Deprecated If you want an easy way to get started with an Emacs/Vim hybrid, these days Spacemacs is probably your best choice.
Are you a Vim user? Tempted to try Emacs? This is for you.
I’m a Vim user. My two favourite implementations of Vim are:
- Vim. (Most operating systems.)
- Evil. (Emacs OS only.)
If you want to try option 2, (for reasons including, but not limited to, Clojure awesomeness), this should give you a good starting point. Broadly speaking, it gives you Vim-style editing in an Emacs environment.
The “try before you buy” setup is:
$ git clone https://github.com/krisajenkins/EvilBegins.git
$ cd EvilBegins
$ ( HOME=`pwd` emacs )
# Alternatively OSX Users might prefer:
$ ( HOME=`pwd` open /Applications/Emacs.app/ )
That’ll let you give it a spin without making any changes outside the cloned directory. (Note that the first time it runs, it’ll download a truckload of dependencies, so you’ll need to be patient.)
Play around, and if you like what you see then:
$ cp ./.emacs ~/
…to make it your default emacs
setup.
This project will never be exactly like Vim, and it’s not supposed to be. Emacs is a different beast. Rather, the aim is to allow you to carry your muscle-memory across to a new environment.
If you try this project and immediately miss Feature X, please let me know. It should probably be in here, especially if it’s a built-in feature of Vim.
If you try this project and a week later miss Feature X, please let me know anyway - I’d like to help - but it probably means you’re ready to dive deeper into Emacs.
This all stands on the glorious shoulders of evil-mode. All I’m really doing is packaging it up in an easy-to-get-started fashion.