Next, download and extract the GNU Emacs source. GNU Emacs 22.2.1 compiles from source just fine on Mac OS 10.5.4 Intel, and may work on other Mac platforms.įirst, install the XCode Developer Tools.
These steps assume that you know how to install software from source on a UNIX-like OS. Installing GNU Emacs is a wee bit more difficult than installing Aquamacs Emacs. Aquamacs also does some unexpected things which I never did get around to disabling: for example, help windows open in new frames. That can make it difficult to share a single ~/.emacs file between different platforms, or at least it requires that you perform the same customization in two different ways (e.g., modifying nxml-child-indent on Aquamacs, and sgml-basic-offset on GNU Emacs). GNU Emacs 22.2.1 and Aquamacs Emacs 1.4 contain different versions of different packages (e.g., GNU Emacs opens XML files using sgml-mode.el Aquamacs opens XML files using nxml-mode.el). You can use Mac keyboard shortcuts, e.g., Command-C to copy and Command-V to paste.
If your goal is to have an Emacs which acts like Emacs, but plays nicely with OS X – files can be dragged and dropped onto its Dock icon and onto its windows, text can be copied and pasted easily between Emacs and other OS X applications – then it’s not terribly hard to get vanilla GNU Emacs to do just that.Īquamacs Emacs has nice pretty toolbar icons, pretty Safari-like tabs, and (by default, but this can be turned off easily) opens each buffer in its own window. If your goal is to have a version of Emacs which acts as much like an OS X app as it possibly can, then you should download Aquamacs Emacs. … Is, it turns out, much easier than it was the last time I tried.