things.el VS xah-fly-keys

The current state of things is pretty underwhelming and convoluted. In 2018 I designed a system on top of thingatpt that was not married to any parser (can use regexps or use tree-sitter or anything else to build things) or to any editing style (modal vs. non-modal). I'll probably never complete it due to a lack of time/interest, but it still seems to me that what's needed is something like this, a library in the middle that could be used for any package like this. Not sure why no one else seems to see how good thingatpt could be.

things.el: https://github.com/noctuid/things.el

I've planned to use treesitter in things.el for a long time, but another package will likely become useful long before I have time to do this.

I've designed my own text object/motion system that I hope will eventually bring more "useful" composability to any Emacs user that wants it (see things), but right the implementation is buggy and incomplete.

lol no xah-fly-keys

To build on what others are saying about Emacs, if you start exploring the package ecosystem, you're going to see quite a lot of really interesting packages that are related to improving/experimenting with the UX of editing text. While I'm not endorsing anyone in particular, I think what this list does show is just how easy it is to do pretty much whatever you want in Emacs;

https://karthinks.com/software/avy-can-do-anything/

https://github.com/jyp/boon

https://github.com/clemera/objed

https://github.com/jmorag/kakoune.el

https://github.com/meow-edit/meow/

https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys

https://github.com/Kungsgeten/ryo-modal

https://github.com/emacsorphanage/god-mode

Emacs 29 also now has treesitter and LSP mode integration built-in, a compilation mode, a comint mode for REPLs, excellent file browsing packages (I use dired/dirvish), and a few other killer features.

Now, if what you truly dislike are "quirky editors", prepare yourself for a world of hurt because vanilla Emacs departs quite a bit from "modern" text editors. I struggled with this for a while, but eventually by buying into the paradigm, I now feel that when emacs try emulating "modern" IDE features like autocompletion, LSP, and DAP UI, I feel like it's a regression, not a progression. The point here is that you might have an "idea" of what good initial UX and lack of quirks would look like, but Emacs might change the way you think.

Another consideration is that some editors make heavy use of key chords, which aren't so ergo friendly. Emacs in particular is notorious with how it uses the Ctrl key. I highly recommend switching to an editor with modal keybindings like NeoVim, or alternatively, your existing editor may have a Vim keybindings mode or extension. For instance Emacs has Evil mode and xah-fly-keys. Another route to circumventing chords is you can use one-shot modifiers (aka sticky modifiers) or define macros.

More radically, you might find a modal interface easier and more comfortable to use with HRMs, like Vim's, or staying within Emacs, using Evil mode or Xah fly keys.

I use xah-fly-keys. In command mode, on a QWERTY keyboard, the comma key moves the cursor to the next window.

> Long love ergomacs!

I recently stumbled over, and started using (and modifying) Xah's "xah-fly-keys" emacs bindings, which are a somewhat more radical implementation of the ideas behind ergoemacs (e.g. use Emacs without any "chording", i.e. without ever having to press two keys at once apart from shift+letter).

[1] https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys

*xah-fly-keys

I made it myself, but it was largely inspired by "xah fly keys": https://github.com/xahlee/xah-fly-keys