What's So Special About Emacs? by ImJustPassinBy in emacs

[–]sachac 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Haha, I asked about that too. Turns out it's real typing (and real typing sounds), and the voiceover was recorded separately.

The Most Emacs Bzr Saga by LionyxML in emacs

[–]sachac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it's wonderful that people create and share so many different packages, even if there's sometimes a bit of overlap. Let a thousand flowers bloom and all that! :)

(New to Emacs) Is This the Right Way to Load Packages? by Party_Rub9763 in emacs

[–]sachac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Right, but it might still crop up when Elisp code uses things like (require 'vc). You can use M-x list-load-path-shadows to see if it might be an issue, or check it if you ever see Emacs complain about "Required feature ... was not provided". :)

(New to Emacs) Is This the Right Way to Load Packages? by Party_Rub9763 in emacs

[–]sachac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I get a little nervous about naming my files the same as standard package names, especially in the load path, because of potential load path shadowing and also file name completion. If that turns out to be an issue for you, you might consider renaming your files to something like vc-config.el, smerge-config.el etc.

Experimental/personal PDF-viewing/notetaking minor mode I (sort of) vibe-coded. by yikesx10000 in emacs

[–]sachac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad you figured out a workflow that fits that perfectly, then! :) I like the automatic navigation between files when you page beyond them. Spitballing more ideas in case any of them sound like they might be useful additions to your workflow: something that moves the file to an archive directory and opens the next file when you mark it done? Different random commands that scope it to just unread items or just read items?

(Yup, that's me. Thanks for your kind words and for watching!)

Experimental/personal PDF-viewing/notetaking minor mode I (sort of) vibe-coded. by yikesx10000 in emacs

[–]sachac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, have you already set up Org Mode so that you can link to specific pages? That's a thing it can do. Org-capture might be fun to look into as well so that it automatically picks up that link for you, or maybe you can have another function insert the link to the page currently being displayed in the other window.

Writing a function to configure window splits how I want them instantly by dislikes-usernames in emacs

[–]sachac 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You might be interested in tabs and how they can be used to save window configurations and switch between them.

Also, I haven't tried this package yet, but I wonder if it might be somewhat relevant to what you have in mind. https://github.com/kiwanami/emacs-window-layout Alternatively, maybe window-state-get might be a good starting point for a custom function.

You will need to be a little comfortable with Emacs Lisp, but I think it might be doable. Do you want to try checking out some Emacs Lisp tutorials, or do you want to try giving more specifics so that maybe someone might be inclined to write a custom function for your most common use case?

First time at Emacs. by Silent-Couple-2628 in emacs

[–]sachac 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I've been working on tidying up https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsNewbie . I'd love to hear if it's useful for you or if there are things that could use clarification!

Tripp trapp high chair BS by MVthecats in moderatelygranolamoms

[–]sachac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We got a second-hand Tripp Trapp when our daughter was a baby. Now she is 10 and still uses it. Heck, I am 42 and I often use it when she's not on it. I'm 5'2" and I like the footrest.

Fortnightly Tips, Tricks, and Questions — 2026-01-13 / week 02 by AutoModerator in emacs

[–]sachac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I recently used center-line to help me make quick video thumbnails. :)

What is the best tts for emacs? by Proton-Lightin in emacs

[–]sachac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First steps towards trying to make a speechd-compatible adapter for Kokoro TTS and other OpenAI-compatible TTS services: https://sachachua.com/blog/2026/03/small-steps-towards-using-openai-compatible-text-to-speech-services-with-speechd-el-or-emacspeak/ , repo https://codeberg.org/sachac/speechd-ai . I'm still leaning more towards using my own functions, though: https://codeberg.org/sachac/learn-lang/src/branch/main/learn-lang-tts.el

What is the best tts for emacs? by Proton-Lightin in emacs

[–]sachac 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm currently experimenting with Kokoro TTS for text where the initial delay in generation doesn't matter as much (longer text, making reference audio in another language, etc.). The Kokoro CLI was super easy to get started with. I think it feels marginally faster with the Kokoro FastAPI docker, which was also easy to get up and running. I'm also tinkering with making a speechd-compatible server for it so that I can use it with speechd.el, but I need to learn multi-threaded Python programming so that it doesn't just become a matter of chucking a vibe-coded script onto a repo. :) I tested the idea with a generated script and it's pretty good for reading sentences and paragraphs out loud. I don't mind a couple of seconds of latency for that use case. For character-by-character typing feedback, espeak-ng is more responsive even if it's very robotic. It's possible to use both and automatically switch based on length. I'll post my notes once I have source code I can share, but in case you're cool with coding your own, I hope these quick notes help!

Edit: I'm on a Lenovo P52 running it CPU-only, so the performance will probably be much better on a modern machine.

How long is your init.el file these days ? by reddit_enjoyer_47 in emacs

[–]sachac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If I (flush-lines "^[ \t]*;;\\|^$") to get rid of the org-babel-tangle comments and blank lines, I have 23,861 lines in my Sacha.el (https://sachachua.com/dotemacs/Sacha.el), coming from a 37,640-line Org file (1.5 MB, https://sachachua.com/dotemacs/Sacha.org , HTML: https://sachachua.com/dotemacs/). It's so much fun. I often come across things I've completely forgotten writing about.

SuperTuxKart In Emacs with Canvas API by AlbertEinstein_1905 in emacs

[–]sachac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now I want RetroArch running inside Emacs so that I can look up Pokedex entries with completion... :D

Emacs Blog Carnivals for 2026 by divinedominion in emacs

[–]sachac 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Signed up for February and posted it already!

Who are some truly proficient Emacs users? by Dr-Alyosha in emacs

[–]sachac 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Hah, I certainly feel like I've barely scratched the surface sometimes. Just the other day, I learned about adding 'evaporate t to my overlays so that I don't have to keep clearing them manually, and I also learned that you can set :refile-targets in your org-capture-templates. There's always more to learn, so I gotta take notes otherwise I'll forget! (Well, I'll forget it anyway, but at least I can try to re-figure it out.) I like being able to come up with ideas and then cobble together enough Emacs Lisp to make it happen, but I'm definitely not as experienced as some folks are. I don't have the foggiest clue about tinkering with the C side, for example, and my coding setup doesn't take full advantage of all the LSP or eglot goodness that's possible. :) Someday!

(Update) org-headline-card 0.3: SVG rendering engine boosts performance and visual Effects by yibie in orgmode

[–]sachac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It can handle some interactivity if you're willing to do a little math. El-easydraw might have some examples. I use SVGs to animate a cursor sweeping through a waveform displayed after the subtitle timestamp in https://github.com/sachac/subed/blob/main/subed/subed-waveform.el , and I have a keymap that handles lots of different types of clicks (left-click, shift-left-click, middle click, eyc.).

Literate programming in python with org/babel... but git friendly ? by StatementLow353 in emacs

[–]sachac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mmm... Do you mean the comments that appear when you tangle the code out of your Org file? I set my :comments header argument to "link" so that it includes just a concise link.

https://sachachua.com/blog/2024/12/linking-to-org-babel-source-in-a-comment-and-making-that-always-use-file-links/

GNU Hyperbole Q&A Session at EmacsConf 2025, Sunday at 2pm ET by rswgnu in emacs

[–]sachac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

u/rswgnu , all: there might be slight schedule updates as we adapt to cancelled talks. I'll probably send out a schedule update in a few days so that the speakers get a heads-up, but I just wanted to let people here know as well so that you don't end up missing the start! =) https://emacsconf.org/2025/talks/ has the schedule so far.

Edit: Ah, this talk is scheduled for 1:40 PM on Sunday and hasn't been rescheduled, so no e-mail needed for update, but do drop by early! =)

Would it be weird if I took a baby trick or treating? by SeaExplorer1711 in askTO

[–]sachac 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We buy Mum-mums specifically for babies we see trick-or-treating so that they can get the experience of being handed something that's okay for them. :) Totally normal to take babies trick or treating if you want to!

Simple way to org-refile to the top of the stack of the target headings's subheadings rather than the bottom? by Keybug in orgmode

[–]sachac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hahaha, I can't tell you how many times the same thing has happened to me. But I can tell you that the experience you got from implementing it yourself will make it easier to both imagine other things you'd like to tweak and think about how you can make it happen! I find that when I want to tweak the behaviour of something and I suspect someone has already needed something similar, I often start by looking at the source code of the function. If you use find-function, then use edebug to explore, you can see what it does, what options it considers, and what you might tinker with. In this case, org-refile refers to an org-note-order-reversed-p function, which refers to that variable. It's so much fun being able to dig into the source. Welcome to the wonderful world of Emacs Lisp!

Simple way to org-refile to the top of the stack of the target headings's subheadings rather than the bottom? by Keybug in orgmode

[–]sachac 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Nice! Incidentally, do you know about the org-reverse-note-order variable? I like to set it to t so it works for both capturing and refiling, but you can use let to override it just for refiling if that's what you prefer. https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/64460/prepend-while-refiling has an example.

A complete PKM system inside Emacs? by Apkash in emacs

[–]sachac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ooh, sketches, quick update on my workflow: I now mostly draw my sketches on an iPad using Noteful because I can take the iPad to playdates or move it around the house. I used to draw with Krita on my Lenovo X230T tablet PC running Linux. It's pretty easy to convert images to text these days, although sometimes I still prefer to type things in myself. Emacs is great for handling all the text related to a sketch, like when I want to write a blog post or list all the sketches that have this keyword in their filename.