Emacs and orgmode on macosx

I think one of the major reason why people do not use emacs is it comes with no default configuration. The default behavior is just stupid with respect to many aspects and totally counter productive. That's the reason why I'm sharing my emacs configuration with others.

I also realize that more and more people (even students) have Mac OS X laptops and Jean-Marc, my office mate often complains about how using emacs is difficult on mac os X (yeah, emacs means Escape, Meta, Alt, Control, Shift and since I played piano for ten years before learning emacs saved me from RSI ;) ) because of the special keys and the unnatural shortcuts.

23:16 Comment on fait pour utiliser/configurer une souris de Imac USB
      avec un seul bouton sous X ?
23:59 23.16 : on utilise la touche commande (le trefle) et option ou
      bien 2 touches dupave numerique (0 et ,) lorsque celui ci n'est
      pas en numlock pour simuler les 2 autres boutons
00:01 23:59 Xemacs+Mac = Mortal Kombat :-))

So I spent half an hour (maybe more) with Alexis Martin (many thanks for your time!) to see whether it was so hard. We had a few issues but in the end, it's not so difficult:

  1. Install the dmg file from http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca/en/emacs/mac/ to have a recent emacs, ess and auctex… The one from http://emacsformacosx.com/ does not come bundled with ess and I could not find ess in the elpa (a package manager included in Emacs since version 24), which is a pain.
  2. Install a recent version of org through elpa, i.e. open emacs and lauch the following emacs command (if you don't know what M-x stands for, on a Mac, try to press Ctrl or Option simultaneouly with the x key, this will allow you to call an emacs function): M-x list-packages . Then search for Org, click on it, and click on install.
  3. Finally follow these instructions on how to use/set up the init.org file your just downloaded.

And then, it works like a charm! I suggest you open an org file and try the following shortcuts:

  • <B then press Tab. This will give you a session-based shell block. If you type ls in it and C-c C-c in it, it will execute the corresponding block
#+begin_src sh :session foo :results output :exports both
ls -la
#+end_src  

total 76
drwxr-xr-x 2 alegrand alegrand  4096 mai   19 14:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 alegrand alegrand  4096 mai   16 01:12 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 alegrand alegrand  4488 mai   19 14:17 emacs_and_orgmode_on_macosx.org
-rw-r--r-- 1 alegrand alegrand 45611 mai   16 01:53 mtcars.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 alegrand alegrand   204 mai   16 02:34 .Rhistory

The fact that it is session-based, means you can cd and define variables and they will be persistant from one block to another. This is particularly interesting in the following case:

#+begin_src sh :session foo :results output :exports both
ssh karok
#+end_src

If you C-c C-c in it, this will ssh on a machine and keep the connexion alive in a session.

Linux nipmuk 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.51-1 x86_64

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Wed May 14 16:12:31 2014 from atoum.imag.fr

So if you create a new block in the exact same way (<B Tab), the commands put inside will be run on the remote machine and org-mode will take care of keeping all outputs nicely organized.

#+begin_src sh :session foo :results output :exports both
hostname
#+end_src  

nipmuk
  • <r then press Tab. This will give you a well configured R block with session.
#+begin_src R :results output :session :exports both
summary(mtcars)
#+end_src

 mpg             cyl             disp             hp       
Min.   :10.40   Min.   :4.000   Min.   : 71.1   Min.   : 52.0  
1st Qu.:15.43   1st Qu.:4.000   1st Qu.:120.8   1st Qu.: 96.5  
Median :19.20   Median :6.000   Median :196.3   Median :123.0  
Mean   :20.09   Mean   :6.188   Mean   :230.7   Mean   :146.7  
3rd Qu.:22.80   3rd Qu.:8.000   3rd Qu.:326.0   3rd Qu.:180.0  
Max.   :33.90   Max.   :8.000   Max.   :472.0   Max.   :335.0  
 drat             wt             qsec             vs        
Min.   :2.760   Min.   :1.513   Min.   :14.50   Min.   :0.0000  
1st Qu.:3.080   1st Qu.:2.581   1st Qu.:16.89   1st Qu.:0.0000  
Median :3.695   Median :3.325   Median :17.71   Median :0.0000  
Mean   :3.597   Mean   :3.217   Mean   :17.85   Mean   :0.4375  
3rd Qu.:3.920   3rd Qu.:3.610   3rd Qu.:18.90   3rd Qu.:1.0000  
Max.   :4.930   Max.   :5.424   Max.   :22.90   Max.   :1.0000  
  am              gear            carb      
Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :3.000   Min.   :1.000  
1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.:3.000   1st Qu.:2.000  
Median :0.0000   Median :4.000   Median :2.000  
Mean   :0.4062   Mean   :3.688   Mean   :2.812  
3rd Qu.:1.0000   3rd Qu.:4.000   3rd Qu.:4.000  
Max.   :1.0000   Max.   :5.000   Max.   :8.000

Now, if you do <R then press Tab. This will give you a well configured R block with session and ready for producing a picture without even having to name it (this may seem obvious but it's so handy):

#+begin_src R :results output graphics :file (org-babel-temp-file "figure" ".png") :exports both :width 600 :height 400 :session
plot(mtcars)
#+end_src

And the png file should display as such directly in your emacs… You can also obviously replace the emacs black magic ((org-babel-temp-file....)) by a simple /tmp/foo.png if you want to give this output a name that you can later reuse…

  • Many other cool things. First read this for an introduction to org-mode! Then read the init.org you just downloaded to learn about other shortcuts ;).

I hope this helps and do not hesitate to write me back if you find way to improve these tips.