Franco Pasut Blog

Join-lines: Vim vs Emacs Caret or Circumflex The original keys binding An alternative binding Join-lines: Vim vs Emacs Vim has a very simple system to join two lines. all you have to do is press the J (uppercase) key inside the line above. In Emacs , instead, you must use the C-^ binding in the lower line. But the Emacs solution may seem a bit more laborious if you use a keyboard with US International Dead Keys layout in MS Windows or GNU/Linux. However, with a few small adjustments, it can become super-efficient. What follows is my solution but, of course, everyone can find another one. Caret or Circumflex First of all we need to take a look at the US International Dead Keys keyboard layout for the key corresponding to the number 6 and, in specific to the two similar characters indicated on the top of the key. You can see that on the number 6 button ...

Vim, flash movements between windows with EasyMotion Table of Contents 1. Quick introduction 2. Installation and configuration of EasyMotion 3. Use of EasyMotion in Vim 4. Examples with images 5. In brief Figure 1: Vim like a lightning bolt 1 Quick introduction Vim can quickly jump through different documents at a lightning speed. Do you remember when you had to move the cursor using the arrow keys and pressing them continuosly until the final point? If you use Vim, the above actions will be only bad memories. You only have to install the /EasyMotion / plugin and make a miniml configuration. 2 Installation and configuration of EasyMotion The EasyMotion plugin installation is really a kid's joke. If you use Vim Plug as your plugin manager , actually it's my favourite one, you only have to insert in your .vimrc the following text strings: Plug 'easymotion/vim-easymotion' Plug 'haya14busa/incse...

If you have to run the command “bundle exec jekyll serve” in Linux Mint Install Ruby Install the GNU Compiler Collection Nokogiri needs zlib Summary table That’s all, I hope If you have to run the command “bundle exec jekyll serve” in Linux Mint I’ve repeatedly had to run a series of installations in Linux Mint to make the bundle exec jekyll serve command working. The possibility to test your Jekyll static sites locally before pushing them on GitHub is really useful. But the basic Linux Mint installation lacks some important pieces of code. So not only do you have to install the Ruby language but also some other piece of code needed for the system to work. After browsing the web several times to collect the instructions I decided to consolidate them into a single post. Now I am on Mint 19.3 Cinnamon edition. Install Ruby The first step is to install Ruby . The easie...

My Table of Contents What’s a Table Of Contents and why using it? Emacs Org-Mode and the autogenerated TOC Minimal-Mistakes over Jekyll provides an automatic TOC What’s a Table Of Contents and why using it? A Table Of Contents (“TOC”) is an index of a document’s content. In the world wide web environment it’s usually a list of chapter and sub-chapter headings in the online articles. Why using it? Obviously: the TOC can give you an overview of the documents’ structure, so you can quickly jump where you’re interested, without spending time reading the rest of the document. As a not-developer writer in GitHub of some posts, I’d like a simple and fast system to get the TOC of my articles. Emacs Org-Mode and the autogenerated TOC An excellent resource to generate a TOC is offered by Emacs with its extraordinary Org-Mode : if you write structure...

GNU/Linux multi-boot: From Grub to Burg and back to Grub2 Table of Contents 1. What's a Boot Loader in Linux? 2. From Grub to Burg 3. From Burg to Grub2: backgrounds and themes 4. Even easier: Grub Customizer 5. The easiest of all: Linux Manjaro Figure 1: GNU and Linux together 1 What's a Boot Loader in Linux? GNU/Linux, or simply Linux, can be installed in the same computer next to other operating systems. Linux users often install various distributions on different hard disk partitions to test their functionality and choose the best solution. The Boot Loader is a program that allows you to select the system to launch. Figure 2: A simple textual boot loader 2 From Grub to Burg One of the earliest boot loaders was LILO (LInux LOader). Throughout the 1990s it was used as the default boot loader for Linux distributions, then was gradually being abandoned for Grub . The first implementation of Grub was strictly tex...

Vim: Cut, Copy and Paste to and from the system clipboard Table of Contents 1. Cut, Copy and Paste using the computer keyboard 2. Vim and the clipboard 3. From Vim to the Clipboard 4. From the Clipboard to Vim 5. Some key shortcuts in gVim Figure 1: Vim 1 Cut, Copy and Paste using the computer keyboard Everybody knows how to use the keyboard combinations Ctrl-c , Ctrl-x , and Ctrl-v in Windows and Linux (or Cmd-c , Cmd-x and Cmd-v in macOS) to copy, cut and paste text across applications. Many think that those combinations are universal and work with any application. But Vim and gVim are different, they use another system to exchange information with the rest of the IT world. For example, in Vim under Linux, the key combination Ctrl-v corresponds to the visual block function and does not affect the pasting text. I wrote this article to remind me, as a non-programmer, the key combinations to be used in the Vim world to sha...

This article was written specifically for the graphic version of Vim, ie for gVim. I use gVim about every day and every time I need to write more than some words. Vim is fast, light, mind friendly, really efficient. I like to find any solution to improve my gVim experience to get the best results in the less time considering that I hardly ever look at the keyboard when I write (my past as a pianist helps me!). One of the problems I have to solve is the exit from the Insert Mode . The <ESC> key: a fundamental in Vim and gVim One of the Vim and gVim fundamental is the <ESC> key. You read in vimtutor and other tutorials that the canonical way to exit from insert mode is to press the <ESC> key. That’s true. But the <ESC> key is at the edge of the keyboard, far from the center of it. Then when you need to exit frequently from the insert mode it could be a little uncomfortable. The built-in alternative: <Ctrl-c> There’s a built-in alternative. You can u...

Make Emacs totally portable under Windows Table of Contents 1. Emacs for Windows is natively portable, but not too much 2. A basic solution: create a batch file inside the bin folder 3. Second part of the solution: launch system valid for any drive letter associated with the key 4. It's not over: we can also create a Documents folder valid for all drive letters 5. 32bit version for all computers Figure 1: Emacs + USB Pendrive = Emacs Portable 1 Emacs for Windows is natively portable, but not too much Emacs needs no introduction , it is simply a work of art in computer engineering. Although native to the Unix world, Emacs is also available in Windows version and is already distributed in portable mode, ie without the need for the typical installation within the operating system. However, the portability of Emacs for Windows is limited, in the absence of specific configuration, to the basic version. As soon as you try to customize th...

Installing an additional Linux distribution on a computer with a double-disk SSD, UEFI interface and pre-installed Ubuntu Table of Contents 1. The choice of the computer 2. Assembly and configuration of the additional disk 3. Installation of the operating system 4. A further step, but only in some cases: changing the boot sequence 5. Final adjustments: touchpad and resolution 5.1. The tapping enablement in the touchpad 5.2. Reduce the screen resolution 1 The choice of the computer For this test I looked for a computer having the following features: Pre-installed open source operating system Simple installation of ad additional solid-state drive Cheap price! I chose an Italian laptop branded Microtech with a little SSD M2 internal disk, (32 Gb), pre-installed OS GNU/Linux Ubuntu and slot for an additional disk under the chassis (€310,00). Figure 1: The notebook used for this article To install the additional operating sys...