Comment by arun-mani-j | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arun-mani-j | Hacker News Reader

I'm a college student and I use Doom Emacs for about 4 years (before that I was learning to program and used Python IDLE, Kate etc.)

On top of Doom Emacs, I have enabled CUA Mode and my own configuration is less than 10 lines, and it is copy-paste from Internet to enable word-wrap, delete to trash etc.

The only shortcuts I use are:

C-x C-f - open file

C-c C-s - save file

C-c, C-x, C-v - copy, cut, paste

C-z - undo

C-s - search

C-x 1, C-x 2, C-x 3, C-x k - split and killing of buffers

For the remaining I use F10 to bring up the menu and do via it or use M-x and try to find the matching function by "guess n type".

I tried learning a few commands but forgot them after a while.

With these commands and help of Doom Emacs, Emacs has been pleasant to me. I have LSP setup for C, Python, Rust, JS which provides me IDE like features. I have no complaints with Emacs. There has been no learning curve for me because I never tried learning it. The above mentioned commands too I learned by periodic usage.

Thanks to every Emacs user for sharing their knowledge on Internet, had it not been you people, Emacs would have been unreachable to beginners like me. :)

You don't use bookmarks?

C-x r b runs the command bookmark-jump

C-x r m runs the command bookmark-set

> I tried learning a few commands but forgot them after a while.

C-h k runs the command describe-key. You do this and after that any command, and it will give you the explanation.

I've been using emacs only a year. I played a lot with it the first months and it was heavy, but if you take it like a game the benefits are immense.

Also defining your own keys tied to elisp functions or even running python scripts or bash scripts called from eslip and tied to keys is awesome.

For example things that i did: - Open, close bluetooth to conect/disconect headphones. - Open desktop gui folder of current buffer. - Insert custom org templates and such.

I encourage you to take some time every week to play with emacs. Be cautious not to fall down the rabbit hole, but you can gain a lot by learning just the basics.

pd: when learning a new command take it REALLY slow, and push the keys deliberately, this will make you learn faster, like playing the piano.

> You don't use bookmarks?

Hearing them for the first time :)

> C-h k runs the command describe-key. You do this and after that any command, and it will give you the explanation.

I think I'm forgetting them because I don't use them often but will keep this in mind thank you!

> Also defining your own keys tied to elisp functions or even running python scripts or bash scripts called from eslip and tied to keys is awesome.

It is definitely in my todo list to learn. I have changed many of my workflow to Emacs like using Org for todo, reminders, to even publishing a book with it [1], Ledger to manage money etc. So investment in elisp is worthy every penny!

Thanks for your comment :)

1 - https://arunmani.in/articles/publishing-book-emacs/

> C-h k runs the command describe-key. You do this and after that any command, and it will give you the explanation.

But what about the opposite direction ? Is there anything like an "apropos" command ?

I'll usually do C-h f (describe-function), then hit tab to make it build a list of all (interactive) functions, and then switch to that buffer and search for whatever I'm interested in.

Indeed there is! See M-x apropos[1]

[1]https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Ap...

Also bound to C-h a

There is also C-h d (apropos-documentation)

Check out marginalia[1]. Whenever you press M-x, it will pop up a buffer showing all the commands (with most recent ones on top) along with their keybindings and a brief description of what they do.

Embark[2] is also cool. It will show all the possible commands relevant to where the cursor is at that moment. I bind it to C-c a.

[1] https://github.com/minad/marginalia [2] https://github.com/oantolin/embark

I usually use:

C-h f runs the command describe-function (found in global-map)

If the command is bound it has "It is bound to..."

Just curious: are the copy, cut, paste and undo commands remapped by Doom Emacs? Those don't seem to be the defaults. TY

Doom Emacs defaults to Evil mode. But if you turn it off, it gives you vanilla keybindings. So I don't think it remaps them. :)

Those keybinds are what Emacs calls CUA bindings: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/CU...

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