EMacro Overview

• Abstract
• Directory Descriptions
• Program Flow

Abstract

What is EMacro? Emacro is a .emacs configuration system for Emacs. It is:

Easy

EMacro prompts you once only, and saves your configuration in an easy to read file.
You don't need to know elisp, to run Emacs with sane defaults, such as loading the best available Java mode, when opening *.java files.
EMacro also includes extensive user documentation
Combine Emacs v21.1 with EMacro and cua.el, and new users can get comfortable immediately! Unfortunately, the XEmacs port of cua.el is out of date.

Extensible

EMacro's ease of use does not come at the expense of advanced users. If you love elisp, you will find EMacro's code easy to search, with plenty of hints in its comments.

Fast

EMacro has been optimized for speed. It may double the number of seconds that Emacs loads, but it will save you minutes, from searching for, and loading libraries. EMacro can be considered the world's largest .emacs, but still quite manageable in size.

Portable

It works with Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and Gnu/Linux compatible systems, including BSD and Sun Solaris. Others have not been tested, but should work. EMacro works with both Emacs and XEmacs.

Complete

EMacro combines the work of everyone in credits.html, in a sense, all the ideas that are good enough to share.

Tested

Since EMacro is more complete, there is less need to add code, which will break it. Code for EMacro goes back 10 years. EMacro has a team that spends more time uncovering bugs, under more varieties of conditions, than any other .emacs.

Directory Descriptions

For individual file details, see manifest.html

Program Flow

Emacs first loads ~/.emacs or XEmacs loads ~/.xemacs/init.el. EMacro calls this file site-init.el, to avoid overwriting this file, if you have already created one.
This init file loads emacs/emacro/emacro.el, which then loads emacs/loadpath.el. You may need to edit loadpath.el, to find the path to every Emacs macro library file you expect to use.
Next, preferences/preload.el is loaded. You can customize this file, for any user code, before the bulk of EMacro is executed.
Then comes emacro/configure.el, which generates preferences/preferences.el as necessary, checking your PATH environment variable, and elisp libraries in the load-path.
The remaining files are loaded in no particular order. If tiny-tools are in the load-path, then they may not load, until the idle timer detects no keyboard activity for several seconds.
Lastly, files loaded are from the preferences directory, including the defcustom files, where preferences from the M-x customize or associated pulldown menu are saved. The final file loaded is preferences/postload.el, which contains user code.
Note that preload.el and postload.el serve a similar purpose, and are loaded before or after the bulk of EMacro, respectively.