10 Tips for Emacs on Windows

Here's where you will find all the software referenced in the tips:

• Emacs for Windows
• Cygwin
• GnuWin32 for image libraries
• ISpell package
• Maxframe.el
• GSView

• Execute runemacs.exe or emacsclientw.exe.

• Add Cygwin /bin to exec-path.

    (if (file-directory-p "c:/cygwin/bin")
        (add-to-list 'exec-path "c:/cygwin/bin"))

There are people using PuTTY and Plink.exe to get this working, but I like using good old OpenSSH much better: no translation required for the keys I use, and I have it installed anyway in Cygwin.

• Install Cygwin, including the OpenSSH package

• In your Emacs init, set shell to bash

  (setq shell-file-name "bash")
  (setq explicit-shell-file-name shell-file-name)

• In Emacs init, set tramp-default-method to "sshx" or "scpx"

  (cond  ((eq window-system 'w32)
  (setq tramp-default-method "scpx"))
  (t
  (setq tramp-default-method "scpc")))

• Windows 7 note: I was unable to get this to work on Win7 until I set the runemacs.exe binary to run in Windows XP (Service Pack 3) compatibility mode.
• Test: Try M-x shell, then visit a TRAMP site such as /user@site: and try M-x shell from there!

Version control should work out of the box – but SSH problems can interfere sometimes. So once you get TRAMP working properly, you should have no problems with VC.

• Install subversion and git from Cygwin
• Use built-in vc-dir, or psvn.el and magit.el

You may have noticed that your Windows Emacs has no ability to display images. This is simply due to the fact that the port is not distributed with the libraries necessary to display them. The solution is to visit the GnuWin32 link above, download the packages relevant to the types of images you want to display (including zlib1 for compressed images), and copy the DLLs into the bin directory of your Emacs installation (e.g, C:Program Files\emacs23-2\bin). Images will only be displayed after restarting Emacs. Here's a list of DLLs that I now have in my installation:

• jpeg62.dll
• libXpm.dll
• libjpeg-62.dll
• libpng-bcc.lib
• libpng.dll.a
• libpng.la
• libpng.lib
• libpng12-0.dll
• libpng12.def
• libpng12.dll
• libpng12.dll.a
• libpng12.la
• libtiff3.dll
• zlib1.dll (for compression, not images)

The W3M web browser works fine once you install the w3m binary – and once the image display step above is working, you will be able to display images in the W3M buffers as well.

• Install w3m from Cygwin
• Test image display by hitting T (w3m-toggle-inline-images)
• Example screenshot:

Ediff is yet another thing which doesn't work as it should. You will get an error complaining about Dos-style versus Unix-style paths. Fixing it is a simple matter of setting an environment variable.

• Assure you have Cygwin's diff package installed
• Set the Windows environment variable nodosfilewarning=1
• Restart Emacs, and verify that the environment variable is set by executing M-x shell, then typing env | grep dos, for example
• Always, prior to running ediff, execute M-x shell

Fortunately very easy to get working by following Brian Wood's directions using the ISpell package for Cygwin linked above. Note added later: Aspell is even easier to use: just install aspell and the correct language(s) in Cygwin, then use the following in your emacs init:

(setq-default ispell-program-name "aspell")

Those of us who practice Distraction-Free Emacsing, or DFE, will lament the inability to maximize the frame as we can do on other systems (ie, a true maximized window with no OS window decoration). The solution is provided by maxfame.el, linked above. After loading maxframe.el, use M-x maximize-frame and M-x restore-frame

And finally, printing. Even this just didn't work out of the box for me. The solution was to use a nice little utility called GSPrint from the GSView package linked above.

• Install Ghostscript in Cygwin

• Install GSView

  (when (and (string= (window-system) "w32") (file-exists-p "c:/Program Files/Ghostgum/gsview/gsprint.exe"))
  (progn
  ;;  Windows printer
  (setq-default ps-lpr-command (expand-file-name "c:/Program Files/Ghostgum/gsview/gsprint.exe"))
  (setq-default ps-printer-name t)
  (setq-default ps-printer-name-option nil)
  (setq ps-lpr-switches '("-query")) ; show printer dialog
  (setq ps-right-header '("/pagenumberstring load" ps-time-stamp-mon-dd-yyyy))))
  (if (eq window-system 'x)
  (setq ps-lpr-command "gtklp"))

Bonus tip — some things work already, no fiddling required!

;;* Font selection
(cond ((or (eq window-system 'mac) (eq window-system 'ns))
(set-face-font 'default '"-apple-inconsolata-medium-r-normal--16-0-72-72-m-0-iso10646-1"))
((eq window-system 'w32)
(set-face-font 'default '"-outline-Inconsolata-normal-normal-normal-mono-16-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1"))
((and (eq window-system 'x) (eq emacs-major-version 23))
(set-face-font 'default '"-unknown-Inconsolata-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1")
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(font . "-unknown-Inconsolata-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1"))
)
((eq window-system 'x)
(set-face-font 'default '"10x20")))

(add-hook 'before-make-frame-hook
(lambda ()
(set-frame-font "-unknown-Inconsolata-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1")
))

(defun set-transparency (alpha-level)
(interactive "p")
(message (format "Alpha level passed in: %s" alpha-level))
(let ((alpha-level (if (< alpha-level 2)
(read-number "Opacity percentage: " 85)
alpha-level))
(myalpha (frame-parameter nil 'alpha)))
(set-frame-parameter nil 'alpha alpha-level))
(message (format "Alpha level is %d" (frame-parameter nil 'alpha))))