emacs intro videos like this, willing to reach down to people who don't know much command-line/linux, willing to take time to explain emacs parlance, is really rare. I am a scientist without programming background trying to establish org-mode as my note system, and I want the author to know that your video is immensely helpful
Absolutely seconded! Interesting to hear you are a scientist interested in using it as a notetaking system, because that's what even non-Linux enthusiasts should benefit from.
Ok. I am 70 years old and a retired software developer. I have never used Emacs. I used vi and various IDEs. I never even THOUGHT of using Emacs, because it was “too hard and complex”. After being retired for the past 6 years and playing guitar in bars and restaurants, I got bored and started studying programming again. I eventually got interested in LISP and began looking for an IDE to use. Surprise! The one I heard the most about was EMACS. So, I’ve been trying to read the several books out there on EMACS and they were a confused jumble. I stumbled across your Channel and saw this Absolute Beginners guide. Your explaination of EMACS (so far) has been FANTASTIC. It is very clear and (once I get my Linux partition set up on my Mac) I will review this and other videos you have published on RU-vid. I feel that in reality, EMACS is actually easy, now. Thank you a million. I’m gonna REALLY have some fun!!! I really love development and your videos have gotten me excited about it again.
Fantastic video. I thought about doing a similar thing for my students, but now I'm just having them watch this. Really digging your style. Thank you!!!!!
Is "Yank" really "Paste" in Emacs? "Yank" was very often used back in the day for text editors - for example Vi/Vim also has "Yank" - but it's always meant "Copy" in those situations, not "Paste". And as a side note; CUA can sometimes be found in other applications too, it stands for "Common User Access".
I was about to hassle the vim guy at work for this, until I found that yank is for rip up or something like that. I agree more to the vim yank than emacs. That said, I guess you could say that you pull the text out of the... ehm... kill ring ? :D
Thanks for the video. Just a small query- when talking about keybindings you have “C-M-s” as an example. Since M is also ESC shouldn’t this more precisely be written “M-C-s” as the former implies pressing CTRL and ESC then (unclear whether you’d continue to hold CTRL or not or even whether you’d even release ESC) hitting s, rather than pressing and releasing ESC then hitting C-s? I hope that makes sense!
10/10 for enthusiasm and generosity of spirit in sharing, 10/10 for presentation, but I'm afraid 3/10 for pedagogy. Slow down, stop rushing away with your ideas, break things into small, doable chunks, and please explain the archaic Emacs terminology - "buffers", "C [Control key]", "M [Meta/Alt]", modes etc. I mean this criticism to be constructive and helpful from a very experienced teacher with 35+ years of experience teaching university and senior high school IT and Physics. I love Emacs but haven't used it for over 10 years, (mostly for R-CRAN, & LaTex editing with AUCTeX). Keep up the good work. 😎
I found a way to prevent Emacs from resizing my frame, but each time I use the minibuffer, it resizes the frame automatically. How can we prevent this behavior?
after messing with the idea of Emacs for the past . . . 17 years or so, dating back to 2007, SOMETHING is still OFF and doesNT quite add up with its ecosystem :( Anyone else feels the same ? Is it perhaps the lack of rich Gui buttons/toolbars or . . . ??
Thank you very much. Learning software engineering and learning emacs is part of our curriculum. Your explanation was very clear for a newbie like me. Thanks.
Fantastic! I learned the very basics of Emacs around 5 years ago as I was teaching myself C and wanted an oldschool editor. I tend to move between projects and hobbies so it kinda got put to the side and I was exploring other editors, such as VS Code which is really good... but I found I really missed Emacs so I've come back, but suddenly realised I'd forgotten all the bindings lol! So I came to youtube for help and you didn't disappoint, fantastic tutorial, over an hour but it flew by!
How do you change the area around the address bar which is also the top of the windows to be dark mode too? I turned on dark mode on emacs and it only turns the middle and bottom area dark grey but not the top. So how do you make the top dark too? Someone HELP PLEASE
The only video that makes me want to give emacs a try. Well explained, now I understand that emacs is not a text editor in the first place. It's just like Graphical version of Terminal. The evolution of the Terminal.
It is an editor. As an absolute beginner, I want to know: How to open or create a file for editing. How to navigate within that file. How to add or change text. How to save the changes. How to exit the editor. That is it. I am not asking to be drowned in details not relevant to the above actions. Except for installation, the rest is for later.
Emacs is more than just an editor and has many concepts and features that are different than other programs one might encounter. I covered things that I consider basic essential information that people will need to know, especially when coming from other editors or IDEs.
@@SystemCrafters I appreciate that you have vast experience, and I have heard those amazing things about it. I am happy you make your videos. Maybe after a few months of editing files, I will be ready for this video. Maybe you meant intermediate beginner? One day I will be ready to play with more advanced use. I will remember you and these videos then.
I've been using emacs since around 1987. I worked at a company in the 90s writing accounting software. First day on the job, without thinking, I typed "emacs" on my (dumb) terminal. I say "cool, emacs!" Guy in the next cubicle says "you know emacs!?" Lots of emacs nerding out ensued. But over the years I took a break, and this video was great at helping me get back my emacs chops!
Thanks again, David, for publishing such a beginner level video. You have explained the basics very well. I guess I have now finally understood the relationships between buffer, window, and frame. Thumbs up!
People are focusing on the incredible and well explained video but are missing the main point: good lord that org mode font you are using is absolutely gorgeous ! Which one is it?
There's some really psychotic advice in the official Emacs tutorial, like how you should spend time practicing C-f/b/n/p instead of the arrow keys because it will make you so much more productive. It's like they're trying to alienate the maximum amount of people they can.
I watched this with the intention to skip through it because it's such a long video, unfortunately/fortunately it was full of great information so I didn't want to skip anything!
Thanks for the very detailed video! Appreciate in particular that you have 2 versions of emacs side by side (fully cutomized, and default), which must be great for newcomers, who hope for the former, and face the later. Downloaded your config, it is clear, well organized, and thorough... a pleasure, I recommend...
About the slashes.... English is read left-to-right. So imagine your slash as a stick-figure person walking in a very strong wind. If the person is making progress, he's leaning forward into the wind; this is the forward slash / . If the wind is too strong, it's blowing the person backwards; this is the backslash \ .
Thanks so much for the tutorial. I am learning SICP with scheme in Drracket, but wanted more powerful Linux based code editor that I could customize. Emacs looked like the perfect candidate, and so far it is great.
In my humble opinion, you are too fast and you donnot explain each step, it's like you are just informing us about the existence of emacs but not teaching us how to use it. Again my opinion!
big Thanks for this /and others/ video! EMACS is awesome! from now EMACS is my Friend. Sic Im on start line but i will continue, thanks one more time SystemCrafters! Have a happy days!
I've been searching the web to see what is Emacs with no luck. It seems to be a text editor, though for so many million hits it must be something else.
I think the reason Shift+arrow keys wasn't allowing you to select text in CUA Mode (Common User Access Mode) is that Org Mode overrules even the CUA Mode settings, since Org Mode uses Shift+arrows for other things (changing TODO states). If you try it in an Elisp file, it works.
Man this video is absolutely amazing. I have been using Vim for almost 6 months now, so I got very used to it. But I also wanted to try Emacs as well, I can't stick to Vim because I just liked it, I might like Emacs even more. The thing is, starting was not as easy as in Vim. It was very easy for me to start learning Vim because I found many great tutorials for absolute beginners to explain the core concepts. When I tried to find such a thing for Emacs, it literally took me three days searching for something good, until I found this video. So thank you so much. I will definitely checkout the "Emacs from Scratch" series, very excited to learn Emacs!
Hey Ameer, I'm really happy that you found it and that it was useful for you! Once you get to the third episode of the Emacs From Scratch series, you will feel right at home with evil-mode
@@johnsMITHhhhhh88 This channel helped me a lot getting started with Emacs. And I really liked it. I still prefer Vim and use it as my main editor for most things. But for example I use Emacs for anything Lisp-related. But regardless if you will use it practically after you learn it or not, I think it's still a great idea to give it a try.
I am interested in Linux and the world of cloud and data analytics. I have heard of people debating between vim and emacs. I used vim as a terminal text editor but could not figure out the keybindings for the life of me. I would always go back to using 'nano' in terminal. Consequently - I looked up emacs and your video is very straight-forward and I see there is so much more to emacs than just a terminal interface, the fact it has a GUI and many more features is astounding. It also makes for a very aesthetically pleasing pdf viewer.
Yank in Vim is Copy(and add to Register) and Delete is cut "Kill" so maybe it is because they copy Yank from something before them both ?? and Put is paste
My understanding is that the confusion is caused by the different frame of reference we have in mind. According to the Oxford dictionary, yank just means "pull with a jerk". It doesn't imply where are you pulling from. In Emacs, you are pulling from the kill ring and put the pulled out text into the buffer. In Vim, you are pulling from the buffer into a ... register, I guess. The other confusion is whether the thing you pull is a copy or not. Does the pulled thing stays where you pulled it from? In the real world it doesn't...
I have one hint for Emacs/Vim users: rebind your Caps Lock to Left Control Key. It will be really helpfull. Typing many words in capital letters isn't frequent, and you can ease your fingers with this.
Years ago, I flunked out of a Math degree, but my first proper CS lessons were in DrRacket. Although I didn't make it for other reasons, the exposure to the functional-ish paradigm of lisp dialects was the biggest thing that helped me understand computer science. I've gone back to school and am taking a second swing at a CS-adjacent career now, and remembering how much learning Racket helped me, my big extracurricular project has been to learn Common Lisp. Seems like SLIME is a must, and of course Emacs is a must for that. I've been looking for MONTHS for a proper tutorial that could help me tackle the UI that's so unintuitive for a Windows 98 baby like me. But the great things I've heard about Emacs kept me looking, and I'm glad I found a tutorial for honest-to-god know-nothing beginners like myself :) Thanks boss!
you can get by quite well with 2 hands still, if u remap your Caps Lock to Ctrl! otherwise, I know a good organ shop, where you can buy good quality second hand hands. they usually come from vim users ;)
If only there was someone who was able to give the VERY beginnings of how to use Emacs some clarity. Over 30 years experience with Zmacs, MCL, CCL (all now unsupported and community-less) so forced to explore Emacs/Slime/SBCL. Starting with basic Emacs (v28.1) app on Mac. All documentation and videos seem to assume that everyone already knows the fundamentals of how to drive Emacs. Like having to drive a car ... been there, done that, for many years. But instead of ignition key in door, then in hard-to-find slot by steering column, ... gear lever, pedals, ... All seem to assume that everyone already knows how to wave a cybernetic hand in the ether in just the right gesture to evoke some invisible holographic interface. Still totally stumped by Emacs culture in 2022.
To prevent Emacs from resizing your window: Options > Customize Emacs > Specific Option Enter 'frame-inhibit-implied-resize' Click on 'Value Menu' button and select 'Always' Click on 'Apply and Save'
Thanx for this helpful video. I really was stucked with Emacs but you helped me to understand it well. but I have a problem, I used this command to install emacs on my macOs and forgot to add --cask, how can I uninstall it and install it again?
Hey, can I directly pest my screenshots in emacs? Actually, I want to create a note but I have to save my screenshot at first and then manually set the path to org-mode. It will be better if I directly pest the image from the clip code. please make a video or give the solution about it.
I want to use emacs to search through computer scripts ( .R and .sas files) in a folder. Is this possible and have you done a video on how to use emacs for string searches selected drives on the desktop?
Using emacs is like someone chopping your fingers off and rearranging them in the most uncomfortable way possible without the fingers losing functionality
people say you save time by not using the mouse or by using obscure key bindings that don't require much hand movement. I call BS on that. you don't spend your time moving your hands, that takes half a second. you spend your time thinking on how to write, checking what you wrote or waiting for some compiler. all the obscure key bindings do is force you to spend even more time learning them, or thinking about how to perform some editing task instead of just doing it in some intuitive fashion.
You call this an absolute beginners guide? How do you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? “I’m going to show you this software but I’m not going to show you how you can achieve the same thing.” When I open a terminal and type emacs I don’t get the graphical user interface. Why? How do I access the gui emacs? If your going to teach Absolute Beginners stop skipping simple stuff. ADHD is not an excuse.
You know, it's possible to ask a simple question without insulting the intentions and effort of another person. Also, you're going to need to provide more details before I can even begin to help you, unfortunately I'm not a psychic. What operating system did you install Emacs on? How did you install it?
Why not start with practical stuff like: There is.a tutorial built in here is how you access it Or This is how you.write, save and edit text files . Hand holding is what absolute beginners need.
As an example: Chess When you have a chess rating of 1000, The book “Reassess Your Chess”, Can’t help you because it is written for chess rattings 1600 to 2100. Your an IM programmer so you understand 2600 level programming.I’m struggling to understand what is simple from your perspective. In Emacs only,: 1. Where is the file on the system? 2. Open the file in emacs 3. Edit the file 4. Save the file 5. Move the file 6. Identify the location of the moved file. A tutorial that teaches this will provide the absolute beginner a method to use Emacs for regular tasks being done with terminal and nano.
Thank you for taking the time to produce these videos. I really like your delivery. However, as what often occurs in many videos is the absolutely annoying background music. Your voice alone is fantastic. Is there anyway to produce videos without that awful background music? Or, a way for the listener to turn it off? Each moment between background songs, where it’s only you talking is a pleasure, only to be ruined with the subtle buildup of those horrendous musical notes tapping me on the shoulder, competing for my attention needlessly.
