Aquamacs Bring Emacs To OS X With Mixed Results

Along with the new GNU Emacs release of version 22.1, Aquamacs has announced that its specially tailored version of Emacs for Mac OS X has, at long last, hit 1.0. Aquamacs has been in development for over two years and attempts to merge Emacs' legendary functionality with Apple's Aqua interface design.

Aquamacs looks like a Mac program and it was stable in my testing this morning (actually I've used Aquamacs off and on for a while and never had any stability issues), but Aquamacs' attempts to integrate Emacs into the Mac environment are a mixed bag.

Keyboard shortcuts have been modified to follow patterns Mac users will be familiar with rather than the Emacs equivalents (which also work).

For instance in Emacs, to open a new file, er, technically a buffer, but never mind that, you would type Ctrl-x Ctrl-f whereas the Mac way of doing things is just Apple-O. In Aquamacs you use either. Aquamacs also solves the Emacs meta key problem by offering some remapping options (Emacs commands often use a “meta” key which isn't part of the standard Apple keyboard).

Other Apple-friendly features include the follow options:

• Fonts just work, right from the menu: The Mac-standard font (Lucida Grande) is the default for editing text, and the mono-spaced Monaco is used to other modes.
• Aquamacs Emacs has a standard Mac menu with entries where you would expect them, and recently used files are available from the File menu.
• Aquamacs Emacs can open a normal OS X window for each file that is opened - Emacs experts call such windows frames. Finally, Aquamacs Emacs makes use of the capabilities of windows on modern graphical user interfaces. This is configurable with a mouse-click - of course, You can switch between the windows (frames) with the “Buffers” menu.
• Clipboard operations interoperate with other Mac apps.
• A number of little extensions specific to the Mac are contained - they're small details that make your life easier. For example, there is a “Show (file) in Finder” function, or another one to open new files in one of many popular modes. When you double-click a file written in Aquamacs, it'll open in Aquamacs (thanks to Creator meta-information in files).

With many Mac switchers coming from the Linux world (where Emacs use is probably highest) the release of Aquamacs will no doubt be welcomed by some. However, the differences between even Aquamacs and traditional Mac interface design may confuse longtime Mac users.

Aquamacs preferences for instance, while available via the traditional Apple-; shortcut, are anything but standard — many options are still configurable only via the traditional Emacs interface.

Other non-standard features include Emacs-style quit options (feedback is at the bottom of the buffer, i.e. “save changes y or n,” and there's still no decent word-wrap module available.

But if you're a longtime Emacs user looking for a good OS X GUI variant, Aquamacs ably fits the bill.

It looks like a Mac app: Aquamacs' adds some Mac functionality to the traditional Emacs menus.

But it doesn't necessarily quack like a Mac app: The decidedly un-Mac method of saving open buffers