scimax VS prelude

Scimax should have out of box setup for bibliography, references etc. Anyway, regardless of what you use Emacs for, one step a time, would be my recommendation. Just start using it and solve problems as you experience them. It is better to add a single thing at a time when you need it, than to add 1000 different things because you think you will need them, and then not know what you have or what causes a problem.

https://github.com/wdavew/org-excalidraw is close. I discovered you can install Excalidraw from Chrome, and then it is like a local program. That is pretty amazing in itself. org-excalidraw indeed offers an org-link and way to make an excalidraw file from emacs, edited natively in an external excalidraw window. The svg preview does not work though if you use freehand lines in your image, and I was unable to install the npm packages on my Mac for some uninteresting reason related to DNS, but it did work in a node docker image. I find writing in excalidraw less advanced than in tools like Notability or PDFExpert. There are some artifacts in excalidraw from smoothing, or dangling pixels that I don't love. I forgot I had previously used https://github.com/lepisma/org-krita. Krita is a full drawing program, and this integrates into org-mode with image previews nicely. I am not that skilled in using it, and as a full drawing program, it has a learning curve. I wrote https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax/blob/master/scimax-inkscape.el to integrate inkscape into org-mode. It works, but I find inkscape slow to open, and I am not that skilled in using it.

Maybe give scimax a go?

Anyway, if you want something geared toward scientific usage, there is Scimax by J. Kitchin. There may be some others, but I am not aware off.

Apart from the ones already mention, John Kitchin's science-focused Scimacs is also an option.

> I forgot how absolutely horrible the new user experience is...

The bbatsov/prelude project was started in 2011 to help address that problem. I started using it not long after that, and it's been a joy to use ever since.

And by "started using" I mean I forked it on GitHub, stared personalizing, and then merging/rebasing from upstream ever since at my own leisure.

https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude

https://prelude.emacsredux.com/en/latest/

From 2011 to present, not everyone in the Emacs community feels bbatsov's Emacs Prelude makes the best/correct decisions, but given how long Emacs has been around and how large the community has been over time, what can you really expect?

It's certainly a lighter-weight starter kit compared to Doom Emacs and Spacemacs. (I'm not knocking those projects!). I've also looked at some of the newer starter kits mentioned in other comments here and previous HN threads; they seem okay to me, just reinventing a lot of the same "wheels" you'll find in Prelude but in a less refined form in many cases... such are the freedoms, joys, and trials of Free Software.

If I recall correctly, on my mac I had an issue with the meta and super keys. I had to rebind Meta to Cmd and Super to Opt. Im pretty sure I used Bozhidar Batsov's solution for this.

Another reason for you to stick to Emacs is Emacs Lisp. If you enjoy writing lisp you are not going to find a better piece of software written in any other lisp language. I prefer common lisp to elisp (alot!) but this is a fact in my opinion. Plus elisp is somewhat similar to common lisp and learning/appreciating the differrnces between the two will make you a better lisp programmer.

https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude/blob/master/core/prelude-...

I have based my emacs config on Emacs Prelude from u/bbatsov, because I did not trust starting from vanilla emacs.

When some days ago I decided to use org-mode again, I didn't use Doom Emacs, and it was the best decision that I've made. Instead, I used Prelude, which is a very simple and powerful Emacs config, and it's much less opinionated than Doom Emacs and Spacemacs. Then I disabled the Prelude theme, and combined it with Nano-Emacs. Now I have a very simple Emacs config, which provides me with some of the best tools, and also a very beautiful and elegant theme. I can change everything I want very easily, customized it to my needs.

How do you know? You said you want "fully setup" :) Prelude? Spacemacs? Your own version?

Thanks :)… it was originally heavily inspired by Emacs Prelude, but has since drifted quite far from it.