

GNU Emacs ported to Android - cycojesus
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zielm.emacs

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babarock
Just downloaded it. Here are a few things to note:

\- As soon as installed, the app will download emacs from a 3rd party repo.
You have the option to specify your own, I picked the default one.

\- The app consists apparently of a terminal emulator and a Bourne shell
(clone?). emacs will reside inside this emulator and the shell.

\- The app seems very young, segfaults are frequent. A common cause seems to
be font-size. If font size != 20px at startup, app will segfault. (you can
change it once the app is running).

\- The buffers do not resize dynamically when I show/hide the keyboard. On my
SGS2 in landscape mode, that leaves very little screen space for the buffers.

\- The app greatly benefits from Hacker's Keyboard or any similar advanced
keyboard.

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sigzero
Err....Emacs is probably a better OS than Android. :)

~~~
e40
This is just silly. Emacs isn't an OS. It provides an API to some library and
system calls, but it isn't even multi-threaded.

If your comment was meant as a hat tip to the Symbolics Genera system, that
was a full-fledged OS, then there could be debate. I love Lisp and would
dearly love to customize my Jelly Bean experience with it, but then we'd need
to get into a discussion of what is really better, and 80's OS or Android.

~~~
rbanffy
IIRC, one of the original goals of Emacs was to replicate the environment of
Lisp machines. With that in mind, it could be considered an OS not unlike
Smalltalk environments such as Squeak.

~~~
e40
_IIRC, one of the original goals of Emacs was to replicate the environment of
Lisp machines._

No, that was Stallman working for LMI reproducing all of the Symbolics
environment, because he was pissed that MIT sold the rights to work done in
the AI lab to Symbolics.

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jimktrains2
So? A Vim port's been out for a few months.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.momodalo.a...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.momodalo.app.vimtouch&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsIm5ldC5tb21vZGFsby5hcHAudmltdG91Y2giXQ.).

/dons my flame-retardant jacket

~~~
mmahemoff
And even longer on iPad, but these will only be useful when they can deal with
ESC key. Vim without ESC is like Word without mouse.

~~~
piinbinary
Some people set it up so that 'jj' (while in insert mode) is equivalent to ESC
(or perhaps it was Ctrl-c, I forget). Either way, that would make vim usable
with an iOS device's keyboard.

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CmdrKrool
Anyone trying to use this on a device with its own keyboard? eg.
[http://www.androidauthority.com/best-keyboard-qwerty-
android...](http://www.androidauthority.com/best-keyboard-qwerty-android-
phones-2012-55315/)

Be interested to hear how usable you can make it. Whether you can remap keys
or buttons to all the major modifiers.

Emacs 23 on the Nokia N900 is the reason I recently bought that phone even
though Nokia is so uncool now and everything (works excellently, BTW).

~~~
npsimons
Second this; having Emacs with org-mode, plus git, flymake and Python in the
palm of my hand is just awesome. Now, if only I could upgrade the processor
and RAM, get better battery life, and get a screen that worked better in
sunlight . . .

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malkia
It segfaulted here (11). Since the shell was available, ls -l revealed that
only directories had +x on them, and none of the scripts. Not sure whether
that makes any sense (or simply was not compiled for the right arm
architecture).

It does not work from both Nexus 7 Tablet, and Google Nexus phone (latest)

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einhverfr
So how do you enter the control sequences?

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peterb
With Hacker's Keyboard.

~~~
ajross
For those who aren't aware of this tool:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketwork...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketworkstation.pckeyboard)

It's really shockingly great. It turns dealing with terminal access from your
touchscreen from a complete hair-pulling disaster into something that I am
merely disinclined to do.

All the ASCII keys are where you expect them to be. And switching between the
keyboards at runtime is as simple as launching the included app. Definitely
recommended to anyone who ever needs to (occasionally!) ssh from their phone
or tablet.

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drcube
Every couple of weeks since I started using Android, I've checked the Play
store to see if Emacs was there. So even though I don't know what I'll do with
it yet, I'm excited to download the GNU Emacs app.

Anybody have any ideas for what to do with Emacs on a phone?

~~~
Kototama
Taking notes with org-mode and synchronizing them to Dropbox.

~~~
qdot76367
There's also mobile org for that though. :)

iPhone: <http://mobileorg.ncogni.to/>

Android: <https://github.com/matburt/mobileorg-android/wiki/>

Android Fork:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matburt.mo...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matburt.mobileorg.ng)

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vinayan3
Good work but I have some issues with the concept. I mean using all the
keyboard shortcuts must be a pain. Did they try to make it use the touch
interface at all?

~~~
Create
There were some projects (also, if I recall correctly some ubuntu-new-ui
projects for tablets/gestures). btw

<https://github.com/greboide/emacs-gestures>

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pbnjay
Now the editor's kitchen sink also includes phone calls!

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laconian
I don't know if I could adapt to Emacs with another input device. Part of
being good at Emacs is training your muscle memory. I probably can't even
describe half of the inane chords I do unless I was able to observe my hands
performing them.

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kelvie
Doesn't this have to be open-sourced? Emacs is GPL'd. I might want to help out
with the development.

~~~
roryokane
This app is open-source: <https://github.com/zielmicha/emacs-android>. When
you start the app for the first time, it displays that link in the terminal
output.

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rogcg
We are on the way to start good development on an Android tablet! FTW

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samuel1604
seg11 on nexus 7 :(

~~~
malkia
Same here... after downloading a bunch of files.

------
Create
dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4368237>

