This is el-get.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.8 from el-get.texi. INFO-DIR-SECTION Emacs START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * El-Get: (el-get). Using el-get to manage your Emacs Extensions. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY Copyright (C) 2010, 2011, 2012 Dimitri Fontaine. DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, December 2004 Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long as the name is changed. DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION 0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.  File: el-get.info, Node: Top, Next: Introduction, Up: (dir) El-Get User Manual ****************** El-Get is an Emacs Extension manager that allows you to install, update and remove external Emacs Lisp extensions. More importantly, El-Get will care about initializing installed extensions for you at Emacs Startup. * Menu: * Introduction:: * Acknowledgments:: * Glossary:: * Installing:: * Usage:: * Setup:: * User Init:: * Recipes:: * Authoring Recipes::  File: el-get.info, Node: Introduction, Next: Acknowledgments, Prev: Top, Up: Top 1 Introduction ************** El-Get allows you to install and manage Emacs Lisp code for Emacs. It supports lots of differents types of sources and is able to install them, update them and remove them, and more importantly it will init them for you. That means it will `require' the `features' you need, `load' the necessary files, set the `Info' paths so that `C-h i' shows the new documentation you now depend on, and finally call your own `post-init' function for you to setup the extension. Or call it a package. El-Get Version String (`M-x el-get-version') are now inspired by how Emacs itself numbers its versions. First is the major version number, then a dot, then the minor version number. The minor version number is 0 when still developping the next major version. So 3.0 is a developer release while 3.1 is a stable release. Please note that this versioning policy has been picked while backing 1.2~dev, so 1.0 was a "stable" release in fact. Ah, history.  File: el-get.info, Node: Acknowledgments, Next: Glossary, Prev: Introduction, Up: Top 2 Acknowledgments ***************** Dimitri Fontaine started the whole project and still manages the releases, and sometimes even contribute code and documentation. Julien Danjou has been a contributor since very early days, about the first beta tester of the idea, before we really knew how much to achieve. Ryan C. Thompson joined and commented some issues, began contributing and quickly became top-level and most active contributor to the project, getting a commit bit and some management duties. He manages tests and issues on github as much as he can spares time to El-Get. Dave Abrahams contributed lots of code and efforts to make things right™. He's still using El-Get, but decided to retire from the project. Lots of people (more than we can list here) did contribute to El-Get either recipes, bug fixes or ideas to implement, often with code. That builds up an awesome community, thanks guys! dim ~/dev/emacs/el-get git --no-pager shortlog -n -s | wc -l 137 dim ~/dev/emacs/el-get git --no-pager shortlog -n -s | head -10 734 Dimitri Fontaine 336 Ryan C. Thompson 114 Julien Danjou 110 Dave Abrahams 73 Ryan Thompson 72 Sébastien Gross 42 Takafumi Arakaki 27 Alex Ott 25 Yakkala Yagnesh Raghava 21 Rüdiger Sonderfeld  File: el-get.info, Node: Glossary, Next: Installing, Prev: Acknowledgments, Up: Top 3 Glossary ********** Autoload Delay loading a package definition until its first use. Build Action that happens at *Note Glossary - Install::, and *Note Glossary - Update::. Packages might skip any `build' step entirely. When given, the build step allows to run system level tools (think `make'), often to produce to derivative files. Byte-Compile Action to compile Emacs Lisp files so that loading them is faster. El-Get is able to automatically manage that step at install and update time so that init time is faster, see *Note Glossary - Init::. Dependency Any El-Get package can depend on some others. At install time, El-Get will make sure all dependant packages are installed first. At init time, same thing will happen. Dependency management is solved with a topological sort so that if you install a package `a' that depends on a package `b' that depends on a package `c', El-Get will install `c' then `b' then `a'. Init When you start Emacs you want your packages to get setup and ready to serve whatever usage you have of this advanced Operating System. El-Get calls this setup step the `init' and will care about initializing your packages automatically given a *Note Glossary - Recipe::. Install El-Get install a package by fetching its sources as described in the package recipe, then running the build steps if the recipe contains such. Method An El-Get method is a backend code providing facilities to fetch, install, update and remove external code. El-Get currently implements methods that targets `apt-get', `brew', `builtin', `bzr', `cvs', `darcs', `elpa', `emacsmirror', `emacswiki', `fink', `fossil', `git' and `git-svn', `github' `github-tar' and `github-zip', `hg', `http' `http-tar' and `http-zip', `pacman' and `svn'. Notification El-Get notifies its user when a package is done installing, updating or removing. It knows how to use several system level notification facilities, such as `DBUS' or `growl'. Package A package is what El-Get manages for you. It's a set of Emacs Lisp files (possible a set of a single file, possibly with some Info documentation and build scripts, etc) that El-Get knows how to fetch and install, update and remove, and init at Emacs Startup. Recipe An El-Get recipe describes a package in terms that allow El-Get to provide its features against that package. It's easy enough to write recipes, and fun to share them! Remove El-Get removes a package by simple removing the directory where the package is installed. If you want the features of the package to get unloaded, most often the easier way to do that is to restart Emacs. Status One of `available', `installed', `required' or `removed'. When El-Get is asked to install a package, the status is set to `required' before to fetch and build it, so that in case of error the system knows to try installing again. Update El-Get updates a package in different ways, depending on the package type and the associated method. In some cases it's not possible to update a package, like when it switched from `svn' to `git' for example.  File: el-get.info, Node: Installing, Next: Usage, Prev: Glossary, Up: Top 4 Installing ************ El-Get comes with a `*scratch*'-installer. Ideally you would install El-Get with El-Get itself, but I couldn't figure out how to do that, so instead you have to copy and paste the following code into your `*scratch*' buffer and evaluate it: ;; So the idea is that you copy/paste this code into your *scratch* buffer, ;; hit C-j, and you have a working el-get. (url-retrieve "https://raw.github.com/dimitri/el-get/master/el-get-install.el" (lambda (s) (goto-char (point-max)) (eval-print-last-sexp))) To evaluate that code, you place the point at the end of the text block (just after the last closing paren) and you type `C-j'. * Menu: * Install the developper version:: * Skip Emacswiki recipes when installing::  File: el-get.info, Node: Install the developper version, Next: Skip Emacswiki recipes when installing, Up: Installing 4.1 Developper version ====================== The lazy installer uses the default `el-get-install.el' file which targets the `stable' branch. To install El-Get directly on the `master' branch, summon the `el-get-master-branch' variable into existence: ;; So the idea is that you copy/paste this code into your *scratch* buffer, ;; hit C-j, and you have a working developper edition of el-get. (url-retrieve "https://raw.github.com/dimitri/el-get/master/el-get-install.el" (lambda (s) (let (el-get-master-branch) (goto-char (point-max)) (eval-print-last-sexp))))  File: el-get.info, Node: Skip Emacswiki recipes when installing, Prev: Install the developper version, Up: Installing 4.2 Skip Emacswiki recipes when installing ========================================== The installer will fetch from emacswiki all the recipe available there and install a local copy of those in your system automatically. Should you want to disable that feature, the following snippet is showing how to: ;; So the idea is that you copy/paste this code into your *scratch* buffer, ;; hit C-j, and you have a working el-get (without emacswiki automatic ;; recipes). (url-retrieve "https://raw.github.com/dimitri/el-get/master/el-get-install.el" (lambda (s) (let (el-get-install-skip-emacswiki-recipes) (goto-char (point-max)) (eval-print-last-sexp))))  File: el-get.info, Node: Usage, Next: Setup, Prev: Installing, Up: Top 5 Usage ******* Now that El-Get is installed, simply use `M-x el-get-install' and pick whatever package you need. Here's a list of commands provided by El-Get: `el-get-list-packages' List all available packages with their names, *Note Glossary - Status::, and description. Name and description are taken from the recipe file of the package. You can find which recipe file is used for a given package using `el-get-find-recipe-file' or `el-get-describe'. `el-get-describe' Offers a full text description of a package with buttons to install, remove and update, and with the recipe content. `el-get-find-recipe-file' Find the recipe file for given recipe, prompted. `el-get-install' Install given package, as prompted. `el-get-init' Initialize given package, as prompted. If some user code is setup to be run at initialisation, it will get run by this command. See *Note User Init::. `el-get-update' Update a given package, as prompted. In some cases a straight update is not possible (recipe switched from CVS to git is a common reason). El-Get will try and detect such cases and do `el-get-remove' then `el-get-install' if necessary. Please realise that updating packages might break your current package setup and that you will have to revisit your setup accordingly. `el-get-remove' Remove given package, as prompted. `el-get-self-update' Update El-Get itself, and force that update to be synchronous. That allows to make sure you're not updating El-Get code while trying to update or install some other package at the same time. `el-get-update-all' Will update all packages that have the `installed' status in your status file. Before the update you will be prompted for confirmation that you wish to proceed. Beware that using this function can lead to hours of settings review: more often than not updating a package requires some adjustments to your setup. Updating all of them at once will require reviewing almost all your setup. `el-get-reload' Reload the given package files. Happens automatically at update time too.  File: el-get.info, Node: Setup, Next: User Init, Prev: Usage, Up: Top 6 Setup ******* El-Get setup can be very simple or arbitrarily complex. This chapter explains how to do the very basic setup, which allow for using `M-x el-get-install' and friends, then how to get a more involved setup. * Menu: * Basic Setup:: * The el-get function:: * Distributed Setup:: * Setup Customization::  File: el-get.info, Node: Basic Setup, Next: The el-get function, Up: Setup 6.1 Basic Setup =============== You can then arrange to have El-Get part of your setup, so that at next emacs startup the installed packages are initialized. (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get") (unless (require 'el-get nil t) (with-current-buffer (url-retrieve-synchronously "https://raw.github.com/dimitri/el-get/master/el-get-install.el") (goto-char (point-max)) (eval-print-last-sexp))) (el-get 'sync) The `el-get' command will check that each and every package is installed on your system (in `el-get-dir' and if that's not the case, it will actually install it. Then, it will init the packages: that means caring about the `load-path', the `Info-directory-list' (and dir texinfo menu building) the loading of the emacs-lisp files, and finally it will require the features or eval the package `autoloads'. This usage is pretty simple to setup and use, but fails to cater with more complex setups involving multiple deployments (home and work laptop would be a classic example). El-Get fully supports that distributed setup, though, and this chapter explain how.  File: el-get.info, Node: The el-get function, Next: Distributed Setup, Prev: Basic Setup, Up: Setup 6.2 The el-get function ======================= Ensure that packages have been downloaded once and init them as needed. This will not update the sources by using `apt-get install' or `git pull', but it will ensure that: * the packages have been installed * load-path is set so their elisp files can be found * Info-directory-list is set so their info files can be found * Autoloads have been prepared and evaluated for each package * Any post-installation setup (e.g. `(require 'feature)') happens When SYNC is `nil' (the default), all installations run concurrently, in the background. When SYNC is `sync', each package will be installed synchronously, and any error will stop it all. Please note that the `el-get-init' part of `el-get' is always done synchronously. There's `byte-compile' support though, and the packages you use are welcome to use `autoload' too. You can also force your setup to be loaded lazily with the `el-get-is-lazy' variable. `PACKAGES' is expected to be a list of packages you want to install or init. When `PACKAGES' is omited (the default), the list of already installed packages is considered.  File: el-get.info, Node: Distributed Setup, Next: Setup Customization, Prev: The el-get function, Up: Setup 6.3 Distributed Setup ===================== When you are sharing your emacs setup between several machines (work and home destops, laptop, etc); it's usual to manage your `.emacs.d' setup in a distributed repository (such as `git'). El-Get then provides an easy canonical list of packages you depend on to run emacs, and this documentation is usable as-is. (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get") (require 'el-get) ;; local sources (setq el-get-sources '((:name magit :after (global-set-key (kbd "C-x C-z") 'magit-status)) (:name asciidoc :type elpa :after (progn (autoload 'doc-mode "doc-mode" nil t) (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.adoc$" . doc-mode)) (add-hook 'doc-mode-hook '(lambda () (turn-on-auto-fill) (require 'asciidoc))))) (:name lisppaste :type elpa) (:name emacs-goodies-el :type apt-get))) (setq my-packages (append '(cssh el-get switch-window vkill google-maps nxhtml xcscope yasnippet) (mapcar 'el-get-source-name el-get-sources))) (el-get 'sync my-packages) Please note that when you unreference a package from `my-packages', it remains locally installed. Going one step further with the idea of a canonical list, el-get provides the command `el-get-cleanup', which will remove all packages absent from `my-packages'. This allows, in effect, to put under version control only the user init file, instead of the whole `.emacs.d' directory, and still enjoy a truly portable emacs configuration. In the code example above, replace the last line with the following: (el-get-cleanup my-packages) (el-get 'sync my-packages)  File: el-get.info, Node: Setup Customization, Prev: Distributed Setup, Up: Setup 6.4 Setup Customization ======================= Even though the defaults that are provided by El-Get provide all that you need to get it working, there may be a reason to manually define certain settings, particularly for portability. `el-get-dir' Path where packages are installed. Defaults to `~/.emacs.d/el-get/'. `el-get-install-dir' Path for the `el-get' package. Defaults to `~/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get'. `el-get-install-branch' If this is set, El-Get will be installed using the target `branch'. This takes precedence over setting `el-get-master-branch' in the installation settings, see *Note Installing::. `el-get-git-install-url' Use this to specify your own fork of El-Get for installation. `el-get-recipe-path-elpa' This directory stores a local list of ELPA recipes. `~/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get/recipes/elpa' `el-get-recipe-path-emacswiki' As above for ELPA, this directory stores a local list of emacswiki recipes. Defaults to `~/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get/recipes/emacswiki/'.  File: el-get.info, Node: User Init, Next: Recipes, Prev: Setup, Up: Top 7 User Init *********** The main task performed by El-Get is package initialization at Emacs startup. It will care about all of them, their dependencies, and call code provided by the recipe author. You can add your own setup code and register it in a way that El-Get will evaluate it at the right time. The package setup can either go into the `:after' property, or in a file named `init-package.el' in `el-get-user-package-directory'. Any such named file will get automatically loaded by El-Get at package init time, if it exists. * Menu: * Before and After properties :: * Initialization files::  File: el-get.info, Node: Before and After properties, Next: Initialization files, Up: User Init 7.1 Before and After properties =============================== The `:before' and `:after' properties are evaluated by El-Get in the package initialization sequence. `:before' This should be a lisp form to evaluate after both the `Info-directory-list' and the `load-path' variables have been taken care of, but before loading the package or any further action from `el-get-init'. It will be run with the variable `default-directory' set to the package directory. `:after' This should be a lisp form to evaluate after loading the package. This function is registered for `eval-after-load' against the recipe library by `el-get-init' once the `:load' and `:features' have been setup. It will be run with the variable `default-directory' set to the package directory. Here's a couple of examples of package recipes that are using `:before' and `:after' properties: (:name asciidoc :type elpa :after (lambda () (autoload 'doc-mode "doc-mode" nil t) (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.adoc$" . doc-mode)) (add-hook 'doc-mode-hook '(lambda () (turn-on-auto-fill) (require 'asciidoc))))) (:name anything :features anything-config :before (global-set-key (kbd "M-s a") 'dim:anything-occur) :after (setq w3m-command nil))  File: el-get.info, Node: Initialization files, Prev: Before and After properties, Up: User Init 7.2 Initialization files ======================== El-Get will see if a file named `init-package.el' exists in the directory pointed at by the `el-get-user-package-directory' variable. When this variable is not nil and if such a file does exist in the directory, then El-Get will load the user init file for PACKAGE. The initialization file is loaded at the same time as the `:after' property would have be run, and just before it if you provide both. El-Get automatically byte compiles the init file as needed and load the compiled version.  File: el-get.info, Node: Recipes, Next: Authoring Recipes, Prev: User Init, Up: Top 8 Recipes ********* All of El-Get behavior is controled with recipes that you can share, download, update and author. This chapter explain how to manage your recipes and how to author them and ship them. Recipes are a list of properties, which are documented in the variable EL-GET-SOURCES. * Menu: * Organizing recipes:: * Getting more recipes:: * Overriding package files::  File: el-get.info, Node: Organizing recipes, Next: Getting more recipes, Up: Recipes 8.1 Organizing recipes ====================== El-Get needs to find a package recipe to be able to install or update it. After that the recipe content is saved in the status file and cached, so that you can still start Emacs even if you remove the recipe file. The variable `el-get-recipe-path' is a list of directory paths where to look for recipe files, in order. The recipe for a package `example' must be named `example.rcp'. The first file named that way in the `el-get-recipe-path' variable is used as the recipe. To check which recipe is used for a given package, use either the `M-x el-get-describe' or `M-x el-get-find-recipe-file' command. This organisation with several path allow you to setup El-Get to use its own recipes, recipes automatically created from online resources (such as Emacswiki), and your own local recipes. As it's easy for El-Get to use your own recipes in the exact same way than it uses its own recipes, it allows you to share them very easily. Send the file to a friend and have it store it at the right place. It's also possible to setup `el-get-sources' with recipe information. As long as the `type' property is not filled in `el-get-sources', El-Get will first find the recipe as usual and then merge the recipe content with the recipe skeleton provided by the matching `el-get-sources' stanza. El-Get also supports full User Init files, see *Note User Init::.  File: el-get.info, Node: Getting more recipes, Next: Overriding package files, Prev: Organizing recipes, Up: Recipes 8.2 Getting more recipes ======================== The command `M-x el-get-emacswiki-refresh' downloads the list of Emacs Lisp files available at EmacsWiki. El-Get is able to automatically install any such file at the right place in `el-get-dir'. The integration of an automatically generated recipe is often not enough, you often have to add some initialisation code. See *Note User Init::. The command `el-get-elpa-build-local-recipes' downloads the list of Emacs Lisp Packages from the ELPA archives you have setup, and make them automatically available for El-Get.  File: el-get.info, Node: Overriding package files, Prev: Getting more recipes, Up: Recipes 8.3 Overriding package files ============================ El-Get manages the files associated with a package. You can browse those files using the `el-get-cd' function. It's possible to hack on those files, be aware that doing so might break your setup capability to handle upgrades.  File: el-get.info, Node: Authoring Recipes, Prev: Recipes, Up: Top 9 Authoring Recipes ******************* Authoring recipes is often very easy. El-Get goal is to adapt to any Emacs Lisp code and distribution you can find out there in the wild, so the list of features supported is quite large. Simple cases are very simple, though. * Menu: * Recipe format:: * Dependencies:: * Byte Compilation:: * Autoloads:: * Build::  File: el-get.info, Node: Recipe format, Next: Dependencies, Up: Authoring Recipes 9.1 Recipe format ================= The recipe for the hypothetical package named `el-get-example' must be provided in a file named `el-get-example.rcp'. This file will be searched for as described in *Note Organizing recipes::. The variable `el-get-sources' is also considered as a recipe source, as detailed in *Note Organizing recipes::. A recipe file contains a lisp property list. Accepted properties are described in the documentation for the variable `el-get-sources', and their possible values are described at the same place. Please refer to that documentation.  File: el-get.info, Node: Dependencies, Next: Byte Compilation, Prev: Recipe format, Up: Authoring Recipes 9.2 Dependencies ================ When a recipe provides a `:depends' property, El-Get makes sure that the given list of packages is installed and initialized before the package for the current recipe is installed and initialized.  File: el-get.info, Node: Byte Compilation, Next: Autoloads, Prev: Dependencies, Up: Authoring Recipes 9.3 Byte Compilation ==================== By default, El-Get will recursively byte-compile the directory where the package is installed, that is each and any file called `something.el'. Some packages include non Emacs Lisp directories, and sometime test files that are not meant to pass byte compilation without errors or warnings. It is possible to setup your recipe to either only target some files of the package, or to bypass byte compiling entirely.  File: el-get.info, Node: Autoloads, Next: Build, Prev: Byte Compilation, Up: Authoring Recipes 9.4 Autoloads ============= Think about providing `autoloads' for your recipe if some are available. You can provide them yourself too, for packages that should have support for autoloads but ship without them. The `:prepare' property of a recipe is the right place where to put added autoloads, as shown in this example: (:name undo-tree :description "Treat undo history as a tree" :type git :url "http://www.dr-qubit.org/git/undo-tree.git" :prepare (progn (autoload 'undo-tree-mode "undo-tree.el" "Undo tree mode; see undo-tree.el for details" t) (autoload 'global-undo-tree-mode "undo-tree.el" "Global undo tree mode" t))) The `:prepare' property of a recipe is considered the same as the `:before' one, just evaluated after it. `:prepare' is meant for recipe authors whereas `:before' is meant for user customisations. See *Note Before and After properties::.  File: el-get.info, Node: Build, Prev: Autoloads, Up: Authoring Recipes 9.5 Build ========= The `:build' property of the recipe allows for OS integration at build time. Build happens after the package has been fetched, and allows to run commands such as `make'. The variable `el-get-emacs' contains the complete path where to find the current Emacs executable you're running, as that's something build commands often need. As shell interpolation can get hairy, El-Get offers you to setup your build commands as Emacs Lisp list. See the magit recipe for an example: (:name magit :website "https://github.com/magit/magit#readme" :description "It's Magit! An Emacs mode for Git." :type github :pkgname "magit/magit" :info "." :autoloads ("50magit") :build (("make" "all")) :build/darwin `(,(concat "make EMACS=" el-get-emacs " all")))  Tag Table: Node: Top762 Node: Introduction1227 Node: Acknowledgments2302 Node: Glossary3752 Ref: Glossary - Init4848 Ref: Glossary - Install5150 Ref: Glossary - Recipe6237 Ref: Glossary - Status6661 Ref: Glossary - Update6919 Node: Installing7157 Node: Install the developper version8030 Node: Skip Emacswiki recipes when installing8775 Node: Usage9611 Node: Setup11900 Node: Basic Setup12296 Node: The el-get function13535 Node: Distributed Setup14811 Node: Setup Customization16705 Node: User Init17851 Node: Before and After properties18538 Node: Initialization files20046 Node: Recipes20699 Node: Organizing recipes21174 Node: Getting more recipes22689 Node: Overriding package files23387 Node: Authoring Recipes23770 Node: Recipe format24201 Node: Dependencies24870 Node: Byte Compilation25216 Node: Autoloads25782 Node: Build26908  End Tag Table