A 2007 look at Emacs on MacOSX Tiger/Leopard

Feb 11, 2007
April 7, 2007 (updated)

As a Linux person working on macs now, one of the tools I have been missing over the years is a real xemacs editor. The emacs that Apple shipped with Tiger only worked in the terminal window, and I found that to be .. too 1989. I need an editor with windows, something where the mouse works, and how about cut & paste between apps? That would make me happy.

The history and landscape of the current state of Emacs on MacOSX is a little confusing. From what I can tell, a lot of the heavy lifting to give Emacs a facelift on the mac was done by Andrew Choi in the 2001-2003 time period. These changes landed in the GNU version of Emacs; these also made it to the xemacs version a few years later in 2005, but xemacs.org says these changes are still "experimental". Here is the XEmacs side of the XEmacs/GNU Emacs disagreements. Come on guys, can't we all just get along already.

Sorting out the confusion

Anyways, here are the versions that I took a look at:

GNU Emacs
The original drop of achoi's code landed here and seems to work pretty well. Building the mac support in this version is called Carbon Emacs
. This code can be downloaded via cvs:
```
  setenv CVSROOT :pserver:anonymous@cvs.sv.gnu.org:/sources/emacs
  cvs login  [anonymous]
  cvs co emacs
```
Read the mac/INSTALL file to build this for osx. The default Carbon-build behavior is to install emacs in /usr/local/* and install an Emacs.app in /Application
```
  ./configure --enable-carbon-app
  make bootstrap
  make
  sudo make install
```
There is another option (the one I wanted): build a self-contained Emacs.app and package it in a .dmg form so you can re-install this on other machines later. This build worked-for-me fine on 10.4.9 i386 & ppc. The incantation for this is
```
  cd mac
  ./make-package --self-contained -c,--enable-carbon-app
```
I have saved off ppc & i386 versions of this installer, you are welcome to try it. This the trunk of emacs, the about emacs says "This is GNU Emacs 22.0.93.1 (i386-apple-darwin8.8.1, Carbon Version 1.6.0) of 2007-02-10". These packages install as /Applications/Emacs.app; you can also start emacs up from Terminal via /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs.

Download:
- ppc (22.0.96.1, 4/7/2007)
- intel/i386 (22.0.93.1, 2/2007)
Also note I have both of these packages installed on recent (April 2007) Developer versions of Leopard, ppc & i386, and they seem to work fine there.
XEmacs
Folded achoi's 2003 changes in or around 2005, and ? not totally done yet. Building this mac support is called Carbon XEmacs. This code can be downloaded by cvs/tar file.
Aquamacs
Mac-customized version of GNU emacs, by David Reitter. This adds better font support, Mac cut & paste clipboard support, and is available in binary or cvs download form.
Emacs for MacOS X
This looks like a one-off compile of achoi's work on the GNU branch. This looks like a 2002 version, it probably works but ? it may be old.

Getting the GNU build of Carbon Emacs to work right

After considering all of this, I decided to try the GNU flavor of Carbon Emacs. The version I have included for download above works for me, except mac cut & paste clipboard has been mapped to the yank/kill emacs behavior. Command-c copy in one app needs a ? ctrl-y yank in emacs. I found this confusing, command-v should just paste here. Unfortunately emacs default maps the command key to Meta. You used to turn this off with:

  (setq mac-command-key-is-meta 'nil)

but this variable has been retired recently, instead you need to use `mac-command-modifier' and `mac-option-modifier' to change the default behavior. Here is the .emacs fu that I figured out to map command-[xcv] to the proper yank/kill commands:

  ; map command key to alt
  (setq mac-command-modifier 'alt)

  ; Map command-x,c,v to cut, copy, paste
  (global-set-key [?\A-x] 'clipboard-kill-region)
  (global-set-key [?\A-c] 'clipboard-kill-ring-save)
  (global-set-key [?\A-v] 'clipboard-yank)

  ; More mac shortcuts.
  (global-set-key [?\A-a] 'mark-whole-buffer)
  (global-set-key [?\A-z] 'undo)
  (global-set-key [?\A-l] 'goto-line)
  (global-set-key [?\A-m] 'iconify-frame)
  (global-set-key [?\A-n] 'new-frame)

This seems to work pretty well. To start the UI version up from a Terminal:

  /Application/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs

Please send me comments or suggestions about how to keep all these versions straight and what the best solution is. I haven't looked much at XEmacs or AquaEmacs, I would like to learn more about experiences with those two apps.

Chris McAfee <mcafee@mocha.com>