dotfiles VS evil-collection

Check out https://github.com/daviwil/dotfiles and the SystemCrafters YouTube channel and Github page. Lots of good stuff there for full system configuration.

Then check out the System Crafters website. There is a youtube channel, but David Wilson's notes and his dotfiles are quicker to navigate if you know what you're looking for.

I was watching some videos and saw this https://github.com/daviwil/dotfiles/blob/master/Emacs.org, which is HUUUGE. Is there some other resource that I can just start with one piece/package at a time and keep adding more slowly?

Explanation for not using sudo -E: https://github.com/daviwil/dotfiles/issues/11

I'm trying to create a configuration with a base-system module with multiple machine configurations deriving from it, based on the example shared by David Wilson in his github repo: https://github.com/daviwil/dotfiles

You should avoid using sudo -E or your home directory is slowly gonna fill up with root-owned files.

Lisp take a while to learn, but you really don't need too much knowledge. I would recommend using blocks of code from others' configs as a beginner.

While watching a Systems Crafters playlist about emacs I decided I wanted to checkout his configuration to see if it had anything I would find useful. As his style of development is different from mine I did not find a whole lot, but I did find something useful. In his init.el he has a section that moves files like places to a different directory to keep his ~/.emacs.d clean. As I keep my ~/.emacs.d directory as a symbolic link to my dotfiles repository I immediately added this to my configuration; however, it does not seem to work at least as I expected it to. Within my init.el I have a block of code that is copied from his, but modified slightly to create ~/.cache/emacs if it does not already exist, and then apply the changes to where these files should be stored. I don't seem to get any errors, but this also does not seem to change where those files get stored. Am I misunderstanding what his block of code does?

It looks like that package has an issue tracker here, if you wanted to raise one: https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil-collection/issues

Honestly, I've yet to find a plugin that I use that isn't covered by https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil-collection. I love emacs, but I can't stand the chords.

Evil and Evil Collection is the nuclear option.

I still have phases where I experiment with modal editing, but I haven't messed with Evil-mode in a long time. I prefer Meow, in part because it doesn't invest everything on a single command layout. And the sample Dvorak layout meshes really well with Emacs bindings for special modes (like Dired and Ibuffer). So you don't have to install and configure something like Evil-collection just to use the same bindings everywhere.

The problem I have with evil in Emacs is that it is another layer on top of vinalla Emacs. Not many packages are designed with evil key bindings in mind. You need packages like https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil-collection and and https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil-magit and https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil-ediff to make Emacs feel more "evil". Distros like Doom and Spacemacs integrate these packages for you, but then you're even farther away from the default Emacs experience. I also find online help worse for evil bindings. To figure stuff out you often have to resort to looking at vim or neovim documentation. "Vanilla" Emacs is famously "self documenting" but last I checked evil couldn't provide useful help, within Emacs, in the same way.

Evil does interfere with bindings in some modes, but https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil-collection fixes a lot of these issues, both for built-in modes and a lot of popular third-party ones.

Oh, and stick this in your use-package for general: ;; We want SPC as a leader key, probably. So do this. It just affects what ;; keybinds are overridden by the `override' keymap functionality that ;; `general' provides. ;; ;; https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil-collection#making-spc-work-similarly-to-spacemacs ;; ;; NOTE: `evil-collection' binds over SPC in many packages. To use SPC as a ;; leader key with `general', first set these override states: (setq general-override-states '(insert emacs hybrid normal visual motion operator replace))

You might want to look into the evil-collection package.

Evil mode is incredible, but it has real disadvantages in the Emacs context. It is another layer above Emacs, which makes Emacs different from its default self. E.g. most packages don't come with evil-mode key bindings. The popular Emacs packages are handled by https://github.com/emacs-evil/evil-collection but, there is always going to be a layer of translation between how upstream describes its key bindings and how Evil binds them.