emacs can be run within a terminal or with a graphical interface for xserver. colors and font-rendering may look different, the graphical version of course does not start inside a current terminal, and i prefer emacs on the terminal because it seems simpler and i would not have to set up xserver forwarding through ssh sessions for example
start emacs with "emacs --daemon" and open files with "emacsclient -tc" ("t" uses the terminal, "c" creates a new frame). this way emacs is not started anew when you open a file for editing
these shell scripts can be put, with the executable bit set, into a path listed in $PATH
file name: e
#!/bin/sh emacsclient -tc
usage
e readme.md
the following is for opening multiple files without displaying them on the current terminal.
file name: ea
#!/bin/sh for file in $@ do emacsclient -e '(find-file "'$file'")' done
usage
ea readme.md main.c
adaptive-wrap long lines start on the next line with indent
auto-complete word autocompletion
smartparens structural editing of bracket expressions. alternative to paredit
sph-scheme-mode simple scheme mode
web-mode handles syntax-highlighting for files with mixed languages like html templates
corral quickly surround words with characters in emacs
highlight-symbol highlight and rename the current word throughout the buffer
yasnippet templates
modes i had issues with