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Comment by abrax3141 | Hacker News Reader

Serious Q: Has a serious emacs user checked this out? It looks exciting, but I’m a full time, long time, emacs -nw multi-buffer M-xshell user. Am I going to be disappointed bcs either it’s not going to let me run emacs on its sub windows, or it will have unresolveable key binding incompatibilities?

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Hey, Zellij dev here. You should have no issue running emacs inside a Zellij pane. There might be some keybindings collisions, but you can always configure your way out of it if you like.

In general the problem of colliding keybindings is a hard one, and one we plan to address in the near future as we chip away at some technical debt that stands in our way.

Thanks (both) for the guidance!

I see no reason to run something like this if you're already in emacs -nw running shells?

Too much overlap in functionality. And windows in windows in windows in ...and another set of keybindings to memorize.

To get a persistent session, just run Emacs in screen.

A great reason to prefer Emacs is that Emacs is graphical, no more need of this pseudo-terminal junk. If you want persistence, start an emacs server.

(Yes, Emacs can still run in terminals if you want to. You just don’t need to keep pretending it’s 1979.)

TBH I like using tmux in kitty, but editing files and such in Emacs.

I rarely bother splitting a tab into multiple panes (with either tool).

I like tmux's model where I can switch to a different session quickly, or switch to a pane quickly.

I've tried using vterm in Emacs, but it doesn't stick as nicely to how I think about things.

As a serious emacs user, this looks like a stripped down version of emacs. There's no reason to use this if you're already using emacs. Its UI even looks like emacs, with the modeline and minibuffer.

I had similar thoughts when seeing that it uses Web Assembly to provide plugins. It they rewrite the core functionality with that and add an editor then they've basically reinvented emacs (though with less flexibility because the plugin code is compiled). As an emacs user I find the plugin sandboxing idea interesting because security is basically missing from emacs packages. You just have to trust or review what you're installing.

Terminal support in emacs isn't super great so there's definitely room for improvement there. Maybe there's even room for Zillij and emacs to integrate via plugins. That could be quite interesting. I still use emacs and tmux side by side without any integration.

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