Install and use an Aqua Emacs editor

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Sat, Jan 19 2002 at 9:34AM PST • Contributed by: wdavies

First download Emacs on Aqua from SourceForge. I'd recommend getting the source and building (easy -> download, untar and cd into the directory and do a ./configure, make, make install. YMMV, try the prebuilt one first, and drop into the Applications folder (I had to build from source on a 10.1.2 TiBook).

Then, this is the cool part. In your shell profile, set an alias to:

emacs='/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs --insert'

Now type emacs myfilename on a command line and it will start it up like an Xemacs session :-) woohoo. Good news is that JDE also works fine with Emacs on Aqua.

- Winton (an old fashioned Unix for coding and Mac for Everything else kindofguy!)

[Editor's note: I tried building from source, and although the application compiled fine, it quit unexpectedly on launch, so I was unable to test the alias portion of the tip. I've been using Carbon Emacs which seems to work fine.]

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Unexpected quits in Emacs.
Authored by: tim_bissell on Sat, Jan 19 2002 at 4:17PM PST

Emacs has some file paths hardwired in it, so you must install in
as /Applications/Emacs.app, otherwise you will get unexpected exits.
You can get away with symbolic links of your root filesystem is UFS,
I'm not sure about HFS.
If you want some error output, run emacs from the command line.

GUI emacs options
Authored by: ngb on Tue, Jan 22 2002 at 12:46AM PST

If you've already got XFree86 and XDarwin running, I think the best Emacs option is Xemacs. Of course it takes up a lot of overhead if Emacs is all you're running. I've tried Carbon Emacs and Emacs on Aqua, and preferred Emacs on Aqua. Too bad Alpha hasn't been ported to X yet.

Is there a way to...
Authored by: ajr on Sun, Jan 27 2002 at 5:46PM PST

have this open files from other servers. I know when running linux, if I ssh to another server and then "emacs <filename> &" it will open emacs within my system. Is there any way to do this with this program?? I work off of a lot of linux boxes, and this would help immensly!

Is there a way to...
Authored by: packy on Tue, Jan 29 2002 at 11:21AM PST

Simplicity itself. Run XDarwin (at http://www.xdarwin.org/), and from an xterm window type:

xhost +remote.linux.box
ssh remote.linux.box

Once you're there, check to see if your $DISPLAY variable is set:

echo $DISPLAY

If you get a blank line, define your display to be your OSX box (I'm using a bash syntax here, your milage may vary):

DISPLAY=address.of.mac:0.0
export DISPLAY

Voila! Now, when you do anything that creates an X window, the X window will appear on your Mac! All that's happening is the remote linux system is using your Mac to display the emacs session it's running. All the real work is being done on the remote linux box.

alias syntax problem
Authored by: sjthomas on Tue, Feb 5 2002 at 12:45PM PST

I have compiled my Aqua-Emacs files and I can run it if I double-click on it from the Mac OS X finder, but the tip for the alias isn't working. I suspect a simple shell syntax problem but I am a Terminal newbie and can't figure out how to fix it. Help?

I have the following line in my .tcshrc file:
alias emacs '/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs --insert'

When I type emacs at the command line I get the following:
emacs: Option `--insert' requires an argument

Thanks!

alias syntax problem
Authored by: ether on Fri, Jul 19 2002 at 4:52PM PDT

if you leave the "--insert" off it will work, but you
will have to open files inside emacs. If you leave it
there, you have to say "emacs FILENAME" for some (not
necessarily existing) filename.

Aqua Emacs works fine in Applications folder
Authored by: russell@bway.net on Sat, Dec 14 2002 at 7:07PM PST

I just installed it in MacOS X Version 10.2.1 fine. It just needs to be placed in the Applications folder.

--Ben
--
Benjamin Russell
DekuDekuplex@yahoo.com

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