Emacs From Scratch #1 - Getting Started with a Basic Usable Configuration

In this stream, we'll start creating a completely custom Emacs configuration from scratch! We'll also learn some Emacs basics along the way.

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Intro music: Coriolis Effect by logos feat. stefsax, licensed CC-BY

[SystemCrafters]

What else would you like to know about Emacs? Leave suggestions in the comments or reply to this one!

[scotth]

If you're following along and you're using emacs for the first time, running counsel at 34:43 you may not have the counsel package loaded (you'll know if you type M-x counsel<tab> and no commands show up), go back to 34:01 copy in lines 79-86 from the init.el shown and run M-x eval-buffer.

[andrewcarpin]

Excited to be revisiting this series! Just backed up doom emacs configs and wiped everything clean. Going to try to build my own GNU Emacs config now!

[wansmer]

Thank you for great video!
About auto-starting 'ivy': just change `:config (ivy-mode 1)` by `:init (ivy-mode 1)`.

From doc of use-package:
Use the :init keyword to execute code before a package is loaded.
Similarly, :config can be used to execute code after a package is loaded.

[marciomaiajr]

I was a Vimmer until a few weeks ago when I saw a video of a guy showing how to render LaTeX formulas in org mode and it really blew my mind. Emacs is crazy powerful.

[gordonvanamburg]

I worked through this setup with you and am liking whats coming out. Thank you so much for the inspiration to do more than just use vanilla like I've been doing. Looking forward to going through the next video.

[TheStarrs]

Very clear explanations! Switched over from vim over the last few months with Doom Emacs, but always felt a bit uneasy about having a bunch of preconfigured stuff I might not even know is there. Looking forward to future installations.

[neilclay]

That was very good, and I worked through it. Thanks. My one criticism is that this is clearly for beginners and they will have been trying to press the M and C keys instead of Alt and Control, getting frustrated and possibly giving up. Fortunately enough, it was the one thing I knew already going into this. I'll carry on with the course. Cheers.

[MrBranh]

I’ve been using VI for 25 years. Barely ever touched EMacs. It’s starting to grow on me after all these years admittedly.

[hunterbuns]

Very helpful video! I've been procrastinating on watching this series because of its length (it seemed daunting), but now that I've actually started watching, time seems to be flying by! Something about the way you teach this stuff makes it all seem very managable. I wish I'd started earlier. Thanks for making this amazing resource!

[VijayaPrakashKandel]

This is amazing stuff. I am on and off emacs. Started 4 years ago, jumped straight into Spacemacs and got lost in layers documentation. Used primarily for note taking with org mode and did couple of scripts to cloud sync the notes across devices. However, never got down to the bare minimals for setup and spacemacs had too much for me.

Loved the fact i sat through this video and got something even with spacemacs-theme. Well done.

[mosabof]

For future reference, to bring back processes you suspended using ^Z you can type "fg" (which is the command to bring the process back to the foreground) in the terminal where you suspended them.

[lishaitung]

This is one of the best instructional videos I've seen on YouTube and is better than some content on premium instructional sites.

I started using emacs a few years ago because of TRAMP but I never really got into tweaking the configuration much. I use Spacemacs with minimal configuration changes. This video series seems as though it was made for me.

It is so useful to see you explain in a quick sidebar the background context that one needs to understand in order to understand what you're configuring.

This is great stuff, thanks for making it and keep them coming. I look forward to watching the rest of the videos in this series.

Very good idea to write the init file from scratch ! I can understand every line of code and know for sure what my Emacs do. Thanks !

[asas-jfiz]

Hello Mister, this is a really good series for Emacs learning! I follow your video step by step but come up with a problem. After install ivy, I cannot call counsel and swiper as you did in the movie. After a little search I realise counsel and swiper is however another two libraries. Simply install ivy cannot call them. Reason you can call them is, you are still using your old .emacs.d folder and so counsel is already there. Maybe I am wrong or miss steps from you? Finally, I added a line to my init.el: (use-package counsel). This enables me to use counsel and swiper.

[thecocoa]

Late to the game, but thanks for this video. Started using Spacemacs (still think it's a great option) but found myself wanting to use Emacs from scratch - including autogen, configure, and make. Really appreciate your video. Thank you!

[gbs]

Around 31 mins -- that statement -- one of the reasons why emacs (and lisps in general) still rock the house after all these years :) Being able to have two different completion frameworks loaded and running in different contexts, without interfering with each other, is still something many different pieces of software cannot claim to have.

[dexplorer]

The way you described the hypothetical noob experience was exactly like mine! 😂

[kritjha]

Two years later and still so so useful!

[ade]

quick note: if your icons are missing after installing doom-modeline just do:
M-x all-the-icons-install-fonts
P.S. i luv ur videos (L:
Im total noob in emacs (2nd day of using it), but i think with your help i got used to emacs controls and learned some other essential emacs things pretty quickly (ofc i could just read the documentation, but reading is boring). I dont know if ill continue to use emacs in a future, but for now i see a lot of potential for better programming workflow :D