Emacs tips

ITT we give fairly short tips or advice about Emacs.

1
If you want line numbers for Emacs, use Linum mode: http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e0225855/linum/linum.html
You'll probably want to have a space between the line numbers and your buffer's content, so modify linum.el: on line 160 or so of linum.el, change (setq width (max width (length str))) to (setq width (max width (+ (length str) 1))).
Example here: http://www.emacswiki.org/pics/static/LinumGap.png

2
ido-mode for M-x:


    (defun ido-execute ()
      (interactive)
      (call-interactively
       (intern
        (ido-completing-read
         "M-x "
         (let (cmd-list)
           (mapatoms (lambda (S) (when (commandp S) (setq cmd-list (cons (format "%S" S) cmd-list)))))
           cmd-list)))))
   
    (global-set-key "\M-x" 'ido-execute)
Good for newbies.

>>18,19
No, writing Tetris for an editor is inane. Just because Emacs has some stupid feature, it doesn't make Vim any more impressive because it too has that stupid feature. Stop trying to validate your choice of editor. Chances are that nobody cares.

If nobody else has any Emacs tips left to post then the rest of this thread is stupidity and low self-esteem.