manateelazycat / Emacs Application Framework

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A free/libre and open-source extensible framework that revolutionizes the graphical capabilities of Emacs,
the key to ultimately Live in Emacs

Vision

Emacs, the extensible text editor, is more than 45 years old. It is older than virtually all operating systems people use today, almost as old as the first UNIX system. During the decades of development, the world's brightest hackers have contributed their intelligence and creativity, together they've constructed the most comprehensive and richest ecosystem that you can find in any software to date.

If you are a hacker who works with numerous languages and text, who's keyboard-driven and desires maximum freedom, extensibility, and introspectivity over your tool, maybe to the extent of living in it, Emacs will be your best bet.

Unfortunately, this 45 years of age is also one of the greatest disadvantages of Emacs. Comparing with modern software, Emacs lacks performance, specifically Emacs Lisp lacks performance, it doesn't have proper multithreading and its graphical capabilities are seriously limited. It is far from what you'd expect on every GUI application today (such as IDEA or VSCode). You may think that Emacs, as a text-centric editor, doesn't need them, but have you ever run into a situation that, you sit comfortably typing commands and doing your Emacs sorcery, but can't stop to ponder:

What if Emacs has a real browser?
What if this PDF or video file can be viewed efficiently without leaving Emacs?

Emacs, although infinitely extensible in text, is very limited in graphics. It shouldn't have to be this way. However, Emacs Lisp is the integral part of the Emacs culture, it carries decades of history with itself, it is what makes Emacs special. It is irreplaceable.

The vision of the Emacs Application Framework (EAF) project is that, while fully retaining the rich history, culture and ecosystem of Emacs and Emacs Lisp, to open up completely new doors to the ecosystems of Python, Qt5, and even JavaScript. EAF extends Emacs to the world of modern graphics, but still preserving the extensibility and customizability of Emacs, it will be the key to ultimately Live in Emacs.

Applications

EAF is very extensible, it already comes with a number of useful applications by default:

Browser	PDF Viewer

Music Player	File Manager

• Browser: Full-featured browser
• PDF Viewer: The fastest PDF reader
• Terminal: Full-featured terminal
• Video Player: Video player base on Qt
• Markdown Previewer: Markdown file previewer in Emacs
• Org Previewer: Org file previewer in Emacs
• Music Player: Music player, support playlist and an audio visualization
• RSS Reader: RSS reader, rendering html content in expected
• File Manager: File manager, support file real-time preview
• Mindmap: Mindmap with full-featured keyboard operation
• Jupyter: Jupyter in Emacs
• Image Viewer: Picture viewer, supporting real-time zoom rotation
• Camera: Use camera in Emacs
• System Monitor: System monitor base on Vue.js
• Netease Cloud Music: EAF frontend for NetEase cloud music
• File Browser: Browse file in mobile phone
• File Sender: Share file between Emacs and mobile phone
• Airshare: Share text between Emacs and mobile phone
• Demo: EAF Application demo base on Qt
• Vue Demo: EAF Application demo base on Vue.js

In theory, you can use EAF to integrate any Qt5/Vue.js application into Emacs.

EAF supports Linux and Windows, while macOS and FreeBSD support are in beta, some applications may not work normally.

EmacsConf2020 - Extend Emacs to Modern GUI Applications with EAF

A talk presented at the EmacsConf2020 that dwells into the internals of EAF.

EmacsConf2021 - Emacs Application Framework: A 2021 Update

A talk presented at the EmacsConf2021 that gives a summary of EAF progress throughout the 2021 year.

Install

1. Download EAF

git clone --depth=1 -b master https://github.com/emacs-eaf/emacs-application-framework.git ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/emacs-application-framework/

2. Install/Update EAF applications and dependencies

You can use M-x eaf-install-and-update or manually run the install-eaf.py script in the EAF directory:

cd emacs-application-framework
chmod +x ./install-eaf.py
./install-eaf.py

There are many useful flags available for install-eaf.py, check it yourself using --help.

3. Load EAF Core

From here on, you can either add the full path to the EAF installation directory to your Emacs load-path, then add the following to init.el:

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/emacs-application-framework/")
(require 'eaf)

• Alternatively, if you use use-package, you can use the following sample configuration for your convenience.

  (use-package eaf
    :load-path "~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/emacs-application-framework" ; Set to "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/eaf" if installed from AUR
    :custom
    ; See https://github.com/emacs-eaf/emacs-application-framework/wiki/Customization
    (eaf-browser-continue-where-left-off t)
    (eaf-browser-enable-adblocker t)
    (browse-url-browser-function 'eaf-open-browser)
    :config
    (defalias 'browse-web #'eaf-open-browser)
    (eaf-bind-key scroll_up "C-n" eaf-pdf-viewer-keybinding)
    (eaf-bind-key scroll_down "C-p" eaf-pdf-viewer-keybinding)
    (eaf-bind-key take_photo "p" eaf-camera-keybinding)
    (eaf-bind-key nil "M-q" eaf-browser-keybinding)) ;; unbind, see more in the Wiki

4. Load EAF Apps

You can use below code to load applications browser and pdf-viewer that you installed, please check Applications for the full list:

(require 'eaf-browser)
(require 'eaf-pdf-viewer)
...

5. Hooray!

Congratulations, you just installed EAF! You can try M-x eaf-open-demo (that is if you have demo installed, of course) to see if everything works properly, and enjoy the new possibilities of Emacs.

I highly encourage you to read the Wiki and FAQ if you have any questions.

Also, you should regularly git pull and run install-eaf.py (M-x eaf-install-and-update) to update EAF, its applications, and relating dependencies. If you encounter a bug while using it, see the instruction on how to Report bug.

Dependency List

You can check app/name/dependencies.json and app/name/package.json for application level dependencies.

Launch EAF Applications

• EAF Browser and PDF Viewer support Emacs built-in bookmark operation, with M-x bookmark-set (defaulted to C-x r m) and M-x bookmark-bmenu-list (defaulted to C-x r l).

Keybindings

Global Keybindings

Bottom Pop Edit Buffer Keybindings

Wiki

It is highly suggested to read the Wiki first before using EAF.

The wiki consists of documentations on:

• Keybindings
• Customization
• Design
• TODOLIST

There also are some helpful tips to make EAF work with Docker, Helm, etc.

FAQ

How does EAF work?

EAF implements three major functionalities:

1. Integrate PyQt program window into Emacs frame using QWindow Reparent technology.
2. Listen to EAF buffer's keyboard event flow and control the keyboard input of the PyQt program via Python EPC.
3. Create a window composite to make a PyQt program window adapt Emacs' Window/Buffer design.

Learn more from the Wiki!

EAF vs EXWM?

1. EAF and EXWM share a common goal: enhance collaboration between the standard GNU Emacs with other GUI tools.
2. EXWM is an X11 Window Manager, it manages and controls other software using a keyboard, but it cannot modify, customize and extend the behavior of other software.
3. EAF is not a Window Manager, it utilizes the windows managing capabilities of Emacs to display its applications.
4. EAF intends to provide a framework to write PyQt5 applications that extends the multimedia experience of Emacs. From the perspective of Emacs' buffer/mode design, EAF is not different from any other package, with the former uses Qt for drawing contents while the latter uses Emacs' built-in text libraries instead.
5. Through EAF's design, one can use Elisp to control Python and vice versa, and even able to use Elisp to control JavaScript in EAF Browser. EAF enables Emacs to the world of multi-language scripting.

Both projects are similar in terms of interface, but they are two completely different projects with different goals in mind. Sometimes one may find EAF is more suitable than EXWM, sometimes it's the other way around. Please do not meaninglessly compare them.

macOS

Currently, macOS is only partially supported and needs a lot of testing, not all functions can work normally, please check the Wiki for details.

Browser crashes

Please DO NOT install PyQt5 through pip, pip version has a bug, please install PyQt5 from the OS software repository.

Why doesn't EAF receive input events on Linux Window Manager?

EAF confirms that the desktop environment or window manager you can work with includes: KDE, Gnome2, Gnome3, Mate, Xfce, LXDE, Sway, i3, QTile, Xpra, EXWM.

We suspect there are some issues with how all the Window Managers implement their x11 protocols.

One workaround is to name of command wmctrl -m to the elisp list eaf-wm-focus-fix-wms. Fill an issue if it still doesn't work.

Proxy

If you need to use a proxy to access the internet, one can configure the proxy settings.

(setq eaf-proxy-type "http")
(setq eaf-proxy-host "127.0.0.1")
(setq eaf-proxy-port "1080")

If you use Socks5 as a local proxy, one can set proxy type with:

(setq eaf-proxy-type "socks5")

Customize rule proxy please check Wiki

EAF in the community

A list of other community packages that use EAF to enhance their graphical experiences!

If we missed your package, please make a PR to add it to the list.

• obr-viz: visualizing org-brain relationships using EAF
• netease-cloud-music: A netease music client for emacs.

Report bug

For any installation and configuration assistance, please read the Wiki first!

If you encounter a problem with EAF, and it occurred after pulling the latest commit, please check the Mandatory Procedures to Keep Your EAF Up-To-Date page first.

For any other problems, please use emacs -q and load a minimal setup with only EAF to verify that the bug is reproducible. If emacs -q works fine, probably something is wrong with your Emacs config.

If the problem persists, please report it here with *eaf* buffer content, it contains many clues that can help us locate the problem faster.

If you get a segfault error, please use the following way to collect crash information:

1. Install gdb and turn on option eaf-enable-debug
2. Use the command eaf-stop-process to stop the current process
3. Restart eaf, send issue with *eaf* buffer content when next crash

Contributor

Join Us

Do you want to make Emacs a real "operating system"?

Do you want to live in Emacs more comfortably?

Do you want to revolutionize the capabilities of Emacs?

Let's hack together!

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ManateeLazyCat