This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3,988 for Wednesday, the 26th of July 2023.
Today's show is entitled, In Max Package Curation Part 2.
It is hosted by D&T and is about 11 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, let's go through every single package installed in my EMAX configuration,
file 2 of 3.
Alright, this is the follow-up to the last show that I did in which I just read to you
my EMAX configuration, how fun is that.
So, we are going to continue now with the second file that I have, second out of 3.
So there's only one more of these, and you're not required to listen to it anyway.
So yeah, my name is D&T, the last episode, I don't know what number it was, but I'll
put it in the show notes in case you missed it and want to go back.
So in that first one, we went through my first configuration file that loads kind of a bunch
of what I see as the basics of that fancy EMAX experience, and then it has some logic
for loading the other two files.
So now I'm going to go through the second file that this file will load on my Linux laptop
and on my work laptop, but it will not load on termux if I open this same configuration,
if I open EMAX on termux with the same configuration, this file will not load.
So, I have a section about writing, so I'm going to have a bunch of packages here to do
with writing.
Obviously I'm not going to be writing on termux very much, so that's why I didn't include
those in the basics.
So first package we have is called Oli Vetti.
It is kind of like a right room mode, it's like a focused writing mode or whatever.
It'll narrow your text block a little bit and get rid of some other UI elements here.
I add to it what I call typewriter mode, which is based on this other package that's
coming next.
That other package is called centered cursor mode, and it does like what I would call
typewriter scrolling, which is it keeps the cursor right in the center of the screen
vertically.
So as you advance through your document typing out, typing up a storm, the screen will scroll
automatically as if you were, you know, as if this were a typewriter.
I've always enjoyed those things for kind of quickly writing out a bunch of stuff, so that's
what that is, centered cursor mode is what the package is called.
Then next we have right good mode.
So this is, I mean, that's kind of silly, I guess, but it will highlight some, some
what it thinks might be errors for you.
So it's not, it's not super smart or anything, there's no AI or anything going on there.
It'll just have like a list of what it calls Weasel words, for example, that are words
that are just likely to be used sort of lazily, let's say, words that could be well
replaced by other words that will maybe be more evocative or that will just be better.
So that's right good mode.
It's kind of nice, I like to use it from time to time, and I do think it helps me make
some useful edits to what I wrote.
Next we have Flice Spell Correct.
So Flice Spell, I guess yeah, Flice Spell comes with Emacs, it's like a spell checking package
that comes with, you know, it's distributed with what you would call Vanilla Emacs,
which is just the plain Emacs without any configuration or anything.
So Flice Spell comes with it, that's the spell checking.
Flice Spell Correct provides commands for you to quickly correct your errors, your spelling
mistakes, and next we have Flice Spell Correct pop up, which is the same thing, but instead
of showing the corrections in the mini buffer, it will show them in kind of a tool tip in
the buffer itself.
It's a little bit better.
So next we have Power Thessaurus.
So Power Thessaurus connects to an API from powerthessaurus.org to get things like synonyms
and end to names and similar words and things like that.
There's also a kind of a nice interface for replacing a word with some other synonyms.
So you can just have the cursor on a word and you say I want to replace it with a synonym
and it will show you some synonym options and then you can just quickly pick the one
you want and it will replace it.
In Power Thessaurus does it like with like some smarts a little bit.
Then next we have SinoSaurus.
SinoSaurus is the same thing as Power Thessaurus, but it uses word net, which is an application
you can install in your computer, so it doesn't rely on anybody's service on the internet.
It is not as sophisticated in the replacing as Power Thessaurus, but it's just fine.
I could very well get rid of Power Thessaurus.
I probably will at some point, I guess.
Next we have word nut.
So word nut is to get word definitions and things from this application that's called word
net.
Well, so word net, I guess, is the database and then maybe word nut is the Linux application
for consulting in maybe something like that.
It's pretty handy, you can have the cursor over a word and run a command to see like a dictionary
definition of it.
It's pretty good.
Next we have Unfill.
So you might be familiar with the idea of filling a paragraph, that's taking a paragraph
of text that's flowing forever to the right.
If you're writing in left to right, script and then you want to break it up into lines
up to a certain length, that's called to fill a paragraph.
So Unfill provides a command that's called Unfill toggle that will fill in Unfill paragraphs
with the same command.
Sometimes it is useful to do that, especially when you're typing in some kind of a markup
that where it's nice to have the paragraphs filled, to have them broken up into lines
of an up to a certain width, but you need to paste it in somewhere that doesn't
like that.
And it's kind of nice to be able to quickly untill the paragraph and then copy it.
Next we have Mark Down mode.
That is that horrible, horrible markup language that everybody hates, but nobody can get away
from.
I had to add that thing to my MX configuration.
That's all I have to say about that.
Next I have some coding related stuff now.
So we start with FlightCheck, which is syntax checking.
It will show me where I messed up and why?
And FlightCheck pop up tip, it will show me where I messed up in a little pop up in the buffer
instead of in the mode line or the echo area or mini buff or whatever it is.
So yeah, that's pretty nice.
It's definitely handy to have that FlightCheck stuff working with you.
And then next I have some HTML and things about mainly for my website that's in Jackal.
I have Emmet mode.
That's kind of like an HTML mode, then SAS mode for the style sheets, web mode is also
HTML.
I don't remember exactly what Emmet mode does.
Oh yeah, Emmet mode is this cool thing where you can type in an HTML document.
You can type like CSS rules and then it expands them into the HTML.
And yeah, it's pretty clever to it does that kind of ridiculous, but anyway, next
we have Python, that scripting language you know, and it's just to have a Python major
mode for editing Python files, Python scripts, and next we have HTML to do HTML dash
to do.
So that's a pretty nice one.
You can be editing like a Python file and then you can have those keywords like fix
me to do whatever, and you can quickly navigate through through all those keywords that
appear in your file.
So yeah, it's cool to see it and be able to quickly go through these notes you left for
yourself in your file, whatever type of file it is.
Then next we have, well, I don't know how to say this one is in my git or magic, or I don't
know, my git, I'm gonna say.
So that's git for Emacs, I mean, it's to me, it's the best way to use git.
It is really, really good.
So yeah, my git, there isn't even like there's a cool other package that I don't use,
but it'll show, I think it's called my git to do, it'll show in your my git buffer.
It'll show right where it shows like the commit log or whatever it is.
It'll show all the to do keywords that appear in your files, you know, that's pretty cool.
Next I have git time machine.
This one's really nice to you open a file that's under git and you can really quickly
navigate through the different revisions of it.
Combine that with my git blame to show you who made the change and you got a pretty useful
tool there.
So that's the end of init base.
So we finish it off with provide init based, tell GTS, that this is what we're calling
all this stuff here and that this file is doing.
So it says if I were, as if this were a package and Emacs package that I'm calling init
base, okay?
Alright, let's move on to the last file.
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