Prettifying Org-Mode Code Blocks for Presentations

Org-Mode code blocks are verbose and lovable for literate programming. Rasmus wants to use the raw literate document for a presentation though, so that verbosity won’t do. He explains here how to prettify code blocks. The value-add here is that he doesn’t have to weave (export) the document for it to look great in the presentation; it already does directly in the Emacs buffer.

(Screencast) The Best Emacs Modifier Key Setup for OS X

Here is an easy way to use both Emacs and OS X modifier keys when you are inside Emacs:

Toggle the right-option and function key to switch between using them inside Emacs and using them for OS X.

Addendum: <2016-06-08 Wed 08:22>

I used Karabiner to make ENTER send LEFT CONTROL when chorded. I used OS X to make CAPS LOCK be CONTROL. I didn’t change OPTION and COMMAND. I made this change because Emacs couldn’t ignore the key-event when it was coming from Karabiner.

Here is the code:

(help/on-osx
 (setq mac-control-modifier 'control)
 (setq mac-right-control-modifier 'left)
 (setq mac-command-modifier 'meta)
 (setq mac-right-command-modifier 'left)
 (setq mac-option-modifier 'super)
 (setq mac-right-option-modifier 'left)
 (setq mac-function-modifier 'hyper)
 (defun help/toggle-mac-right-option-modifier ()
   "Toggle between passing option modifier either to Emacs or OS X."
   (interactive)
   (let ((old-ropt mac-right-option-modifier))
     (setq mac-right-option-modifier
           (if (eq mac-right-option-modifier 'left)
               'none
             'left))
     (message "Toggled `mac-right-option-modifier' from %s to %s."
              old-ropt
              mac-right-option-modifier)))
 (defun help/toggle-mac-function-modifier ()
   "Toggle between passing function modifier either to Emacs or OS X."
   (interactive)
   (let ((old-func mac-function-modifier))
     (setq mac-function-modifier
           (if (eq mac-function-modifier 'hyper)
               'none
             'hyper))
     (message "Toggled `mac-function-modifier' from %s to %s."
              old-func
              mac-function-modifier))))

Ëmäcs and the Heavy Metal Umlaut

Jon’s article reveals the Möglichkeiten for inputting umlauts in Emacs. Maybe you’ve been avoiding some words because they are difficult to input. In particular, maybe you’ve been avoiding using the Metal umlaut.

For example:

  • Motörhead (RIP Lemmy)
  • Mötley Crüe
  • Queensrÿche (Version 1)
  • Blue Öyster Cult

It seems perfectly natural to apply to Emacs, christening it:

Ëmäcs

Give it some time to grow on you, because Magnar Sveen has already established that Ëmäcs Rocks!

Addendum: <2016-04-16 Sat>

Re-published because I broke my RSS feed syndicated for Planet Emacsen and @hober fixed it. Thank you @hober.

Ortho-Linear Emacs and VI Keyboard Design 8

For creating key-binding name-spaces (key-spaces), modifier keys, key-chords (single and dual key) and Hydras each have unique strengths. For my use case, I wanted a bigger modifier key-space so I started there with Super.

Although Super is supposed to be reserved non-native packages, it is already getting scarfed up because the native key-spaces are painfully overcrowded. To top it off, when you run Emacs on Windows, Windows intercepts a bunch of key-presses for itself and never sends them to Emacs. Yea you can disable some, but not all and it is irritating. For my configuration, this is a showstopper issue and all of workaround are too painful. I enjoy using modifier keys, so I turned to Hyper.

Continue reading “Ortho-Linear Emacs and VI Keyboard Design 8”

Switch to nlinum Immediately

A lot of headings in your Org-Mode file can make Emacs unusably slow when you collapse all of them.

My original solution was to avoid collapsing them with #+STARTUP: showeverything. Major problem with that approach is that you still can’t use collapsing because if you do, Emacs because again unusable.

Months ago I switched to nlinum and now there are no more performance issues, even on the largest file that I work on.

A Book Produced Using Org

Via:

I am happy to share with fellow Orgers my recent book — Ending Malnutrition: from commitment to action — published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome and Tulika Books, New Delhi (http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4921e.pdf), The book was written and produced entirely in Org.

This would not have been possible without the terrific support provided by this community. Over the last few months, I have come to this mailing list with several queries about how to do something or the other, and people have very patiently provided solutions and suggestions.

I would like to thank everyone for their patience and their support.

Vikas


From acknowledgements of the book:

In addition, for all the statistical work and writing, the authors relied on R (www.r-project.org), org (www.orgmode.org), and LaTeX. All three are open source projects, freely made available by very vibrant communities of developers. During the course of the work, we often drew on support from these communities.

ADDEUNDUM: <2015-09-21 Mon>

The author just released the source code for the book!

Literate DevOps: My OS X Development System

Setting up a development system is a non-trivial investment.

This document captures the steps required and automates as much as possible. The project has other formats, too.

The Style Guide is a must read for the operator.

Org-Mode converted this manual, tedious, and error prone task to a semi-automated, nearly reproducible, and error-less process, for me. This document has never been beta tested; I am it’s only user.