kellyfelkins.org: favorite emacs packages

favorite emacs packages

favorites

ssh.el

This is just like a normal emacs shell, except that it uses ssh to communicate with a remote host. Another nice difference is when passed a prefix arg¹ you get another shell. Ssh shell buffers are named ‘ssh-host’, or when prefixed, ‘ssh-host’.

With ssh.el I can open up a bunch of ssh shells to various machines. At my office most of the file systems are shared, so I can edit the files wherever the emacs is running, and run them on a remote host.

While learning about ssh.el, I learned new features of shell mode (and ssh mode). Some of these are pretty helpful, such as:

C-c C-o: Kill the last batch of output from a shell command (comint-kill-output). This is useful if a shell command spews out lots of output that just gets in the way.

C-c C-r or C-M-l: Scroll to display the beginning of the last batch of output at the top of the window; also move the cursor there (comint-show-output).

C-c C-e: Scroll to put the end of the buffer at the bottom of the window (comint-show-maximum-output).
ssh.el replaces a previous favorite, tramp, discussed below.

cycle-buffer.el

From the el file:

cycle-buffer is yet another way of selecting buffers. Instead of prompting you for a buffer name, cycle-buffer switches to the most recently used buffer, and repeated invocations of cycle-buffer-forward switch to less recently visited buffers. If you accidentally overshoot, calling cycle-buffer-backward goes back. You should issue consecutive cycle command pretty quickly: if there is some intervening command between two cycling commands, or if a settable timeout expires, the cycling is reset and the next cycle-buffer will get you to the last buffer.

cycle-buffer makes an often used emacs function much easier. When switching buffers, you hit F10. Often what you were looking for instantly appears—if not, hit it again. cycle-buffer rocks! If you are an emacs user, and you don’t have this, please try it.

Download from kellyfelkins.org

outline-magic.el

Similar to cycle-buffer, outline-magic makes something fast and easy that was always available, but somewhat clumsy to use. In this case, it is expanding and collapsing outlines. Press the tab key. What could be simpler?

http://zon.astro.uva.nl/~dominik/Tools/outline-magic.el

htmlize.el

htmlize.el creates html output from an emacs buffer. Often these buffers are colorized. An example and the htmlized file from htmlize.

package location

I place these packages at ~/emacs-lisp. To accomplish this, I add
the following to my .emacs file:

(setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name ”~/emacs-lisp/”) load-path))

fallen out of favor

tramp

From the web site:

This is an Emacs extension similar to Ange-FTP, but where Ange-FTP uses FTP to transfer the files, Tramp uses a shell login.

Tramp was briefly one of my favorite packages, because it enabled remote editing of files via ssh. I found it too slow. My current environment allows me to ssh to nodes (via ssh.el) and to edit files locally mounted. I think you can fix the speed issue via configuration.

Here’s what I had to say about Tramp before:

This package enables distributed editing. It allows you to have an emacs session running on your desktop machine, and open files on various servers, using ssh. This is the modern ange-ftp, except that where ange-ftp uses ftp, tramp uses whatever file transfer mechanism you choose. Since a lot of servers do not have ftp enabled, and most are using ssh, tramp is the way to go.

My only complaint is that it is a little slow. I may be able to fix this with configuration changes.

http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/tramp/

Also check out my tramp configuration on windows with cygwin page.

¹ Apparently you can pass arguments to commands (like ‘M-x ssh’) using a couple of key strokes. I don’t fully understand this, but I’m using ‘C-u’ as the prefix, so my ssh command becomes ‘C-u M-x ssh’.

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