$ rm Important.txt (uh oh!)

17 September 2022 $ rm Important.txt (uh oh!) Setting Emacs up to use your system trash can potentially save your bacon if you mistakenly delete a file, say from dired. Unsurprisingly, the trash safety net also extends to other Emacs areas. For example, discarding files from … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

Cycling through window layouts (revisited)

11 September 2022 Cycling through window layouts (revisited) Last year, I wrote a little script to cycle through window layouts via Hammerspoon. The cycling set I chose didn't stick, so here's another go. function reframeFocusedWindow() local win = hs.window.focusedWin … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

dwim-shell-command with template prompts

18 August 2022 dwim-shell-command with template prompts Somewhat recently, I wanted to quickly create an empty/transparent png file. ImageMagick's convert has you covered here. Say you want a transparent 200x400 image, you can get it with: convert -verbose -size 200x400 xc:no … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

Seamless Command-Line Utils

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@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

Seamless command-line utils

14 August 2022 Seamless command-line utils Just the other day, I received a restaurant menu split into a handful of image files. I wanted to forward the menu to others but figured I should probably send it as a single file. ImageMagick's convert command-line utility works gre … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

Emacs freebie: macOS emoji picker

03 August 2022 Emacs freebie: macOS emoji picker I recently ran a little experiment to bring macOS's long-press-accents-like behavior to Emacs. What I forgot to mention is that macOS's character viewer just works from our beloved editor. If you have a newer MacBook model, you … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

dwim-shell-command video streams

01 August 2022 dwim-shell-command video streams I continue hunting for use-cases I can migrate to dwim-shell-command… After adding clipboard support (via ) I found one more. Copy URL from browser. Invoke dwim-shell-commands-mpv-stream-clipboard-url. Enjoy picture in picture f … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

An accentuated Emacs experiment (à la macOS)

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@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

An accentuated Emacs experiment (à la macOS)

30 July 2022 An accentuated Emacs experiment (à la macOS) macOS has a wonderful input mechanism where you press and hold a key on your keyboard to display the accent menu. It's easy to internalize: long press "a" if you want to input "á". On Emacs, C-x 8 ' a would be the … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

dwim-shell-command improvements

28 July 2022 dwim-shell-command improvements Added a few improvements to dwim-shell-command. Dired region In DWIM style, if you happen to have a dired region selected, use region files instead. There's no need to explicitly mark them. Clipboard (kill-ring) replaceme … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

Dwim-Shell-Command on Melpa

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@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

dwim-shell-command on Melpa

24 July 2022 dwim-shell-command on Melpa Figure 1: gets replaced by a clipboard (kill ring) URL My pull request to add dwim-shell-command to melpa has been merged. Soon, you'll be able to install directly from Milkypostman’s Emacs Lisp Package Archive. dwim-shell-comman … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 3 years ago

A lifehack for your shell

16 July 2022 A lifehack for your shell I'm a fan of the unzip command line utility that ships with macOS. I give it a .zip file and it unzips it for me. No flags or arguments to remember (for my typical usages anyway). Most importantly, I've fully internalized the unzip com … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs zones to lift you up

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs zones to lift you up

13 July 2022 Emacs zones to lift you up As I prune my Emacs config off, I came across a forgotten bit of elisp I wrote about 6 years ago. While it's not going to power up your Emacs fu, it may lift your spirits, or maybe just aid discovery of new words. You see, I had for … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs: DWIM shell command (multi-language)

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs: DWIM shell command (multi-language)

10 July 2022 Emacs: DWIM shell command (multi-language) UPDATE: dwim-shell-command is now available on melpa. I keep on goofying around with dwim-shell-command and it's sibling dwim-shell-command-on-marked-files from dwim-shell-command.el. In addition to defaulting to z … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

PNG to icns (Emacs DWIM style)

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs: Password-protect current pdf (revisited)

09 July 2022 Emacs: Password-protect current pdf (revisited) UPDATE: dwim-shell-command is now available on melpa. With a recent look at writing DWIM shell commands, I've been revisiting my custom Emacs functions invoking command line utilities. Take this post, for exam … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

png to icns (Emacs DWIM style)

09 July 2022 png to icns (Emacs DWIM style) UPDATE: dwim-shell-command is now available on melpa. Since writing a DWIM version of the shell-command, I've been having a little fun revisiting command line utilities I sometimes invoke from my beloved editor. In this instance … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs DWIM shell-command

07 July 2022 Emacs DWIM shell-command UPDATE: dwim-shell-command is now available on melpa. I've talked about DWIM before, where I bend Emacs to help me do what I mean. Emacs is also great for wrapping command-line one-liners with elisp, so I can quickly invoke commands witho … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs: Password-Protect Current Pdf

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs: Password-protect current pdf

02 June 2022 Emacs: Password-protect current pdf UPDATE: Check out Password-protect current pdf (revisted) for a simpler version. Every so often, I need to password-protect a pdf. On macOS, Preview has a simple solution, but I figured there must be a command line utility to m … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org (iOS) v1.4 Released

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org v1.4 released

24 April 2022 Plain Org v1.4 released Plain Org v1.4 is now available on the App Store. I was on a long flight recently 🦘, so I gave list and checkbox editing a little love. There's a couple of other minor improvements included. If you haven't heard of Plain Org, it … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org v1.3 released

15 April 2022 Plain Org v1.3 released Plain Org v1.3 is now available on the App Store. The update receives a few features, bug fixes, and improvements. If you haven't heard of Plain Org, it gives you access to org files on iPhone while away from your beloved Emacs. I love … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org (org mode for iOS) v1.2.1 released

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs DWIM: do what *I* mean (2021)

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org v1.2.1 released

27 March 2022 Plain Org v1.2.1 released Plain Org v1.2.1 is now available on the App Store. The update receives minor features, bug fixes, and improvements. If you haven't heard of Plain Org, it gives you access to org files on iPhone while away from your beloved Emacs. I l … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs DWIM: swiper vs. isearch vs. phi-search

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs DWIM: swiper vs isearch vs phi-search

26 March 2022 Emacs DWIM: swiper vs isearch vs phi-search I've talked about DWIM in the past, that wonderful Emacs ability to do what ✨I✨ mean. Emacs being hyper-configurable, we can always teach it more things, so it can do exactly what we mean. There are no shortages … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Grandmas vanilla pound cake

12 March 2022 Grandma's vanilla pound cake My grandmother Hilda used to bake this for us grandkids. I don't know the origin of the recipe, but my parents, aunts, and cousins, they all bake it too. I'm a big fan, but only get to eat it when visiting. Yesterday, I changed tha … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs: viewing webp images

05 March 2022 Emacs: viewing webp images There's a recent reddit post asking how to view webp images in Emacs. I didn't know the answer, but it's something I had wanted for some time. This post was a nice reminder to go and check things out. Was happy to contribute an answer. … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs: Fuzzy search Apple's online docs

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs: Fuzzy search Apples online docs

21 February 2022 Emacs: Fuzzy search Apple's online docs When building software for the Apple ecosystem, Xcode is often the editor of choice. With Emacs being my personal preference, I rarely find other iOS devs with a similar mindset. When I saw Mikael Konradsson's post … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org v1.2 for iOS Released

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org v1.2 released

13 February 2022 Plain Org v1.2 released Although Plain Org v1.2 has been in the App Store for a little while, the release write-up was overdue, sorry. The update receives some new features and bugfixes. If you haven't heard of Plain Org, it gives ya access to your org files … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Happy New Year and forming new habits

03 January 2022 Happy New Year and forming new habits Hacker News has a summary of Atomic Habits (the book). In my case, I really enjoyed reading the entire book. I liked its narrative, mixing actionable and concrete advice with personal stories and experiments. After reading … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org v1.1 Released

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org v1.1 released ☃️

12 December 2021 Plain Org v1.1 released ☃️ Plain Org v1.1 is now available on the App Store. The update receives new features and bugfixes. If you're finding Plain Org useful, please help support this effort by getting the word out. Tell your friends, tweet, or blog about it … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs Bends Again

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Emacs bends again

28 November 2021 Emacs bends again While adding more rendering capabilities to Plain Org, it soon became apparent some sort of screenshot/snapshot testing was necessary to prevent regressing existing features. That is, we first generate a rendered snapshot from a given org snip … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org has joined the chat (iOS)

10 November 2021 Plain Org has joined the chat (iOS) The App Store is a crowded space when it come to markdown apps. A quick search yields a wonderful wealth of choice. Kinda overwhelming, but a great problem to have nonetheless. For those of us with org as our markup of choi … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Plain Org for iOS (a month later)

19 September 2021 Plain Org for iOS (a month later) A month ago, I posted about my desire to bring org tasks/TODOs to iOS and make them quickly available from my iPhone. Since then, I've received some great feedback, which I've been slowly chipping away at. My intent isn't so … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Org habits on iOS? Check Tasks, you're next

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@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Org habits on iOS? Check! Tasks, youre next

19 August 2021 Org habits on iOS? Check! Tasks, you're next I'm an org mode fan. This blog is powered by org. It's more of an accidental blog that started as a single org file keeping notes. I use org babel too. Oh and org habits. My never-ending list of TODOs is also powered b … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 4 years ago

Flat Habits 1.1 released

11 July 2021 Flat Habits 1.1 released Flat Habits 1.1 is now available on the App Store. Flat Habits is a habit tracker that’s mindful of your time, data, and privacy. It's powered by org plain text markup, enabling you to use your favorite editor (Emacs, Vim, VSCode, etc.) to … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 5 years ago

macOS: Show in Finder / Show in Emacs

11 July 2021 macOS: Show in Finder / Show in Emacs From Christian Tietze's Open macOS Finder Window in Emacs Dired, I learned about reveal-in-osx-finder. This is handy for the few times I want to transition from Emacs to Finder for file management. I say few times since Emacs's … | Continue reading


@xenodium.com | 5 years ago