#+TITLE: Using Emacsclient on MacOS
#+DATE: 2020-06-18T17:10:15-04:00
#+DRAFT: false
#+DESCRIPTION: Getting emacsclient setup nicely on MacOS
#+TAGS[]: macos emacs
#+KEYWORDS[]:
#+SLUG:
#+SUMMARY:

#+ATTR_HTML: :alt MacOS Emacsclient
#+ATTR_HTML: :title MacOS Emacsclient
[[file:macos%20emacsclient.png]]

Emacs is an amazing editor, but it can be a little slow to start
sometimes. That's why =emacsclient= lets you run Emacs as a daemon and
connect to it as a client, negating the startup time and letting you
jump directly into editing.

The two primary ways of getting Emacs onto your Mac are by either
downloading it from [[https://emacsformacosx.com/][Emacs For MacOS X]] or by installing it through
[[https://brew.sh/][homebrew]] using =brew cask install emacs=. I prefer the homebrew method
as it automatically adds =emacs= and =emacsclient= to your =$PATH=.

Using it from the command line is a breeze. I have this alias in my
=.bashrc=

#+BEGIN_SRC shell
alias em="emacsclient -t -a ''"
#+END_SRC

This way I can type =em <filename>= to edit a file. =-t= tells
emacsclient to start in terminal mode, and =-a ''= tell it to start the
Emacs daemon process if it isn't already running.

Getting the GUI version to run without first opening the command line
is a little trickier. Homebrew provides an app for =emacs=, but no
launcher for =emacsclient=. The way I've worked around that is by
using [[https://github.com/deseven/icanhazshortcut][iCanHazShortcut]], which lets you bind arbitrary shell commands to
keyboard shortcuts. You can download the app from the [[https://github.com/deseven/icanhazshortcut/releases][release]] area on
github.

To add a new shortcut, download and install iCanHazShortcut, then open
the app and click the =Shortcuts= tab at the top. Then click the plus
in the bottom right corner, click inside the =Shortcut= field, press
the desired shortcut keys, give it an action name, and a command.

To launch =emacsclient=, I have a shortcut bound to
@@html:<kbd>⌃</kbd> + <kbd>⇧</kbd> + <kbd>⌘</kbd> + <kbd>E</kbd>@@
which runs
#+BEGIN_SRC shell
emacsclient -c -n -a ''
#+END_SRC

The =-c= flag tells =emacsclient= to open a GUI window instead of in
terminal mode. The =-n= flag tells the command to return once the
window is opened, instead of waiting for the client to close. Finally,
like before the =-a ''= flag tells =emacsclient= to start the Emacs
daemon if it isn't already running.

Now all I have to do is press @@html:<kbd>⌃</kbd> + <kbd>⇧</kbd> + <kbd>⌘</kbd> + <kbd>E</kbd>@@
and a new Emacs window pops up with no startup delay!