Posts tagged “emacs” • Christian Tietze

2026

Mar 30

Emacs Mistakes and Misconceptions That Held Me Back in 2019

When I started to use Emacs, I was just an innocent, overwhelmed computer programmer searching for a way to manage tasks and projects. Look where this got me.

Feb 28

Media Transfer Protocol Tools

I want to get books on my Supernote and notes off it, so in my desperation I began to write scripts and make tools to help.

Feb 27

Emacs Complete: Feedback Loops in Emacs, Feedback Loops in Computing

If it is representable as text, it can be moved into Emacs. And if Emacs renders as text, it can be moved into other processes to interpret the result, like snapshot tests, e.g. for automated regression testing. The loop is fully closed.

Feb 16

Introducing quake-frame.el: My Take on a Terminal Visor, But Running Emacs

I used Claude Code to create an Emacs GUI window (frame) package. Press a key. Get Emacs. Press again. It's gone.

Jan 5

Emacs Carnival 2026-01: “This Year, I’ll ...”

I’m hosting this month’s Emacs Carnival. Submit your blog posts on the topic “This Year, I’ll ...”, Emacs-related new-year resolutions in January to participate.

2025

Dec 31

The People Who Got Me into Emacs

An end-of-the-year appreciation post for the Emacs community and the people who got me started.

Dec 2

Join the All-Virtual EmacsConf December 6 and 7 and Check out My Zettelkasten Talk

Announcing my EmacsConf talk for Sunday, and reminding you that EmacsConf is in four days!

Nov 26

Rsync File Copying from Dired with Transient Menu

Instead of async dired file copies, try rsync file copies with a bit of transient menu convenience.

Oct 28

Sharpening the Saw with Emacs

Moving my computing needs into Emacs has this weird effect that spending maintenance time in Emacs, I can improve both how I do stuff with the computer, and also what stuff I work on itself.

Oct 10

Redirect Output to Buffers from Emacs Eshell

In Eshell, you can call Emacs functions, and redirect output to buffers instead of files. Here is a particularly convenient way.

Aug 28

Clickable Swift Testing Failure Messages in Emacs compile-mode

The swift test command-line invokation does not print unambiguous filenames for test failures, so we need to attempt to patch this from the console output ourselves like true hackers.

Aug 8

Emacs Elevator Pitch (August Blog Carnival)

This month’s entry for the Emacs Carnival is how I'd talk someone into using Emacs at the workplace I do not have.

Jul 2

Emacs on Second Try

I had a ten-year break from Emacs as a terminal-based text editor until I learned about what you could really do with this program. Then it stuck.

Jun 4

Emacs Carnival 2025-06: Take Two

I’m hosting this month’s Emacs Carnival. Submit your blog posts on the topic “Take Two” in June to participate!

May 22

Insert Cc and Bcc Mail Headers Conditionally in Emacs message-mode

Using a function to insert some mail composition headers only if they don’t already exist, because some mail servers won’t accept the email otherwise.

May 4

My Current Compilation Window Display Settings in Emacs via display-buffer-alist

My current display-buffer-alist settings for compilation output.

Apr 24

Keep .org File Outline Items Sorted Alphabetically

Use org-sort and before-save-hook to keep a file sorted at all times.

Apr 17

Test, Save, and Execute HTTP Requests with Hurl (or restclient.el)

Impersonate your browser to send HTTP requests directly from your text editor, or executable documentation!

Feb 25

Preview Mass Text Replacements with Emacs 30.1 replace-regexp-as-diff

Performing text replacements on large documents or multiple files is annoying: you get false-positive results all too quickly; stepping through each and every match interactively is cumbersome, too. What about previewing changes as a diff, though?

Jan 23

Using 2 Editors Because Xcode Is Dumb

Xcode 16 doesn’t support working on a Package and a Demo app at the same time. But other editors do.

2024

Dec 3

Org-Mode Emphasis Keymap with Mnemonics

I do not like how org-mode’s emphasis function works, requiring knowledge about the syntax to apply bold and italic and inline code style correctly. Here’s a solution that uses ‘b’ for bold etc.

Jun 27

Embark: Display Buffer in Dedicated Side Window

Show any buffer in a side-window (aka a sidebar, but also potentially at the bottom) of an Emacs frame. Includes Embark key bindings to do this from a buffer list.

Jun 27

Create Journal Note For a Previous Day in denote.el

TLDR: Customize denote-prompts. The longer version shows you how to discover this based on the code on your own if you're in a similar situation.

Jun 7

Fold Search Results Away in rg.el

Whenever you want to fold away content in an Emacs mode that doesn't support this out of the box, consider using outline-minor-mode. Here’s how I did that to make rg.el

Jan 24

Have You Ever Sent an Email with a File Attachment that is Located on a Server?

This is a tale of convergence of Embark, TRAMP, and email to brainlessly just send a file from somewhere to someone.

Jan 10

ChatGPT Shell: Confirm Before Closing and Split Compose Buffer

Tweaks to my chatgpt-shell configuration.

Jan 9

Emacs sqlite-mode to Open .sqlite Files Automatically

.sqlite files render “graphically” in Emacs, but only if you open them manually with the equivalent of a file picker dialog; that is unacceptable, and I propose a solution that opens the graphical view for SQLite database files when you visit the files automatically.