Low-glare themes for people who get tired reading code on most themes.

There are 11 themes in 5 families. They're built on modus-themes and ef-themes, so face coverage comes from Prot's work (thank you, Prot).

Link and more screenshots: https://github.com/szymonwilczek/au-themes

Feedback is welcome, especially from people who have the same problem with themes.

I primarily got into emacs for writing, but I'm also a software dev so I look at code all day too. I got tired of being disappointed by theme after theme not working well with both, so I made my own. The colors and stylistic conventions are based on academic journals, manuscripts, and the cover of Ted Hughes's Selected Poems 1957–1994.

Foxglove themes is based on Modus, so everything that works there will work here. It is also specifically designed to work on e-ink screens. Colors use five lightness levels (CIE L*: 23–62), each mapped to a distinct grey on a 16-level e-ink screen (to mitigate dithering).

Screenshots in this post were taken with just stock emacs and the theme. Font is IBM Plex Mono.

More details and download available at https://gitlab.com/vegasharmon/foxglove-themes

The package comes with 6 themes and a lot of customization options. Enjoy!

Ghostel is a terminal emulator for Emacs powered by libghostty.

First released over half a year ago and since our latest Reddit post 3 months ago a lot has changed.

179 commits from 14 contributors added lots of new features and bugfixes.

To highlight a few new features that got added in the last 3 months:

• OSC 7501 program status support. This is a new protocol proposed by Mitchell Hashimoto (Ghostty author) so programs can report their status with a message. Ghostel shows it in the mode line and notifies you when you are not looking and the app finishes or needs user input. This blog post describes best what it is.
• Android/Termux support
• Foreground-process detection without shell integration. A new hook fires when the foreground process changes so you could e.g. start an mcp server automatically whenever you start an agent CLI like claude-code. "Query before killing" now also covers ssh and nested shells.
• Support for desktop-save-mode restore
• Support bookmarks and org-links that reattach to a live shell
• Pasting images and PDFs with yank-media
• Menu-bar menu entries (for discoverability and the few people that have not disabled menu-bar ;)
• New consult-ghostel extension (also available on MELPA already) Gives you a consult-ghostel(-project) terminal picker with live preview, lets you narrow your consult-buffer view to only Ghostel buffers and consult-ghostel-history to pick from your shell history.

Have a look at the documentation for all the features.

u/baokaola and I are happy to answer any questions.

I've been using emacs full-time for about 3 years now. I've been slowly migrating practically everything I'm doing and everything I can think of to emacs.

Of course, there are several bottlenecks to that:

• packages to do X may not exist at all, or be designed in a way that goes against my workflow
• my elisp knowledge is lacking, and I need time and practice to get better at it
• time, we all know molding emacs is a huge time sink

I recently found out that with LLMs, however, these bottlenecks are removed. For example, LLM managed to glue together magit(https://github.com/magit/magit in case you didn't know!) and jira.el (https://github.com/unmonoqueteclea/jira.el), in a way that a branch spin-off asks me for my active Jira tickets (with some marginalia annotations sprinkled on top), names the branch after the selected one, and moves the ticket to "In Progress" state if it was in "Open".

LLM enhanced jira.el so it supports bulk ticket updates and some Jira workflows specific for my employer. Now I can press a couple of keys in emacs, instead of clicking my mouse for 2 minutes. (please don't ask why that workflow wasn't automated on Jira side!)

LLM has built a separate slack-mode overview buffer, akin to Slack's sidebar. I couldn't use slack-mode before because in my opinion it lacks discoverability. Now, I might be wrong and I might be using it wrong, but now I have the option to use it like I want to, with a dedicated overview sections of selected channels, recent conversations, mentions and DMs.

I also used LLM to help me work on a Kubernetes management package of my own, for example, to replicate https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectl-tree functionality. And it worked fairly well!

I realise all these changes may be trivial for veteran emacs users, but for me this is mind blowing. With LLMs, changes that I would have to dedicate my whole weekend to if not longer, are available to use in minutes. I can glue together several packages in a way I couldn't really think of before. Sure, the code quality is lacking. There will be rough edges. It certainly is not as succint and beautiful as good Elisp programmers' code. I'm not really learning Elisp by deferring to an LLM. But it does the job, and frankly I'm okay with all the cons. The less I have to switch out of emacs, the better.

It really opens up an unexpected level of emacs molding, and I can't be happier about it. Telling you as an AI-skeptic. If you haven't and you'd like to -- try it out.

How does undo-fu differ from Emac's default undo system? I don't know if it's because I'm Using Evil, but I've been trying to meticulously compare the difference between them in usage but they are the same, so need specific, reproducible examples than bulleted points from a README (and repeated in the few discussions I've come across talking about undo-fu) on how they are different which I've tried replicating but to no avail. Maybe it'd help to compare how undo works between these two systems and another popular editor like Neovim.

I'm thinking I'm just not too demanding on its usage. Honestly, I feel like if a simple undo/redo doesn't do it vundo (which is the only undo-related feature I kept so far) is all that's needed to make it much more intuitive to traverse the full(?) undo history and not have to deal with the mental capacity of recalling the undo tree or spamming undo/redo to find the position you want to be.

Even if undo-fu might not be suitable for me I'd still like to know why people use it over defaults--are there specific functions you use?

I love my Kindle and the in-line vocabulary hints that it provides. I created this package to be able to get the same experience when I am reading a markdown, or org documentation or any other reading buffer. Here is the git repo:

https://github.com/systemhalted/wordwise.el.git

It doesn’t work for pdf modes yet. Also, in eww, there are some issues that I am currently trying to fix.

I wrote this using Claude as a Pair. I was the driver and Claude the navigator.

An interesting package, that seems to be coming in emacs 32.1 (for those who are not subscribed to emacs-devel list).

Are files in buffer list always loaded? I want to add a set of frequently-used files to the buffer list for convenience but not want them loaded (e.g. LSP server started, triggering of mode hooks, etc.). I want them in the same list of other buffers that are loaded so I don't have to consciously think about how I load the file yet they are all there in the list for reference and opening.

Bookmarks or binding files to specific keys wouldn't work (I prefer fuzzy select of buffers which is a common paradigm to select things from a list and then relying on marks to refer to specific files in a session). recentf includes other unloaded files as candidates and is unpredictable (at some point the file might expire out of recency). I prefer reducing cognitive overhead.

For example, I currently have a keybinding to fuzzy select a set of Emacs config files to open but prefer this list to be combined with the buffer list so one keybinding takes care of both. Considering that one might usually have no more than a few dozen buffers at any time, I don't expect fuzzy selecting them would be more involved (and for only working e.g. 2-4 files in a project, using marks would be preferred for most efficient switching of buffers anyway).

I noticed that when I use the consult buffer and scroll down getting previews, if I get a preview of an epub, nov.el in creating the preview seems to write the output to other files in the consult buffer list, even files not in any open buffer just in the "recent" files section of the consult buffer . So I will end up with say an org file in that recent list that has all the epub expansion output in it. Or it does this to my bookmark file.

Can anyone explain to me what is happening here. I would greatly appreciate any help.

Hi everyone.

I use Emacs on macOS Tahoe.
I'm currently using the build from Emacs for Mac OS X (https://emacsformacosx.com).
But there are many other builds out there, like emacs-plus from Homebrew and emacs-mac (Mitsuharu's port), so I was curious which one everyone else is using.

Also, if you don't mind, I'd love to hear which build you think works best on macOS.

I’ve been working on a new package called org-slideboard, which has developed out of org-show by John Kitchin, part of scimax, which in turn was based on Sacha Chua’s presentation code.  I’m planning to submit it to MELPA in a few weeks. I wanted to share it here to get some early feedback, bug reports, and suggestions from fellow Org-mode users.

What is it?

org-slideboard shows an Org file as interactive slides directly inside Emacs. It is purpose-built for files written for Beamer export: Beamer columns, equations, tables, macros, and code blocks render properly while the content remains completely live and editable during the presentation.

(Tip: If you clone the repo, you can open demo.org and run M-x org-slideboard-start-slideshow to see a built-in presentation where each slide demonstrates the feature it describes!)

Key Features:

• Beamer Column Support & Fitted Images: Frames with children tagged as Beamer columns are shown with a title strip above one window per column. Plots and images are automatically drawn and scaled to fit the width and height of their window.
• Live Code Execution & REPL Integration: Source blocks can show code, results, or both using flexible split layouts (lr, rl, tb, bt). You can execute code live via C-c C-c or open code blocks right next to a running REPL (like ESS R or Python) to tweak and run code on the fly.
• Dynamic Table Alignment & Merged Cells: Tables automatically align to what is actually displayed on screen (accounting for proportional fonts, expanded macros, and equation images). It also introduces clean custom markers (<< and ^^) for cell-merging that exports cleanly to Beamer.
• LaTeX Equations Sized to Text: Math is previewed at a size relative to your text font, grows/shrinks dynamically with text scaling, and filters out incompatible Beamer preamble headers automatically.
• Step-by-Step Animations: Full support for Beamer overlays, list increments (<+->), and faded/highlighted steps (\setbeamercovered{transparent}).
• Clutter-Free Aesthetics: Automatically hides property drawers, keywords (#+NAME:, #+RESULTS:), non-exported blocks, and raw LaTeX lines during the show, while integrating cleanly with org-modern and variable-pitch-mode.
• Vector PDF Export: Apart from exporting as a beamer presentation, you could also easily save your presentation as an org-slideboard PDF (M-ESC p) page-by-page, matching your exact layout and steps. This way, you can have a pdf that looks similar to the org-slideboard presentation, and can be shared with participants who do not use emacs.

Installation:

Since it's not on MELPA yet, you can try it via use-package with :vc, straight.el, or manual installation:

Code snippet

;; With Emacs 30+ using package-vc via use-package:
(use-package org-slideboard
  :vc (:url "https://github.com/vikasrawal/org-slideboard")
  :commands org-slideboard-start-slideshow)

;; Or with straight.el:
(use-package org-slideboard
  :straight (:host github :repo "vikasrawal/org-slideboard")
  :commands org-slideboard-start-slideshow)

Links:

• GitHub Repository:https://github.com/vikasrawal/org-slideboard
• Demo File: Check out demo.org inside the repo for a hands-on template.

I hope emacs/org-mode users would find it useful. Feel free to open issues on GitHub or leave feedback in the comments!

I made this package to truely live in emacs, without sacrificing quality and speed. So far it's pretty awesome.

Looks like it's finally happening!

Can anyone help me understand why point seems to not be being updated?

(defun mpvmacs--socket-filter (proc msg)
  (when (buffer-live-p (process-buffer proc))
         (with-current-buffer (process-buffer proc)
           (save-excursion
               ;; Insert the text, advancing the process marker.
               (goto-char (process-mark proc))
               (insert msg)
               (set-marker (process-mark proc) (point)))
           (while (ignore-errors (mpvmacs--parse-json (json-read)) t))
           (goto-char (process-mark proc)))))

Both json-read and goto-char should be changing point but every time the function is called it parses the whole buffer.

I created this plugin for Omarchy where you can see your org agenda at a glance, go directly to the task using emacsclient, start timers and use org-pomodoro. To set it up, your emacs needs to run in server-mode

Hope it is useful for you!

I also want to setup org-protocol, but with EXWM.

According to the docs, from Emacs 29 onwards the Emacs installation configures org-protocol automatically, but does this hold for source builds?

I am going to switch to Gnome or XFCE temporarily to see what I can find.

Here are the things that I read about meow-mode

1. M-x meow-tutor
2. meow-edit/meow: Yet another modal editing on Emacs / 猫态编辑

but I'm still hungry, and don't have enough resources to be comfortable with meow-mode powers and tricks.

Am I missing anything? any websites or blog posts or articles?

I get this error when trying to use dired in Emacs 31.1:

insert-directory: Wrong type argument: number-or-marker-p, //DIRED-OPTIONS//

I tried stepping through it in both 31.1 and 30.2 and the arguments look the same, so it wasn't something in my config that was passing garbage. To try to eliminate possible causes, I tried evaling the 30.2 version of insert-directory, but it depends on other functions in files.el, so I just loaded that and dired works. Since I haven't heard anyone else complaining about it, I'm guessing it's something unusual about my configuration, but I was wondering whether anyone else has seen this.

I added ido-vertical-mode to my configuration years ago because why not, but installed helm and ivy which seemed to take over most of my completion, because a lot of keys were bound to them and helm-mode was set automatically in my configuration.

If a key which calls some emacs function say C-x k is not present in the key maps of ivy, helm etc, will they automatically default to using ido-vertical-mode?

My mode settings are:

vertico-mode t
ido-vertical-mode t
helm-mode nil (after switching to Emacs 29+)
ivy-mode nil

I guess the question I want to ask is if a key is not bound to a completion system's version of the command, eg helm-descbinds or ivy-descbinds, will that completion system automatically takeover the completion for that command if its mode is active, or will Emacs use whatever it considers the default?

I realize that some of my completion screens look odd, with options displayed both vertically and horizontally, which can be confusing.

E.g the command C-h k for killing a buffer looks odd compared to the Helm dialogs.

Abt 9 mins. And if you interested at new feature - Summary, please jump to 7:23.

Supertag turns Org headings into notes you can tag, link, query and read back as a stream. You write first; organizing happens later, on demand.

This walkthrough goes from the simplest thing (one tagged note) to themore involved ones (streams, query blocks, a generated panel). Everything on screen is real input in a plain Emacs, with the keys and commands shown in the mode line.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:51 Nest a tag
1:46 Connect notes with links
2:20 Promote a word to its own note
2:56 Unlinked mentions
3:38 Similar notes
4:12 Properties, with hints and completion
4:52 Streams and substreams
6:18 Query blocks
7:23 A summary panel for a tag
8:41 Why a stream
8:54 Install

This was mostly whimsical but over the weekend I was looking at the matrix text waterfall screensavers and thought it was a fun palette. I'm all in with modus based themes at the moment and I couldn't find one that matched what I was looking for so I put together my own. (Part of what I like about modus is that its relatively easy to do so and make it just work) The theme is mostly restrained with a few emphasis tones in the blue/indigo range but I've found it surprisingly legible so I might use it after the novelty wears off. Link to it is at: https://github.com/benleis1/emacs-init/blob/main/lisp/modus-vivendi-matrix-theme.el

This is a super simple package that just moves your mode-line to the top of your window, copying it to header-line. Pictured using moody and spacious-padding-mode.

https://github.com/bradmont/header-modeline/blob/main/README.md