Emacs Appearance¶

Fonts¶

I quite like the Ubuntu family of fonts, but use the “Nerd Font” version to get some extra icons

emacs/init.el

(set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "UbuntuMonoNerdFont" :height 120)
(set-face-attribute 'fixed-pitch nil :family "UbuntuMonoNerdFont" :height 120)
(set-face-attribute 'variable-pitch nil :family "UbuntuSansNerdFont" :weight 'light :height 120)

Make it easy to get relevant nerd icons

emacs/init.el

(use-package nerd-icons
  :ensure t)

Theme¶

Load my theme related customisations

emacs/init.el

(use-package alc-theme
  :load-path "lisp"
  :config
  (add-to-list 'after-make-frame-functions 'alc-theme-sync-to-system-theme))

Line Numbers¶

Enable line numbers for programming modes

emacs/init.el

(add-hook 'prog-mode-hook (lambda () (display-line-numbers-mode t)))

Reserve enough space to display a line number that is 4 digits long and when a buffer is narrowed, always display the actual line number.

emacs/init.el

(setq-default display-line-numbers-widen t
              display-line-numbers-width 4)

Scrolling¶

With Emacs 29 came pixel-scroll-precision-mode which makes the scrolling with a touchpad experience much nicer overall.

emacs/init.el

(setq pixel-scroll-precision-use-momentum nil
      pixel-scroll-precision-interpolate-page t
      pixel-scroll-precision-momentum-seconds 0.5)
(pixel-scroll-precision-mode t)

Tab Bar¶

Not to be confused with the tabs you see in editors like VSCode, tabs allow for easy switching between different collections of windows - like workspaces.

As well as using the tab bar to show… well tabs, I also make use of the tab-bar-format-global variable to show global status information like battery levels.

emacs/init.el

(setq tab-bar-close-button-show nil)
(setq tab-bar-tab-hints t)
(setq tab-bar-auto-width nil)
(setq tab-bar-format '(tab-bar-format-tabs-groups
                       tab-bar-separator
                       tab-bar-format-align-right
                       tab-bar-format-global
                       tab-bar-format-menu-bar))

(defun alc-tab-bar-tab-name-format-hints (name _tab i)
  (if tab-bar-tab-hints (concat (format "-%d-" i) "") name))

(defun alc-tab-bar-tab-group-format-function (tab i &optional current-p)
  (propertize
   (concat (funcall tab-bar-tab-group-function tab))
   'face (if current-p 'tab-bar-tab-group-current 'tab-bar-tab-group-inactive)))

(setq tab-bar-tab-group-format-function 'alc-tab-bar-tab-group-format-function)
(setq tab-bar-tab-name-format-functions '(alc-tab-bar-tab-name-format-hints
                                          tab-bar-tab-name-format-close-button
                                          tab-bar-tab-name-format-face))

;; Disable the menu-bar, since it's accessible via the tab bar.
(menu-bar-mode -1)
(add-hook 'after-init-hook #'tab-bar-mode)

Battery Info

emacs/init.el

(display-battery-mode)

Time

emacs/init.el

(setq display-time-format "%H:%M %d/%m/%y"
      display-time-default-load-average nil)
(display-time-mode)

Modeline¶

For reference, here are the components that were in the default modeline

mode-line-mule-info
mode-line-client
mode-line-frame-identification
mode-line-position
mode-line-misc-info
mode-line-end-spaces

emacs/init.el

(use-package alc-modeline
  :after alc-theme
  :load-path "lisp"
  :config
  (setq-default mode-line-format
             '("%e"
               mode-line-front-space
               alc-modeline-window-dedicated
               alc-modeline-project-identification
               "  "
               alc-modeline-remote-indication
               alc-modeline-buffer-identification
               " "
               alc-modeline-buffer-position
               "      "
               mode-line-modes
               )))

See for more details

Miscellaneous¶

Disable some GUI elements

emacs/early-init.el

(blink-cursor-mode -1)
(tool-bar-mode -1)

(setq inhibit-x-resources t
      inhibit-startup-message t)

And enable others

emacs/early-init.el

(context-menu-mode t)