Things that I’ve used Emacs for

| emacs

Emacs can do a ton thanks to the code that people have contributed over the decades. Here’s a list of things I’ve used Emacs for, although I’m sure I’ve still missed a few!

  • Taking notes
    • Storing reference information
    • Publishing blog posts
  • Programming / coding
    • Rails
    • PHP / Drupal
    • Java
    • Javascript
    • HTML / HAML / ERB
    • CSS / Sass
    • Emacs Lisp
    • Ruby
    • Perl
    • SQL
    • Bash scripts
  • Managing my to-do list
  • Timing tasks
  • Managing my finances
  • Studying
    • Dictionary (Japanese)
    • Flashcards
      • With random fortunes displayed for correct answers
      • With random images displayed for correct answers (cute kittens!)
    • Example sentences lookup (Japanese)
    • Random example sentence added to blog posts (Japanese)
  • Brainstorming, outlining, and mindmapping
  • Handling my mail
    • Doing mail merges or file merges
    • Tracking correspondence
    • Personalizing greetings and signatures
  • Managing contacts
  • Writing research papers
  • Managing my bibliography
  • Making presentations
    • Planning presentations
    • Delivering dynamic presentations (with executable code!)
    • Using speech synthesis to remind myself about what’s coming in the next “slide”
  • Reading documentation
  • Analyzing my blog and my writing
  • Running a shell
  • Searching files
  • Cleaning up, filtering, or transforming text
    • String and regexp replacement
    • Keyboard macros
    • Custom Emacs Lisp functions
  • Editing files on a remote server
  • Editing files inside an archive
  • Reviowing and making text notes about images and other files
  • Chatting on IRC
  • Chatting on instant messengers
  • Checking the calendar
  • Playing Nethack
  • Playing dunnet and snake
  • Browsing the Web
  • Posting to Twitter and other status update sites
    • Rigging up my to-do list to automatically publish task data to an internal status update site
  • Calculating expressions
  • Using a spreadsheet
  • Exploring directories
  • Renaming, deleting, or moving files
  • Drawing ASCII art
  • Reading news
  • Comparing files or revisions
  • Typing in Japanese or Latin
  • Reviewing similar files
  • Synthesizing speech – “reading” books, technical manual, mail, etc.
  • Learning more about Emacs
    • Random symbols and commands
    • Documentation
    • Source code
  • ROT13 and Morse code encryption/decryption
  • Editing GPG-encrypted files
  • Practising typing
  • Opening spreadsheets and other files downloaded from the Web
  • Taking screenshots (mostly of Nethack games)
  • Analyzing web logs and other files
  • Calculating days between two dates
  • Sending text messages
  • Analyzing source code
  • Interacting with APIs
  • Doing weekly, monthly, and yearly reviews
  • Versioning my files
  • Expanding text snippets
  • Drafting a book
    • Tracking my progress
  • Editing files as root
  • Compiling and running programs
  • Editing text from the browser
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