

Ask HN: Why is it so difficult to use Emacs for Web Development? - someisaac

I'm a Web developer. I have been using a variety of editors and ide-s for web development(php, javascript,html,css).6 Months before i decided to learn a true editor and started using emacs. learned all the basics, used the starter kit,practiced using buffer, windows  etc..<p>I got  a grip in 2 months.  Recently a month ago i started learning about vim and i found a lot of plugins to achieve the things i want.I'm finding to achieve the same effect in emacs you have to do a lot(for php/js/css/html editing).<p>Here are the list of things I'm finding hard.
Note: These things are related when i'm editing php/html/css/js.<p>syntax hightlighting(php/smarty).
-- the php major mode is too old and it always highlights html/smarty inside the php code incorrectly.<p>-- I love ido-mode but i couldn't find  how to define a project and fuzzy match files inside the predefined directory<p>--- I can setup nerdtree plugin to get a quick overview pane on the left with the files i'm working on with vim. But configuring speedbar and source code browser in emacs is bit difficult.<p>--- Context aware completion
I really don't know how to do that. I have seen something like that in clojure mode where it shows the definition of a method in the <i>messages</i> area.<p>Tags-generation:
The tags generated with excrebant-ctags doesnot always work with php.In vim it is easy i can open a file containing the definition right under the cursor.<p>---Manual lookup
I want to lookup the manual for a particular word under the cursor without opening the browser.(in the messages area(mini-buffer))<p>-------------------------------------------
I love ido mode and switching b/w files in tramp,buffers,local files using ido-mode.<p>does anyone point me in the right direction? do you use emacs for same kind of editing i do? What is your work flow?.<p>Thanks
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nolite
Instead of nerdtree, I use ECB

<http://www.xemacs.org/Documentation/packages/html/ecb_2.html>

This screencast showed me alot of new things

<http://platypope.org/yada/emacs-demo/>

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imp
I've been using emacs for a few years for php/js/css/html. I think it's great
as-is without any extra addons. I don't like context completion or tag
generation though. Just not my thing.

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c00p3r
<http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/nXhtml/doc/nxhtml.html>

