that I cannot use Compose key sequences to type out the characters I need. Case in point being, the apostrophe ’ and the quote marks “” , ‘’ that I use, all the live long day. Make sure that emacs is running as a service. It runs in your user, so check status with systemctl --user status emacs.service Do the normal computer user thing. Restart the service.systemctl --user restart emacs.service.1 Make sure the system is UTF-8 everywhere. (en_IN.UTF-8 does not work for me. Make sure it’s en_US.UTF-8) One place that Emacs looks is the .xsessionrc file in the home folder. These are the contents of mine. My Emacs refuses to let the compose key sequences work, unless it’s present LC_NUMERIC=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8 LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NAME=en_US.UTF-8 LC_ADDRESS=en_US.UTF-8 LC_TELEPHONE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=en_US.UTF-8 LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8 PAPERSIZE=a4 LANGUAGE=en_US LANG=en_US.UTF-8 if [ $DISPLAY != ":0" ] then export XAUTHORITY=${HOME}/.Xauthority fi This should do the trick 99% of the time. ...