dabrahams / prot-dotfiles

[Mirror] Configuration files for Emacs and some other programs. Running on Arch Linux. Managed with GNU Stow.

My Emacs and other configurations for Arch Linux

This is the set of files that powers my day-to-day computing experience. GNU Emacs is its centrepiece, with other programs providing ancillary functionalities. In some cases, such as with the configurations for Vim, all relevant files are carried over from my pre-Emacs days and are maintained as a contingency plan or in case I need to revisit some old setup.

Do not track my dotfiles (rolling, unstable, and untested)

Ceci n'est pas une distribution Emacs.

This repo functions as a laboratory of experimentation for my computing environment. What I do with Emacs or any other program in the GNU/Linux milieu that forms part of my dotfiles is only meant to work for me. As such, I offer no support whatsoever to those tracking this repository and may introduce breaking changes without prior notice.

This is all to say that you understand the risks associated with tracking an ever-changing project that does not enjoy widespread testing and whose target audience is only me. If you are fine with that and are willing to assume responsibility for any possible breakage, then please feel welcome to follow along. You can always open an issue here or contribute any fixes, if you will.

Emacs setup

I do not recommend you reproduce my Emacs setup because I do not use the de facto standard of use-package to configure packages. I prefer a simpler approach.

If you insist though, the files are in the emacs directory. Add them to your home directory with:

/path/to/prot-dotfiles $ stow -t "$HOME" emacs

This will create symlinks to my configuration files inside the ~/.emacs.d directory. My custom libraries are in the directory prot-lisp while the configuration modules (where we tweak variables, assign key bindings, etc.) are in the directory prot-emacs-modules.

The modules are loaded from the init.el. Each module defines the packages to install/load. My setup auto-installs packages. This will happen the first time you start up Emacs. In particular, the prot-emacs-elpa-package macro performs that task. You will find that macro in all of the modules: it is a thin wrapper which runs require on the given package as well as evaluates all code inside of it (so you don't have to evaluate each form individually). Example:

(prot-emacs-elpa-package 'cursory
  (setq cursory-presets
        '((box
           :blink-cursor-interval 0.8)
          (box-no-blink
           :blink-cursor-mode -1)
          (bar
           :cursor-type (bar . 2)
           :blink-cursor-interval 0.5)
          (underscore
           :cursor-type (hbar . 2)
           :blink-cursor-blinks 50)
          (t ; the default values
           :cursor-type box
           :cursor-in-non-selected-windows hollow
           :blink-cursor-mode 1
           :blink-cursor-blinks 10
           :blink-cursor-interval 0.2
           :blink-cursor-delay 0.2)))

  ;; I am using the default values of `cursory-latest-state-file'.

  ;; Set last preset or fall back to desired style from `cursory-presets'.
  (cursory-set-preset (or (cursory-restore-latest-preset) 'bar))

  ;; The other side of `cursory-restore-latest-preset'.
  (add-hook 'kill-emacs-hook #'cursory-store-latest-preset)

  ;; We have to use the "point" mnemonic, because C-c c is often the
  ;; suggested binding for `org-capture' and is the one I use as well.
  (define-key global-map (kbd "C-c p") #'cursory-set-preset))

If a package is not found in the archives it likely means that you need to refresh the package listing: M-x package-refresh-contents. This is done automatically at startup, if necessary, but is needed for any new packages you may define. Then retry installing the package.

The macro prot-emacs-builtin-package simply is a wrapper. It does not install anything, as it is for libraries that are built into Emacs OR the code in my prot-lisp directory.

The macro prot-emacs-vc-package, which I seldom use, is intended to leverage the new (Emacs 29+) capability of package.el to fetch code from a source. For example, this installs the package:

(prot-emacs-vc-package 'modus-themes
  ;; The `:branch' can be omitted.  Putting it here for didactic
  ;; purposes.
  (:url "https://github.com/protesilaos/modus-themes" :branch "main")
  ;; Your configurations here
  (setopt modus-themes-custom-auto-reload t
          modus-themes-to-toggle '(modus-operandi modus-vivendi)
          modus-themes-mixed-fonts t
          modus-themes-variable-pitch-ui nil
          modus-themes-italic-constructs nil
          modus-themes-bold-constructs nil
          modus-themes-org-blocks nil
          modus-themes-completions nil
          modus-themes-prompts nil
          modus-themes-region nil
          modus-themes-headings nil))

There are two files that you can use to personalise your setup: (i) prot-emacs-pre-custom.el and (ii) prot-emacs-post-custom.el.

Both files must be in the same directory as the init.el and early-init.el. This typically is the ~/.emacs.d/ directory.

These files serve two different purposes.

1. The prot-emacs-pre-custom.el is useful if you want to do something BEFORE loading my configurations. For example, you may want to exclude some of my packages from your setup. So you can add something like this:

   ;; This goes in the file prot-emacs-pre-custom.el
   (setq prot-emacs-omit-packages
         ;; Names of packages here
         '( citar citar-denote citar-embark
            clojure-mode cider
            flymake-kondor flymake-shellcheck flymake-proselint))

2. The prot-emacs-post-custom.el is loaded AFTER all my customisations. You can use this to add additional packages or make further changes to existing ones.

If you make changes to the dotfiles, such as by moving things around, run stow again with the -R flag:

/path/to/prot-dotfiles $ stow -t "$HOME" -R emacs

Window managers

I used to have configurations for bspwm, herbstluftwm, and swaywm. Since 2023-02-24 I have removed sway: Wayland is not ready for my purposes and I have had no issues whatsoever with Xorg. I also tried GNOME for a while to get a feel for Wayaland and see how Emacs compiled --with-pgtk performs. In short: Emacs is the same and Wayland is not as featureful as Xorg.

• bspwm: I have been using it for years and consider it top-notch. It is stable and scriptable. Use this if you prefer automatic tiling.

• herbstluftwm (hlwm): Shares some concepts with bspwm and can actually be configured in the same way. The main differences between the two are that (i) hlwm prioritises manual tiling methods and (ii) can treat arbitrary rectangles of a monitor as virtual monitors. The virtual monitors feature is perfect for anyone with a widescreen display. The one I have (which is not mine, but anyway) is 2560x1920, so I split it by default into a regular 1920x1080 area and another "sidebar" of 640x1080.

Both of my tiling window managers have a shared basis in the xorg-twm stow package ("twm" stands for "tiling window manager"). They both use the Simple X Hot Key Daemon (sxhkd) to set key bindings and have practically the same polybar panel. Furthermore, both are subject to the theme-switching of my delight script. In other words, I can use them interchangeably.

Copying

Unless otherwise noted, all code herein is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 3 or later.