‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
Welcome to the
System Crafters Newsletter!
Issue #003 - May 25, 2023
by David Wilson
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== Contents ==
1. Introduction
2. Changes to the New Matrix Channels
3. Tip of the Week
4. Crafter News
5. Friday's Stream - Is Ement.el the Best Matrix Client?
6. Closing
== Introduction ==
Welcome to the new issue of the System Crafters Newsletter!
This one is a bit shorter than last time because I've had a busy week, but I
hope you like it!
If you have feedback about this issue, please feel free to send an e-mail to
xxxxxx@systemcrafters.net or just reply to this e-mail!
== Changes to the New Matrix Channels ==
Last week I announced that we'll be shutting down the System Crafters Discord in
July and that we'll all be moving over to a combination of Matrix and IRC:
-> https://systemcrafters.net/news/moving-from-discord-to-matrix-irc/
Lots of people jumped over and we've been having a ton of fun chatting the last
few days! There's been a bit of churn due to issues with the IRC bridge to
Libera.Chat, but I've finally got most of the issues cleared up with a solid
path forward.
With that said, those of you who joined the Matrix channels before I figured out
the IRC situation have some homework to do! This changeover required creating
new channels to replace the old ones that were originally in the System Crafters
space and apparently it's not as simple as just joining the new channel.
If you fall into this category, check out this news post that I wrote describing
the steps to fix your room membership so that you show up in IRC correctly:
-> https://systemcrafters.net/news/changes-to-matrix-channels/
I apologize for the trouble there, but this is a one time issue that we should
not have to deal with again!
I'm very optimistic about the future of our chat on Matrix and IRC so I hope
you'll join us there soon if you haven't tried it out yet :)
== Tip of the Week ==
* Creating an evil-mode leader key with SPC like Doom Emacs and Spacemacs
Are you a former user of Doom Emacs or Spacemacs? Do you really miss the SPC
leader key? The general.el package has you covered:
-> https://github.com/noctuid/general.el
I've shown how to use this package before in Episode #3 of the original Emacs
From Scratch series, but since then I've actually figured out a cleaner approach
for this which blends really nicely with `use-package`.
But first, what is a "leader key?" This is a bit of terminology from Vim which
describes a special key you press to access a set of quick bindings for common
actions. Emacs just calls this a "key map" :) However, the general.el package
makes it easy to emulate leader key behavior with the excellent `evil-mode`.
The trick is to define a key map for your SPC leader key which can be referenced
in other `use-package` blocks:
```
(use-package general
:ensure t
:after evil
:config
(general-evil-setup t)
(general-define-key
:keymaps '(normal insert emacs)
:prefix "SPC"
:non-normal-prefix "M-SPC"
:prefix-map 'my/leader-key-map))
```
This sets up a leader key map called `my/leader-key-map` which is bound to `SPC`
in 'normal' mode and `M-SPC` in 'insert' mode.
This key map can now be used in `use-package' blocks with the `:general' keyword:
```
(use-package project
:general
(my/leader-key-map
"SPC" 'project-find-file
"p p" 'project-switch-project
"p d" 'project-dired
"p b" 'project-switch-to-buffer
"p B" 'project-list-buffers))
```
This sets up the following key bindings for project.el:
- SPC SPC - Find a file in the project
- SPC p p - Switch to a different projeect
- SPC p d - Open a Dired buffer for the current project
- SPC p b - Shows a buffer selector with only buffers from the current project
- SPC p B - Shows a full buffer list for the project to manage them precisely
The key here is to use the special `:general` keyword in `use-package` which is
provided by the `general.el` package.
Following the `:general` keyword, we have a list that starts with the name of
our custom key map `my/leader-key-map` and the list of binding pairs which are
all prefixed with the "SPC" leader key for this map.
The bindings created in this map also have the same qualities as normal `:bind`
mappings with `use-package`: they cause the package loading to be deferred until
one of those bindings are used!
I hope that gives you some ideas for how you can use `general.el` to make a nice
custom leader key map to rival those of Doom Emacs and Spacemacs!
== Crafter News ==
Here are some interesting news items in the broader sphere of system crafting:
* The Lem editor just released v2.0 with an SDL2 frontend!
Lem is an Emacs-inspired text editor written with Common Lisp:
-> https://github.com/lem-project/lem
It's primarily intended to be an integrated editing environment for Common Lisp
but it seems to have great potential to be a next-generation Emacs competitor!
This new 2.0 release replaces the old Electron-based graphical frontend with
one written with SDL2, meaning that it will be much faster and more lightweight
while still being more cross-platform than previous releases.
You can read more information about the 2.0 release on their GitHub repository
here:
-> https://github.com/lem-project/lem/releases/tag/v2.0.0
Gavin Freeborn made a video about Lem about a year ago which might still be
useful if you're interested to learn more about it:
-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph8M8ThBgPc
I'll try to set Lem up myself so that we can take a look at it on a stream soon!
* The Lisp Game Jam starts tomorrow, May 26th!
-- Thanks to ~acdw~ for suggesting this item! --
The Lisp Game Jam is a regular event put on by some familiar folks in the Emacs
and Lisp communities, David Thompson and Phil Hagelberg (aka technomancy). It's
a week-long event where you try to build a game (not necessarily from scratch!)
using a Lisp dialect!
Use Common Lisp, Scheme, Clojure, Fennel, or your own Lisp implementation. It
will be a lot of fun!
If you're interested to participate, check out the information page on Itch.io:
-> https://itch.io/jam/spring-lisp-game-jam-2023
I'll be busy with a new baby next week but I'm hoping to get to hack on a game
in Guile Scheme!
* Check out these old-school Emacs badges!
-- Thanks to ~summeremacs~ for suggesting this item! --
Here's a fun bit of Emacs history: a collection of small badge images that you
can use to show that your website was written or generated with Emacs! Many of
these look *super* retro, so it's a fun way to identify yourself as a die-hard
Emacs user.
Check out the collection at the following link and the Irreal blog post that
gives more context:
-> https://erkin.party/emacs/
-> Irreal blog entry: https://irreal.org/blog/?p=11379
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== Friday's Stream - Is Ement.el the Best Matrix Client? ==
In tomorrow's stream, we'll take a look at the Ement.el package by prolific
Emacs package author Alphapapa. Ement.el is a really capable client for the
Matrix chat protocol which provides a Slack or Discord-like experience from the
comfort of Emacs!
We'll walk through the basic features of the package and then dive deep into
customization to see how far we can push it. If you're interested in joining
the System Crafters Matrix rooms, definitely give this a look!
The stream will go live at Friday, May 12th at 6PM EEST (UTC+3),
check your local time on this page: https://time.is/compare/1800_in_Athens
You can find the stream at these URLs:
-> https://youtube.com/live/KCmlupc9z34
-> https://twitch.tv/SystemCrafters
-> https://systemcrafters.net/live-streams/may-26-2023/
== Closing ==
I hope you enjoyed this issue of the System Crafters Newsletter! I always want
to improve and streamline the content as time goes on so please send me your
thoughts and feedback by replying directly to this e-mail!
Until next time, Happy Hacking!
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David Wilson
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