A word processor is distinct from an editor. Editors are for coders. Word processors are for (prose) writers. In either case, plain text is best and formatting is to be kept to a bare minimum, so that e.g. copy and paste across programs would work as expected.
Continue reading “Emacs as Word Processor: Copy and Paste”Drag and drop by keyboard
Drag and drop by dragging the mouse on the desk is probably the single most physically strenuous effort an office employee or typist or any computer user has to perform, particularly when done repetitively day in day out. Here is how to migrate this destructive gesture to keyboard in Linux.
Continue reading “Drag and drop by keyboard”Tiling window managers suck less
Wolfgang on Youtube says that tiling window managers suck. But he is a(n ex-)tiling window manager user himself, so it can be just an overstatement designed to poke. Therefore let’s be lenient.
Make TTY font huge
Frankly, the default tty font in modern Linux distros is way out of line. First, it is so tiny that it is evil. It should respect 80 characters width or something close to that. Second, the font can be configured on a way too limited base. Moreover, it does not display in nice full xterm-256color colours. Luckily, all this can be fixed.
Info: Less-known manual format in Linux
The most common way to find immediate help with commands and programs in Linux is to attempt a program --help or man command in the terminal. However, some of the most extensive resources are found by means of info. These extensive resources are scarce: info is available only for the elite.
Emacs Org mode: Markup for notes and planning
The best markup for notes is plain text. After having looked around for decades, I have found that the only two markup languages worth mastering are Pandoc markdown and Emacs Org mode. They are worth it not only because of their initial proximity to plain text, which makes them simple to start with (if you need extended and advanced features, it quickly gets more complicated of course, yet part of their value is that all the imaginable advanced features are there, too), but also because of the sophisticated and convenient infrastructure that has already been created to back up the user base.
Continue reading “Emacs Org mode: Markup for notes and planning”Some fetch-and-send window management in i3wm
The Bspwm window manager has the ability to swap workspaces, which is immensely useful in multihead (multiple monitors) setup. Unfortunately, I am an i3wm user that has to deal with poor approximations of this.
Continue reading “Some fetch-and-send window management in i3wm”Eww, a web browser inside a text editor
Emacs text editor is not immediately accessible to beginners, such as myself. However, it contains so many additional features that one may end up using them, thus ending up using Emacs indirectly. Such additional features include Org mode, emailer, and webbrowser.
Continue reading “Eww, a web browser inside a text editor”Mouse follows focus in Windows, an AutoHotkey script
If you are unlucky enough to have to use Windows, but lucky enough to get AutoHotkey installed, then here is a script that I use to enable the mouse-follows-focus function which I find indispensable. Somewhere deep in the settings, Windows has focus-follows-mouse, i.e. focus (and raise) the window where the mouse pointer currently is, which is good if you find the mouse the quickest way to switch between windows. But apparently the only way in Windows to get mouse-follows-focus, i.e. automatically bring the mouse pointer to the window that you switched to by keyboard, is an AutoHotkey script.
Continue reading “Mouse follows focus in Windows, an AutoHotkey script”
Still looking for the perfect desktop: Workspaces versus tags
Looks like tiling window managers have either workspaces or tags and the two terms are not interchangeable.
Continue reading “Still looking for the perfect desktop: Workspaces versus tags”
