Purpose of this document
This document is intended to supplement the Spacemacs documentation by bridging the gap between vim and Spacemacs. While some information may be duplicated, this does not replace the Spacemacs documentation. It is recommended that you read both files to fully understand Spacemacs.
이 문서는 vim 과 스페이스맥스의 간극을 메워 스페이스맥스 문서를 보완하기 위한 것입니다. 일부 정보가 중복될 수 있지만 이 문서가 스페이스맥스 설명서를 대체하지는 않습니다. 스페이스맥스를 완전히 이해하려면 두 파일을 모두 읽어보시는 것이 좋습니다.
Philosophy
One misconception many vim users have is that Spacemacs is an Emacs clone of vim. Spacemacs does not seek to completely mimic the behavior of vim everywhere, only when editing. You should not expect every vim command to be available, although many are. You cannot use Vimscript to configure Spacemacs, but who likes Vimscript anyway? It is important to understand that Spacemacs is an attempt to improve on both vim and Emacs using the superior modal editing of vim and the nicer configuration language of Emacs.
Basic orientation
Terms
Spacemacs uses some different terminology than vim, which can cause confusion for new users. This section attempts to clear up any confusion.
Modes vs. States
In vim you have various editing modes like insert mode
and visual mode
to manipulate text. In Emacs, we have states. These are equivalent to vim modes. For example, evil-insert-state
is the same as insert-mode
in vim.
A minor-mode
in Emacs is like a feature that is activated. For example, aggressive-indent-mode
is a minor-mode
that automatically indents code as you type. It is important to know that there can be many minor-modes
activated in a buffer. Many Emacs packages work by providing a minor-mode
. A major-mode
determines the editing behavior of Emacs in the current buffer. There is generally a corresponding major-mode
per filetype. An example of a major-mode
is python-mode
, which provides python specific settings in python files. There is only one major-mode
per buffer.
Layers
Spacemacs has the concept of layers. Layers are similar to vim plugins. They provide new features to use in Spacemacs. However, layers are often comprised of several packages that integrate well with each other. For example, the python
layer includes support for auto-completion, documentation look-up, tests, and much more by using several different packages. This keeps you from thinking about what packages to install, and instead worry about what features you want. More information on layers can be found in the section and in the documentation. There is also a more in-depth guide on writing layers here.
Transient-states
Spacemacs provides a special functionality called transient-states. Transient-states allow similar commands to be run in succession without repeatedly pressing the <Leader>
key. Transient-states are usually triggered by using a key binding with the following pattern: <Leader> <group> .
where group is the category the transient-state falls under. When in a transient-state you will see documentation at the bottom of your window. To exit a transient-state press q
.
>
Key binding conventions
Spacemacs uses SPC
as its <Leader>
key. This document will use SPC
to refer to the <Leader>
key. All key bindings are mnemonic and are organized under the <Leader>
key. For example, the key bindings for language-specific commands are always under the SPC m
prefix. A full list of conventions used in Spacemacs is here. Note that all key bindings can be changed.
Spacemacs uses which-key to show available key bindings after a delay:
>
Running commands
Emacs commands can be run using SPC SPC
. This will pop up a buffer using Helm which can be used to run any Emacs command. You can also run many ex commands using :
, just like in vim.
Note: You can run Emacs interactive commands using :
, but you cannot run ex commands using SPC SPC
.
Buffer and window management
Buffers
Buffers in Emacs and vim are essentially the same. The key bindings for buffers are located under the SPC b
prefix.
| Key binding | Function |
|---------------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| SPC b b <buffer-name>
| Create a buffer named <buffer-name>
. |
| SPC b b
| Search through open buffers and recent files. |
| SPC b n
or :bnext
| Switch to the next buffer. (See ) |
| SPC b p
or :bprevious
| Switch to the previous buffer. (See ) |
| SPC b d
or :bdelete
| Kill current buffer. |
| SPC b C-S-d
| Kill buffers using a regular expression. |
| SPC b C-d
| Kill all buffers except the current buffer. |
| SPC b .
| Buffer transient-state. |
Special buffers
By default Emacs creates a lot of buffers that most people will never need, like *Messages*
. Spacemacs automatically ignores these when using these key bindings. More information can be found here.
Windows
Windows are like splits in vim. They are useful for editing multiple files at once. All window key bindings are under the SPC w
prefix.
| Key binding | Function |
|------------------------|--------------------------------------|
| SPC w v
or :vsplit
| Opens a vertical split on the right. |
| SPC w s
or :split
| Opens a horizontal split below. |
| SPC w h/j/k/l
| Navigate among windows. |
| SPC w H/J/K/L
| Move the current window. |
| SPC w .
| Window transient-state. |
Files
All file commands in Spacemacs are available under the SPC f
prefix.
| Key binding | Function |
|-------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------|
| SPC f f
| Opens a buffer to search for files in the current directory. |
| SPC f r
| Opens a buffer to search through recently opened files. |
| SPC f s
or :w
| Save the current file. |
| :x
| Save the current file and quit. |
| :e <file>
| Open <file>
|
The Help System
Emacs has an extensive help system. All key bindings under the SPC h d
prefix allow convenient access to the help system. The most important of these keybindings are SPC h d f
, SPC h d k
, and SPC h d v
. There is also the SPC <f1>
key binding which allows you to search for documentation.
| Key binding | Function |
|-------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| SPC h d f
| Prompts for a function and shows its documentation. |
| SPC h d k
| Prompts for a key binding and shows what it is bound to. |
| SPC h d v
| Prompts for a variable and shows its documentation and current value. |
| SPC <f1>
| Searches for a command, function, variable, or face and shows its documentation. |
Whenever, you see weird behavior or want to know what something does, these functions are the first thing you should refer to.
Exploring
There are a few ways to explore the functionality of Spacemacs. One is to read the source code on GitHub. You can begin to feel your way around Emacs Lisp and how Spacemacs works this way. You can also use the following key bindings to explore:
| Key binding | Function |
|-------------|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| SPC h SPC
| Lists all layers and allows you to view files from the layer. |
| SPC ?
| Lists all key bindings. |
Regular expression syntax
One thing that might catch you off guard is the difference in regex syntax between Vim and Emacs. In Emacs, even when you search under evil-mode
with the /
key, you'll be using the Emacs flavor of regular expression, instead of the Vim one.
Some idiosyncrasies of Elisp regex:
- You need to additionally escape some symbols such as:
- backslash
\
:\\
- alternation
|
:\|
- grouping
(
and)
:\(
and\)
- counting
{
and}
:\{
and\}
- backslash
\s
begins a syntax class. Whitespaces are denoted as\s-
instead of\s
.- Use
[0-9]
or[:digit:]
instead of\d
to denote digits.
For more details, refer to The EmacsWiki, this SO question and this tool which converts PCRE regex to Emacs regex.
Customization
The .spacemacs file
When you first start spacemacs, you will be prompted to choose an editing style. If you are reading this, you likely want to choose the vim style. A .spacemacs
file will be created with the appropriate style selected. Most trivial configuration will go in this file.
There are four top-level functions in the file: dotspacemacs/layers
, dotspacemacs/init
, dotspacemacs/user-init
and dotspacemacs/user-config
. The dotspacemacs/layers
function exist only to enable and disable layers and packages. The dotspacemacs/init
function is run before anything else during startup and contains Spacemacs settings. You will never need to touch this function except to change default Spacemacs settings. The dotspacemacs/user-init
function is also run before anything else and contains user specific configuration. The dotspacemacs/user-config
function is the one you will use the most. This is where you define any user configuration.
| Key binding | Function |
|-------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| SPC f e d
| Open your .spacemacs
|
| SPC f e D
| Update your .spacemacs
manually using a diff with the default template |
Emacs Lisp
This section introduces a few emacs lisp functions that are needed to configure Spacemacs. For a more detailed look at the language, see this link. If you really want to learn everything there is about emacs lisp, use the info page found at SPC h i elisp RET
.
Variables
Setting variables is the most common way to customize the behavior of Spacemacs. The syntax is simple:
Key bindings
Defining key bindings is something that almost everyone will want to do. The built-in define-key
function is the best way to do that.
The map is the keymap you want to bind the key in. Most of the time you will use evil-<state-name>-state-map
. These correspond to different evil-mode
states. For example, using evil-insert-state-map
maps the key binding in insert mode.
To map <Leader>
key bindings, use the spacemacs/set-leader-keys
function.
Bind keys to a macro
Bind keys to multiple other keys.
For example: To open a newline above, but stay on the current line.
The remapping in Vim:
source: https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Insert_newline_without_entering_insert_mode
The equivalent remapping in Spac/Emacs:
Functions
You may occasionally want to define a function to do a more complex customization. The syntax is simple:
Here is an example of a function that is useful in real life:
Activating a Layer
As said in the terms section, layers provide an easy way to add features. Activating a layer is done in the .spacemacs
file. In the file search for the dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
variable. By default, it should look like this:
You can uncomment these suggested layers by deleting the semi-colons for a nice out-of-the-box experience. To add a layer, add its name to the list and restart Emacs or press SPC f e R
. To view all layers and their documentation use SPC h SPC
.
Creating a Layer
To group configuration or when configuration doesn't fit well in your .spacemacs
file, you can create a configuration layer. Spacemacs provides a builtin command to generate the layer boilerplate: SPC SPC configuration-layer/create-layer RET
. This generates a folder that looks like this:
The packages.el
file contains a list of packages that you can install in the variable <layer-name>-packages
. Any package that is available on the MELPA repository can be added to the list. A list can also exclude packages using the :excluded t
property. Each package requires a function to initialize it. The function must be named with this pattern: <layer-name>/init-<package-name>
. This function contains configuration for the package. There are also pre/post-init
functions to execute code before or after a package loads. It would look like this:
Note: Only one layer can have a init
function for a package. If you want to override the configuration of a package in another layer, use a <layer-name>/pre-init
function in addition to use-package hooks.
If a package is not available on MELPA, you must use a local package or a package recipe. For more details see anatomy of a layer.
Make sure you your layer to your .spacemacs
file and restart to activate it.
A detailed description of the loading process and how layers work can be found in the configuration layers documentation.
Installing a single package
Sometimes creating a layer is a bit overkill. Maybe you just want one package and don't want to maintain a whole layer. Spacemacs provides a variable in the dotspacemacs/layers
function in .spacemacs
called dotspacemacs-additional-packages
. Just add a package name to the list and it will be installed when you restart. Loading the package is covered in the next .
Loading packages
Ever wonder how Spacemacs can load over a 100 packages in just a few seconds? Such low loading times must require some kind of unreadable black magic that no one can understand. Thanks to use-package, this is not true. It is a package that allows easy lazy-loading and configuration of packages. Here are the basics to using it:
This is just a very basic overview of use-package
. There are many other ways to control how a package loads using it that aren't covered here.
Uninstalling a package
Spacemacs provides a variable in the dotspacemacs/init
function in .spacemacs
called dotspacemacs-excluded-packages
. Just add a package name to the list and it will be uninstalled when you restart.
Common tweaks
This section is for things many will want to change. All of these settings go in the dotspacemacs/user-config
function in your .spacemacs
unless otherwise noted.
Changing the escape key
Spacemacs uses evil-escape to allow escaping from many major-modes
with one key binding. You can customize the variable in your dotspacemacs/user-config
like this:
More documentation is found in the evil-escape
README.
Changing the colorscheme
The .spacemacs
file contains the dotspacemacs-themes
variable in the dotspacemacs/init
function. This is a list of themes that can be cycled through with the SPC T n
key binding. The first theme in the list is the one that is loaded at startup. Here is an example:
All installed themes can be listed and chosen using the SPC T s
key binding.
Nohlsearch
Spacemacs emulates the default vim behavior which highlights search results even when you are not navigating between them. You can use SPC s c
or :nohlsearch
to disable search result highlighting.
To disable the result highlighting when it is not needed anymore automatically, you can the evil-search-highlight-persist
package.
Sessions
Spacemacs does not automatically restore your windows and buffers when you reopen it. If you use vim sessions regularly you may want to set dotspacemacs-auto-resume-layouts
to t
in your .spacemacs
.
Navigating using visual lines
Spacemacs uses the vim default of navigating by actual lines, even if they are wrapped. If you want j
and k
to behave like g j
and g k
, add this to your .spacemacs
:
Other useful links
- Emacs Manual
- Spacemacs Documentation
- Spacemacs: A Vimmer's Emacs Prerequisites
- Note: The article refers to
SPC b s
as the key binding to switch buffers. It isSPC b b
- Note: The article refers to
- Configuring Spacemacs: A Tutorial
- From Vim to Emacs+Evil chaotic migration guide