Castlemacs: modern, minimalist Emacs for macOS

Castlemacs: modern, minimalist Emacs for macOS ⌘

Quick Start | Changelog

Features

• Compatibility with common macOS keybindings
• Ergonomic keybindings that follow simple, sensible rules
• Easy windows management and movement
• Easy movement between points in the file and between files
• Multiple cursors, project manager, Git front end, file tree, terminal
• Handy spellchecker, built-in thesaurus and word definition lookup
• A handful of tiny, useful helper functions

Quick Start

brew install the_silver_searcher aspell
mv ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.bak
git clone https://github.com/freetonik/castlemacs ~/.emacs.d

Table of Contents

Intro

Emacs is

an extensible, customizable text editor

a framework for creating any text editor you want. The goal of Castlemacs is to build a simple, modern and minimalist Emacs setup tailored to macOS while following these

Core principles

1. Be beginner-friendly . Anyone should be able to start using Castlemacs just like they can start using VS Code, Sublime, etc.
2. Respect macOS. Common system-wide keybindings work as you expect.
3. Respect Emacs. Never break vanilla Emacs compatibility. Always provide a way to go “full Emacs” if user so desires.
4. No layers of complexity. No custom configuration layers, no DSL, nothing new. Simple init.el , packages installed and configured via use-package .
5. Go minimal when possible . For example, use lightweight avy instead of full-featured Helm .

FAQ

Is Castlemacs compatible with non-macOS systems? Yes! Nothing binds Castlemacs to macOS except for some conventions. As long as you have some key on your keyboard that can play a role of Super (e.g. windows key), you’re good to go.

I don’t know Emacs. Can I use Castlemacs or is it hard? . You don’t need to know Emacs, but it will help. The goal of this project is to make a setup that is suitable for absolute beginners.

Is this similar to Spacemacs? No. Spacemacs is a big, custom distribution with additional layers on top of Emacs. Castlemacs is simply a pre-configured Emacs. You don’t need to learn anything new if you know your way around Emacs.

Will Castlemacs support <something>? Probably, unless it goes against the Core Principles. Feel free to open an issue.

Does this setup work well in the terminal? It works, but it is not built for terminal use, since one of the Core Principles is to behave like a native macOS application.

Why is it called Castlemacs? See Why this name?

Installation

Install Emacs

Best option : download the binary from here . Here is the direct link to download version 26.1-mac-7.1 , which is the latest version as of today (Sep 19, 2018).

Unzip and move the file to Applications , just like any other mac app.

Alternative option 1 : Install Emacs via brew. This will build Emacs from source. It might take some time and can possibly fail.

brew tap railwaycat/emacsmacport
brew install emacs-mac

Alternative option 2 : Install Emacs via brew cask.

brew tap railwaycat/emacsmacport
brew cask install emacs-mac

Why not “official” build?

A canonical version of Emacs for macOS can be found at https://emacsformacosx.com/ . However, this version has a number of disadvantages:

org-protocol

Install dependencies

Castlemacs relies on The Silver Searcher to quickly search within a project. Install it:

brew install the_silver_searcher

Castlemacs requires aspell , a Free and Open Source spell checker. Install it:

brew install aspell

Install Castlemacs

Backup current Emacs config (if exists), then clone Castlemacs from Github:

mv ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.bak
git clone https://github.com/freetonik/castlemacs ~/.emacs.d

Launch Emacs and wait for several minutes. On the first launch it will download and install packages. When it’s done and the status line in the bottom stops outputting text, restart Emacs.

Don’t worry about warning messages on the first launch, they will go away after first restart.

Setup keyboard

I highly recommend changing Caps Lock to Control by going to System Preferences → Keyboard → Modifier Keys. This way you will have a more comfortable Control under your left pinky.

Usage

Modifier keys

Castlemacs takes advantage of two facts:

Command
Super

So, Command key becomes Super

Name On Mac keyboard Emacs key Super Command ⌘ s Meta Left Alt ⌥ M Control Control ⌃ C

In this document we’ll refer to keys with their common macOS names: Cmd, Alt, Ctrl.

Basics

Basic combinations with Command work as expected.

Binding Description Emacs default Escape Cancel current action C-g Cmd-z Undo c-_ Cmd-Shift-z Redo N/A Cmd-s Save file C-x C-s Cmd-Shift-s Save file as C-x C-w Cmd-o Open file C-x C-f Cmd-a Select whole buffer C-x h Cmd-q Quit Emacs C-x C-c Cmd-Shift-p Open command palette M-x Ctrl-x c Open config file N/A

Navigation

Basic movement

Buttons I, J, K, L form a natural alternative to arrow keys. You can move around by holding Cmd while using these keys, without leaving the home row (press Cmd with your right thumb).

(See http://tonsky.me/blog/cursor-keys/ for some background and motivation.)

Binding Description Emacs default Alternative Cmd-i Go up C-p Arrow UP Cmd-k Go down C-n Arrow DOWN Cmd-j Go left C-b Arrow LEFT Cmd-l Go right C-f Arrow RIGHT

Moving text

Hold Alt to move current line up or down. This is sometimes called “bubbling”.

Binding Description Alt-UP Move line up Alt-DOWN Move line down

Simple jumping within text

Cmd or Fn with arrows work just like everywhere else in macOS. Holding Shift selects the region under movement.

Binding Description Emacs default Cmd-LEFT Beginning of line† C-a Cmd-RIGHT End of line C-e Cmd-UP Beginning of buffer M-< Cmd-DOWN End of buffer M-> Fn-UP Page up C-v Fn-DOWN Page down M-v Fn-Alt-UP Page up other window C-M-v Fn-Alt-DOWN Page down other window C-M-S-v

† “Beginning of line” is a smart command. It moves cursor to the first non-whitespace character. Press it again, and it moves cursor to the real beginning of line. You can keep pressing it to jump cursor between those two positions.

Smart jumping within buffer and between buffers

Many commands in Emacs write the current position into a mark ring. For example, if you were editing line 6, then performed a search with Cmd+f , did something and want to come back, press Cmd+,= to go back to line 6. =Cmd+. to go forward.

Binding Description Emacs default Cmd-⸴ Go to prev. mark C-u SPC Cmd-. Go to next mark N/A Cmd-< Go to prev. buffer C-x LEFT Cmd-> Go to next buffer C-x RIGHT

Holding Shift ‘lifts’ the meaning of this movement, and instead of jumping to a previous/next position in the current buffer, it jumps to a previous/next buffer in current window.

Search and replace

Binding Description Emacs default Cmd-f Search in file C-s Cmd-r Visual replace N/A Cmd-Alt-f Visual replace N/A

Editing

Words and lines

Binding Description Emacs default Cmd-RET New line below N/A Cmd-Shift-RET New line above N/A Cmd-/ Comment line C-x C-; Cmd-j Join with next line or join all lines in region N/A Alt-u Upcase current word or region M-u (same) Alt-l Downcase current word or region M-l (same) Alt-c Capitalize word M-c (same)

Deleting text

Binding Description Emacs default Alt-BACKSPACE Delete word backwards N/A Alt-Shift-BACKSPACE Delete word forwards M-d Cmd-BACKSPACE Delete current line N/A Ctrl-k Delete to end of line Ctrl-k Ctrl-d Delete character Ctrl-d

Multiple cursors

Binding Description Cmd-d Select next occurrence† Cmd-Shift-d Select all occurrences Alt-Cmd-d Add cursor to each line in region

† When no text is selected, Cmd-d adds new cursor to the next line.

While multiple cursors are active:

Binding Description C-g or ESC Quit multiple cursors mode Ctrl-’ Hide/show lines where cursors are active Ctrl-v and Alt-v Scroll the screen to center on each cursor

Learn about all features of multiple cursors at https://github.com/magnars/multiple-cursors.el

Indentation

Emacs is pretty good at indenting stuff automatically. Pressing TAB on a line or region will indent it as needed. Castlemacs assumes that we never use tabs, only spaces, and use 2 spaces by default in most languages.

Binding Description TAB Indent current line or region correctly C-x TAB Rigidly change indentation of line or region

Region

Command with apostrophe expands selection. Holding shift contracts it.

Binding Description Cmd-’ Expand region Cmd-Shift-’ Contract region

Window Management

Note that in Emacs-talk, a pane is called a window .

Splitting windows

These bindings are based on default Emacs conventions, but save you one keypress. Also, Cmd-w closes current window just like a browser tab.

Binding Description Emacs default Cmd-1 Kill other windows C-x 1 Cmd-2 Split horizontally C-x 2 Cmd-3 Split vertically C-x 3 Cmd-0 Kill current window C-x 0 Cmd-w Kill current window C-x 0

Moving between windows

Move left and right just like in iTerm. Hold shift to make it up and down.

Binding Description Alternative Cmd-[ Move left Ctrl-Cmd-LEFT Cmd-] Move right Ctrl-Cmd-RIGHT Cmd-Shift-[ Move up Ctrl-Cmd-UP Cmd-Shift-] Move down Ctrl-Cmd-DOWN

Restoring window configuration

This is winner-mode . It captures the current window configuration and allows you to restore it after it gets changed by some Emacs action.

Binding Description Emacs default Cmd-Alt-[ Restore previous configuration C-c LEFT Cmd-Alt-] Go to next configuration (undo restore) C-c RIGHT

Project Management

Castlemacs uses Projectile for project management. There are a lot of features, and most of them are discoverable from the so-called “command map”.

Binding Description Emacs default Ctrl-Cmd-p Open projectile command map C-c p Ctrl-Cmd-p p Switch project C-c p p Cmd-p Find file in project C-c p f Cmd-Shift-f Search in project C-c p s s

Note that ‘Emacs default’ doesn’t make much sense in this context, since Projectile is not part of Emacs. I try to provide commonly used combinations for these cases: C-c p is what Projectile’s author suggests, for example, and many configs follow this suggestion.

While in search mode:

Binding Description Ctrl-Alt-m Preview current file Ctrl-Alt-n Next file and preview Ctrl-Alt-p Previous file and preview ESC Quit search

Git

Git gutter

Changes to the current file are shown in the gutter on left side. You can change the appearance of those symbols: search for git-gutter section in init.el . To see a list of all available colors run Alt-x counsel-colors-emacs . See Git-gutter docs for more info.

Magit

Castlemacs uses Magit , a wonderful package that aspires to be a complete Git porcelain.

Binding Description Cmd-g Magit status

From this status window you can do everything. Here are the basic commands available within Magit status window:

Binding Description s Stage current file or chunk c Open commit window F Open pull window P Open push window

There are cheat sheets available within Magit. Refer to Magit User Manuals for more info.

Terminal (shell)

There is a toggleable popup shell which is actually a full blown terminal emulator ( ansi-term ). It uses your system default shell and loads the appropriate environment.

Binding Description Cmd-= Toggle shell

File tree and open buffers

Binding Description Cmd-b Switch to another buffer or open recent file Cmd-Shift-b-= Toggle filetree

Programming

Languages and modes

Emacs supports many programming languages by default. Castlemacs adds support for YAML, Markdown, Web mode (HTML, CSS, PHP, templating, etc), Emmet.

Feel free to add more features by sending a PR or opening an issue.

Code completion

Code completion popup shows up immediately when possible. When popup is active:

Binding Description Enter Select current candidate Alt-DIGIT Quickly complete with one of first 10 TAB Complete common part F1 Show documentation for selected candidate Ctrl-w Show source for selected candidate

Note that not all backends support the last two commands.

This feature is provided by Company mode package. Learn more about Company mode at http://company-mode.github.io/

Emmet

Binding Description Ctrl-Enter or Ctrl-j Expand Emmet

Learn more about emmet mode .

Spellchecking, thesaurus, definition

Spellchecking

Spellchecking requires an external command to be available. See Install dependencies .

Binding Description Emacs default Cmd-\ Correct current word via popup N/A Cmd-Ctlr-\ Correct current word via list M-$

The last three lines in the popup allow to add current word to your personal dictionary or accept it as correct for current session (as long as Emacs is open) or current buffer.

When correcting via list, you can press i to quickly add the word to your personal dictionary.

Note that personal dictionary is located at ~/.aspell.LANG.pws by default.

Thesaurus

You can quickly search for synonyms. This requires an internet connection since the package uses https://www.powerthesaurus.org/ as backend.

Binding Description Cmd-Shift-\ Search for synonyms of current word

Select a synonym and press Enter to replace word.

Word definition

This requires an internet connection.

Binding Description Alt-\ Define current word

Org mode

Org mode is for keeping notes, maintaining TODO lists, planning projects, and authoring documents with a fast and effective plain-text system. Learn more about Org at https://orgmode.org/ . (Caution! This is a black hole!)

Castlemacs provides some nice defaults:

• Visually indent sections
• Tab in source blocks acts like in corresponding major mode
• Code highlighting works in code blocks
• When TODO changes state, history goes to logbook
• When TODO becomes DONE, current time and date are recorded
• Shift selection with arrows work (unless you’re in a spot where Org mode’s default actions kick in)

Put your org files in ~/org . If you use Dropbox or similar cloud provider, I suggest storing your actual org folder there, and providing a symlink like so:

ln -s ~/Dropbox/Org ~/org

Org agenda looks inside all the files in ~/org

Why this name?

Castlemacs takes advantage of the heavily used Command key on macOS. The Command key icon ⌘ is a ‘looped square’: it’s known as the place of interest sign when used on information signs, a practice which started in Finland in the 1950s, spreading to the other Nordic countries in the 1960s.

The symbol is derived from a shape of a castle. Here, for example, is the Borgholm Castle in Sweden: