SourceForge.net: Aquamacs Emacs 0.9.8 is out

SourceForge.net: Aquamacs Emacs 0.9.8 is out:
Posted By: davidswelt
Date: 2005-12-21 09:32
Summary: Aquamacs Emacs 0.9.8 is out
Aquamacs, the friendly, mac-like distribution of GNU Emacs for the Mac is available in version 0.9.8. It brings a number of bugfixes and goodies for people with non-English keyboard layouts. It’s a highly recommended update for those with version 0.9.6 or older.

(Via Aquamacs.)

More on Aquamacs (frames and dired)

This is a short tip from the wiki (and most of the notes here will come from the wiki)

After some time, I found quite annoying the way Aquamacs manages frames and windows when I use it as a filemanager (which is something Emacs is really good at) — in fact this ain’t a problem, since I rarely use it that way and I can quickly change behavior with a menu toggle –.

If you would like it to behave like “traditional Emacs” you may want to read this tip

Since I was speaking about dired mode, I add it here: another tip. With this you can open files using mac os open command.

Mac Emacs (Aquamac)

Unfortunately enough this seems to be going to be a “text editor blog”, with BBEdit post, this post and almost finished post about TextMate.

In fact I already told Mac Emacs versions do seem to miss something, and this is the reason why I chose to buy TextMate (a cheap 39$ affair).

Right now I’m just trying to convince myself that TextMate was worth 39$. I mean, probably if I discovered Aquamacs earlier (the first version I tried long time ago were “new”) I would not have bought it (even if once I was a vi fan — and in fact I still am, for some things).

And not because I don’t like TextMate anymore… just because Aquamacs is free and is free software [ which is good ].

Aquamacs

You can download Aquamacs here.

I told how weird do seem Emacs key bindings on MacOS (in fact they look odd everywhere outside Emacs). Some of them are pretty standard, readline supports them by default (and so most command line applications do) and Cocoa controls also do (that is to say they work in any text editor.).

I’m talking about ctrl-a, ctrl-e, etc.

But you are never going to convince a Mac user he has to ctrl-x ctrl-s to save or ctrl-x ctrl-c to quit.

So Aquamacs uses standard Apple bindings. Command-C, Command-S, Command-Q. This way the command-key is not free. And meta has to be mapped on alt.

So if you have a not english keyboard, you may not be able to type square brackets, for example. And braces. In fact this is a serious design flaw, in my opinion.

In fact I found out the flaw was in the user (me) who did not read the wiki. Meta, Apple/Command, Option keys are fully configurable.

In my opinion if you are going to use Emacs, you expect to find Emacs key bindings. The more logical choice is to use Command for meta, and leave alt as alt, to enter braces (and on american keyboards accents.).

Still you may want (and it is my choice) to allow Command-key to be used for mac key shortcuts, but you want to pass option/alt to the OS (so that you can use [] and other characters). You do this with

(setq mac-pass-option-to-system t)

.

Should you have troubles with copying and pasting text from outside into Emacs or vice-versa, try to use

(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)

In fact you can find lot of informations in the wiki:
Emacs wiki.

The nice thing was that you are able to use standard MacOS open and close dialogs, that is really nice.

But there is something even more beautiful features:

• Frames are mapped to windows: when you open a file, you open it in a new window, and you can manage windows with Expose. Probably a hardcore Emacs user is not going to like this (but probably he will prefer some other more standard version).
• Fonts: fonts are nice. It uses MacOS fonts and locales and unicode characters appear to be handled correctly (not sure for full unicode, for european >7bit characters, it works).
• You also have transparencies. It’s just a little nifty feature.
• Cut and paste works as you expected, so does deleting a text selection. This is probably one of the single features users that are not used to Emacs are going to hate, even if it makes perfectly sense in the Emacs way of working.
• Last but not least, you can associate files with Emacs, so you can use it as a standard MacOS text editor to open files double clicking in the finder.

I’m really impressed by this project: in fact it’s enought Emacs you want get too confused if you are used to Emacs, but it’s also enought Mac you can use it along your other Mac applications, without having to rethink basic commands (if you don’t want to).

Right at the moment it is in my opinion the best Emacs version for the MacOS out there.

Google Paying for Firefox Installs

Google Paying for Firefox Installs: “slashkitty writes ‘Google updated their AdSense service to pay publishers for referrals. What’s interesting is that now they pay publishers $1 US for each FireFox download with the Google Toolbar installed. Is this the bump that Firefox needs to boost downloads? Will Google be able to pay the millions for all the downloads?’“

(Via Slashdot.)

Google ha modificato adsense in modo che gli inserzionisti prendono 1 dollarozzo per ogni download di firefox con la google-bar.

Apparentemente sembra che sempre più i colossi si stiano coalizzando tutti contro i vari monopoli che Microsoft ha accumulato lungo gli anni per sostanziale mancanza di competitori seri (ovvero sufficientemente completi).

Fino a poco tempo fa le grandi ditte dell’informatica erano vicino a Microsoft oppure se in contrasto, separate fra loro da motivi ideologici o di mercato. Adesso sempre più sembra che si stia costituendo un fronte comune.

Sempre sui brevetti software

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C’è un sondaggio internet molto importante in cui chiunque può votare per “l’uomo europe dell’anno” (anche non europei possono partecipare). E’ il premio politico europeo più prestigioso e c’è una possibilità concreta che il fondatore della campagna NoSoftwarePatents possa vincerlo.Io ho già votato per lui e chiederei anche a voi di votarlo per sostenere in modo chiaro la battaglia contro i brevetti software.

Vincendo questo sondaggio, saremmo in grado di spiegare meglio ai politici il problema dei brevetti software. La battaglia contro i brevetti software continua, e abbiamo bisogno dell’attenzione dei politici, della stampa e del pubblico. Questa è un’ottima opportunità, cliccate qui per maggiori informazioni su come votare:

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/it/m/ev50/vote.html

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