bardman's website

Alternative BOOX Stylus

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:44:25 -0500

Recently, I have been using my BOOX tablet much more to take handwritten notes in all my classes. This has increased the wear on the nib, as I use it for roughly 1-3 hours a day, 5 days a week. I have already had the nib for a long time, since I got this device in December of 2024. The wear was so bad I couldn't even take the nib out anymore. It was also writing without me touching the screen, which is apparently a sign of wear on EMR pens (or perhaps static electricity).

My old stylus writing 2-3 cm above the surface

Your browser does not support the video tag.

I already wanted a stylus with an eraser button, so I went ahead and purchased a Kindle Premium instead of buying more nibs from BOOX or an alternative company. I had heard that the Kindle Scribe premium pen worked pretty well and I liked the shape it had when I borrowed a friend's (he has a Kindle Scribe).

Today I used it for the first time, and I would like to say that so far it's been a good experience. The button is out of the way so I don't click it accidentally, but it's close enough to comfortably reach. The other end of the stylus also acts as a good tool for bulk erasing. Somehow the button and back of the pen worked for erasing automatically. I not sure how but I'm glad I don't need to charge it. The Kindle stylus is a bit heavier, but also thinner. This is certainly a major enhancement that will allow me to continue facilitating my learning.

Tracking Time With Denote Journal and Org Clock

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 23:44:46 -0500

Introduction

I have recently started tracking my time in org mode more. This helps me know whether or not I wasted a lot of time on the computer that day. I have a special heading for "time I wasted loafing about" where I clock in when I want to watch YouTube, for example. For other time spent I make a quick note about what I plan to do. This also helps me stay on track.

Purpose of the workflow

Increase mindfulness about how much time I spend on certain tasks that are productive or unproductive.
Limit how many tasks I accomplish per day by writing down what I think I can actually accomplish on days when I have a large pile of things to do.

Workflow

Step one - Denote journal

I create my daily file with C-c n j and clock in or write something that I need to do. I have a template managed by denote. Additionally it is not part of my denote+org-roam system which I talked about extensively in this video.

Ideally I want to keep track of all the time I spend on the computer to find out how much I have wasted on a given day with this file. For now, I want to see just how much time I waste and then focus on minimizing it.

Step two - decide on task and clock in

Simply clock in to a task that you want to track time for with (org-clock-in) and start working! When you finish with the task, clock out with (org-clock-out). It's very simple. There is a bit more to this however, discuss

You can add effort to items that you want to work on. I think the intended use is to add your time spent, i.e. setting the effort to 0:15 because you want to spend 15 minutes on something. I do this naturally as part of thinking about what I will work on, so this is something that I wanted to show on the mode line as well.

Modeline info

In my literate emacs configuration I have a section for showing time tracking in the mode line. It's a custom mode line indicator built in the same style as Protesilaos's modeline. I don't like having the full name of the task cluttering up the modeline, so I made a custom indicator using the same functions that Emacs uses to build the default modeline indicator.

Time currently spent on the task at hand is 34 minutes.

In the modeline the effort is represented like this:

I wanted to spend 50 minutes on a task and it's almost done!

But if I go over what I intended:

Oops, I went over the time...

Video

Introducing My Literate Emacs Configuration

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 22:03:41 -0500

Announcement

Direct link: here

A new page has appeared under my projects section that has my literate Emacs configuration. It's going to be a continuous work-in-progress, but I hope to document most of it before the end of my school break.

Emacs PDF Processing Workflow

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 20:13:38 -0500

This post is related to previously discussed topic: Boox Notes, Linux and Emacs

Purpose of Workflow

Annotate the pages/sections of a pdf to look back on it later to build a better text note.

Input: PDFs
Output: structured, annotated notes in org mode

Workflow

I was getting ready to write a package to facilitate this workflow, but I found this to be much easier.

Step 1: `org-attach`

Org attach is included in Emacs as a method for attaching files to org headings using different methods. There are several methods that you can view when you run org-attach. The one that I prefer is s - Set a specific attachment directort for this entry. Sets DIR property.

This attaches the file as a property and associated the current heading with the document which will be useful later

The default binding for org-attach is C-c C-a.

Step 2: `org-noter`

After step 1 we have an attachment added to our heading, so let's begin annotating with org-noter. I need to do this to process the PDF later when I want to view examples without having to type them out again.

I go through each page and type i when I want to create a new heading for that page.

Step 3: Refractoring

The ultimate purpose of this process is to reflect on the content and also type it into a more wiki-like structure for my own understanding. This is especially helpful for deep understanding of topics, especially for math. You can read about how I aspire to study math from this external article: How to Study Mathematics - Dr. Lawrence Neff Stout.

Addendum — 2026-01-09

I realized that this is essentially an easier to index version of the Cornell Note Taking system. The notes I add to the pdf are like the main body of the note, and the ones I take in the org document are like the marginalia. Since I live in Emacs, this is second process of adding notes about what is on the pages improves the searchability of my notes since I want them to end up in org mode eventually.

By the way, I'm continuing with this workflow because it has been working well since coming back to school after the winter break.

Video Demo

Stationary and Writing Instruments

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 23:23:17 -0400

Writing Instruments

Pencils

Since elementary school, I've been looking sought ways to make writing on paper more enjoyable. I would randomly find pencils around my house and test them to see which one I liked the most. I still remember my first mechanical pencil that my grandma gave me in 2nd grade. It was a dark green Pentel pencil with a twisting eraser.

In high school I was getting more school supplies and I wanted to get something new. I got a Kokuyo Campus eraser (used up since them), a Zebra Delguard 0.5mm and Uni Kurutoga Advance. Both of these didn't last very long because they were made of plastic — the clip broke on the Delguard and the lead pusher broke on the Kurutoga Advance. It was in around 10th grade when I discovered the Rotring 600 and thought about getting one. I searched some more and found the 800 was on sale. I bought it with an Amazon giftcard I had lying around from Microsoft Edge points that I had accumulated before I quit using the browser. It was basically a free pencil that would typically cost $50-$75 without a discount. Ever since I have loved this pencil and it's very durable. I believe this pencil will last a lifetime.

Pens

My first fountain pens were given to me by my grandma. They were cheap Chinese pens she bought in bulk. They were really cheap, so the ink feeds were really finicky and I could never get them to work. I started using them around 7th-8th grade, and they felt really nice at the time. But later they stopped working. For the first day school in 12th grade, I decided to get a budget fountain pen. I got the TWISBI Eco and the clip broke because I tried to open it when it was stuck. I keep it at home because it's a bit too big to fit into a pocket.

Later for my 18th birthday I got a Kaweco AL Sport. It's really small and portable. This is my main pen that I carry with me along with my Rotring pencil and traveler's notebook.

Pictures

Left to right: Kaweco AL Sport, Rotring 800, TWSBI Eco, Uniball Zento, Pentel Graphgear 500, Ticonderoga Black; Eraser: Pentel Hi-polymer Eraser

Notebooks

Traveler's Notebook

I got this as a present for my 18th birthday to myself. It has Midori MD paper from the traveller's company inserts. It has one plain unlined paper and another with graph paper. I use the blank one for reminders, todo lists, and important dates or deadlines. The graph notebook is for long term notes from meetings or presentations at school. I also have a plastic wallet insert, which I use to store papers, business cards, etc.

Pictures

Note Silos and Sequential Notes

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 20:34:17 -0400

Introduction and Background

📝 Please watch protesilaos's video about both packages before reading this

Parts of this article will seem confusing. Especially if you don't watch the video about sequencing. That one is more important I think to understand the technicalities of what I'm trying to convey.

I have been preparing for starting my University journey this fall and with that comes ~~spring~~ summer cleaning of my notes. This is something I kind of look for because it gives me an excuse to reevaluate my workflow for notes. I stay away from this during the school year, typically, but summer time is good for re-evaluating my workflows.

Something that was always confusing for me was the usecase for Denote's sequence and silo features. I wanted to figure out a way that I could use them. And that is precisely what I achieved recently.

How I Decided To Use Denote Silo Functionality

I have a lot of old notes from past classes that I have taken, but rarely reference. I still want to hold onto them. It just feels bad to throw away information that I have synthesized into a way that I understand. I may work on something related to the notes that I took, or take a class with similar topics (e.g. AP United States History notes will apply to an American History course more or less)

As such, I have created a silo for my old notes in ~/Notes/Old Notes and they have a structure like this:

  tree "~/Notes/Old Notes/" -d -L 2
  /home/bard/Notes/Old Notes/
  ├── Old Notes (2022-2023)
  ├── Old Notes (2023-2024)
  └── Old Notes (2024-2025)
  
  4 directories

Not the most traditional method

Now I know that this isn't the way your really "supposed to do it". The traditional way (as far as Org Roam/denote) would suggest the user to put all of their notes in a single directory. But for me the Old Notes silo is an organizational barrier to let go of my old notes. This not only removes the temptation to reorganize them to fit a new note taking convention that I have taken up, but also de-clutters my current working notes directory from quasi-irrelevant ones.

How I Decided To Use Denote Sequence Functionality

NOTE: For the longest time I thought this was the most useless thing ever (no offence. I just didn't get it until now)

How howm Inspired Me To Take Another Look

It was today (date of writing) that I finally figured out how anyone could make sense of a possible use case for this. This insight came up as a random thought that popped up when I was pontificating the simplicity of howm. I was interested in howm before thanks to this a video by qnnnp, aka Андрей Суховский, that details his zettlekasten-esque workflow using this tool. I think the home page and it's minimal approach to linking between files was the main drawing factor, but at the end of the day I have a system that already works for me.

Суховский comes at it with the approach of a Картотека system (zettlekasten). He makes physical card notes and then transfers them into the indexing system. When he shows his methods it seemed a lot more natural and free-flowing than my sort of hierarchical

This video got me thinking again about how my system currently works. And I arrived a this conclusion:

The Old System

Basically I would have notes with a keyword "meta" that would mean they were kind of a link hub for other notes. They used the denote-org feature of dynamic blocks to link a set of notes with a similar keyword (e.g. biology meta note would have links to all biology notes). The fundamental flaw with this is that it's exactly like any normal workflow in a notebook. You have a notebook for each subject and the concepts contained within never really interact.

Although I wasn't exactly trying to get a zettlekasten system, I was trying to create something like it that would flow freely. But I had unintentionally done the opposite.

I had done something like this:

Create a note (with denote prompts like title and keywords)
Then I think about how it could relate to a possible topic that I have written about before
1. Link if necessary
Write the note

There are elements of the second step in the process that I can't exactly explain, but it would just create a rigidity that I no longer want.

The "New?" System

The Unconventionally Rigid Way Of Using Sequences

When having this epiphany about sequential note taking, I later realized I had actually not had an epiphany. I stumbled upon a series of videos by Ĝabbo while searching for other example workflows. He explained that the point of the sequence was to track a series of thoughts. The way I had thought they were useful for is a hierarchy like this:

20250716T201152==1--tea-research__research.org
20250123T053843==1=1--effects-of-roasted-green-tea-on-human-responses__research.org
20250313T191558==1=2--green-tea-consumption-and-cognitive-function__research.org
20250313T203914==1=3--green-tea-enhances-parieto-frontal-connectivity__research.org
20250313T213601==1=4--the-cognitive-benefits-of-
   green-tea-the-neural-and-behavioral-effects__research_writing.org

My thought was that the highest level signature (==1) would serve as the top of the hierarchy and subsequent topics stemmed from it. But his is not organic as you would have to reorganize it all the time to get the topical hierarchy in order.

However, this example could be a traditional sequence. I could be writing a note about tea research and then move on to writing some notes on papers I had stumbled upon, continuing a line of thinking.

What I Ended Up With

A traditional sequence would feels more like a serendipitous and fleeting moment. You are taking notes on something and you feel like your writing is branching away from the main topic. Just make a new sequence (because it stemmed from the original note), and continue writing. In the end you will having something like this:

20250717T151648==2--taking-sequential-notes__productivity_writing.org
20250717T151744==2=1--book-notes.org
20250717T151920==2=2--other-note-structures.org
20250717T185559==2=2=1--система-картотека-в-емакс__abstract_productivity.org

I started with a note that I took when following along with the video series (==2)
I decided to write about how this new method can be used to take notes on books (==2=1)
I thought about some other smaller examples of this system (~==2~=2)
And one of those was a note about Андрей Суховский's methods (==2=2=1)

Hopefully you can look at the signatures (==2 being the parent) and see how over time the ideas gradually develop into a train of thought.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, most people will never think about any of this. And that's fair. Nobody really needs sequences and silos, and there are marginal gains being made through this workflow. But I like doing stuff like this in my free time. Refining my system is something that I find satisfaction in doing. And I want to share with others who may enjoy it as well.

These things don't make anyone objectively more productive (it may be the opposite). But they do make writing and organization more fluid and can take a lot of the though of it off of your mind. And I supposed that's enough to keep me tinkering.

Desktop Customization Gallery

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 19:16:52 -0500

FAQ

Where are the dots????

They are on my GitHub

Why are windows floating in twm?

I think it looks nice for screenshot, but normally the windows are not like that.

2025

Gruvbox dwm

I have been using this setup since late October/early November I think. It's funny how the circle goes around and around.

Open windows (left to right)

Image one:

org-mode document alongside pdf with zen browser opening org-roam-ui

Image two:

nsxiv and st terminal running tmux (serving hugo site)

Image three:

Emacs lisp buffer opening my denote-roam Emacs package, html file, literate Emacs configuration.

Pictures

NixOS + i3

XMonad and Ef Elea Dark Theme

It's summer time :D

Open windows (L-> R): Emacs with conductor project, nsxiv, Emacs with notmuch, Emacs with Elfeed, Emacs calendar, Emacs with EMMS.

Lately I have been refining my email workflow with Emacs, might make an article about how I do it in the future when the school year starts.

And also, I randomly found out that Emacs can use true transparency, and I love it so much better than picom.

WindowMaker Scylla Theme and Gruber Darker

I have been toying around with WindowMaker for around a week. My favorite feature (unsurprisingly if you check the post below) would be the dock. I also how it feels like if FVWM without all the extensibility and more desktop-environmenty. At first I found the icons to be really annoying, but I finally figured it out. The open windows are Emacs dired, nsxiv image viewer and URxvt with tmux. The wallpaper is doctored with the calendar generated by my wallpaper-annotate.sh

FVWM3 With Gruber Darker on Artix-openrc

I played with WindowMaker for a little bit. I didn't actually end up liking or using it, but I did enjoy the dockapps. I swallowed these little widgets into the left panel that I have on the side. The bar has wmcore, wmacpi, wmamixer, wmusic, and wmclock. The grid on the top is FvwmPager and the window list is FvwmIconMan.

The windows shown are Emacs with a lisp project open (so I can look super productive) and a terminal running fastfetch (I have it aliased to neofetch). I finally wrote an Fvwm colorset when I figured out which colors I like for

Xmonad with gruber darker

Made myself a silly wallpaper to match with the gruber darker theme for fun :)

Open window: Emacs writing this article

i3wm

open windows: Emacs with Elfeed

Summer 2024-2025

FVWM

I have many themes, the ones in these are modus-vivendi and ef-frost.

open windows: Emacs with Elfeed

Watch YouTube with Emacs Elfeed and GNU EMMS

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:19:09 -0500

Description

From the GitHub README:

Elfeed is an extensible web feed reader for Emacs, supporting both Atom and RSS.

My elfeed configuration that is browsing emacs articles

Installation/Setup

Elfeed is available on melpa.

  (use-package elfeed
    :ensure t
    :config
    (global-set-key (kbd "C-c r") 'elfeed)
    (setq elfeed-search-filter "+unread")
  )

How I Like To Use It

Elfeed-org

I subscribe to too many feeds to keep them all in one emacs setq option list. I would rather have them in a text file that can be read by elfeed-org.

YouTube Feed

I try to not get stuck browsing YouTube for hours and using RSS is one of the methods that helps me limit my usage. Not many people know that each YouTube channel has it's own RSS feed that anyone can subscribe to. The way that I am able to discover them is using a find RSS feed extension. The one that I prefer at the moment is FeedBro because it's the one works. It sucks that it's proprietary, but I don't even use it that often (only for scraping the RSS feeds from websites like YouTube that don't show them).

Watching YouTube with Elfeed + EMMS

I have already written an article about GNU EMMS, the excellent Emacs media player. In addition to local files like video/audio I can stream videos with mpv (already bundled with yt-dlp for that).

The big thing that I hated doing was copying the url from elfeed and then opening a terminal and then running mpv with the url and then finally getting to watch the video. But what if I wanted to watch another? Well then I would have to go back and open elfeed and copy the url and then…you get the idea.

What I wanted was to run a keybind on an elfeed entry that links to YouTube and to automatically spawn a process that plays it in mpv. That's what (bard/play-elfeed-video) does.

  (defun bard/play-elfeed-video ()
  "Play the URL of the entry at point in mpv if it's a YouTube video."
  (interactive)
  (let ((entry (elfeed-search-selected :single)))
    (if entry
        (let ((url (elfeed-entry-link entry)))
          (if (and url (string-match-p "https?://\\(www\\.\\)?youtube\\.com\\|youtu\\.be" url))
              (progn
                (async-shell-command (format "mpv '%s'" url))
                (elfeed-search-untag-all-unread))
            (message "The URL is not a YouTube link: %s" url)))
      (message "No entry selected in Elfeed."))))

But then I thought, what if I want to use my good friend EMMS? I sometimes want to make a backlog and save it to a playlist or have them play automatically in succession. That's when I made this function:

  (defun bard/add-video-emms-queue ()
    "Play the URL of the entry at point in mpv if it's a YouTube video. Add it to EMMS queue."
    (interactive)
    (let ((entry (elfeed-search-selected :single)))
      (if entry
          (let ((url (elfeed-entry-link entry)))
            (if (and url (string-match-p "https?://\\(www\\.\\)?youtube\\.com\\|youtu\\.be" url))
                (let* ((playlist-name "Watch Later")
                       (playlist-buffer (get-buffer (format " *%s*" playlist-name))))
                  (unless playlist-buffer
                    (setq playlist-buffer (emms-playlist-new (format " *%s*" playlist-name))))
                  (emms-playlist-set-playlist-buffer playlist-buffer)
                  (emms-add-url url)
                  (elfeed-search-untag-all-unread)
                  (message "Added YouTube video to EMMS playlist: %s" url))
              (message "The URL is not a YouTube link: %s" url)))
        (message "No entry selected in Elfeed."))))

Demonstration

First I open Elfeed to a video that I want to view, then I run bard/add-video-emms-queue for each entry I want to add to my queue (bound to C-c C-e). After that I open EMMS (bound to <f8>). Then I click enter on the video and hooray it's playing. I can even save to a playlist and replay later.

References and Documentation

Top 5 Tempel.el Snippets For Emacs

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 17:00:21 -0500

Introduction

Tempel.el is a package written by Daniel Mendler, a developer of many projects (many of which are fantastic Emacs packages). It provides a way to define text snippets with lisp-like syntax. You can embed Emacs Lisp code into the snippets to obtain programmatically obtained efficiency.

It's based off of the ancient tempo library from Emacs, but it's modernized and updated. I've never tried plain tempo, but it's one of Emacs's several ancient text-templating systems.

Setup

The setup for tempel is very simple. Here is my configuration for the package:

  (use-package tempel
    :ensure t
    :demand t
    ;; Require trigger prefix before template name when completing.
    :bind (("M-i" . tempel-complete) ;; Alternative tempel-expand
           ("M-S-i" . tempel-insert))
    :init

    ;; Setup completion at point
    (defun tempel-setup-capf ()
      ;; Add the Tempel Capf to `completion-at-point-functions'.
      ;; `tempel-expand' only triggers on exact matches. Alternatively use
      ;; `tempel-complete' if you want to see all matches, but then you
      ;; should also configure `tempel-trigger-prefix', such that Tempel
      ;; does not trigger too often when you don't expect it. NOTE: We add
      ;; `tempel-expand' *before* the main programming mode Capf, such
      ;; that it will be tried first.
      (setq-local completion-at-point-functions
                  (cons #'tempel-expand
                        completion-at-point-functions)))

    :hook
    ((conf-mode . tempel-setup-capf)
     (prog-mode . tempel-setup-capf)
     (text-mode . tempel-setup-capf))
    :config
    (setq tempel-path "~/.emacs.d/tempel-snippets.el"))

Next, create a temple-snippets.el file in your .emacs.d directory and type away.

Defining a snippet

In my tempel.snippets.el file, I have around 24 snippets. You can look at it on my emacs configuration. The structure of the file is like this:

desired-mode-for-snippet ;; (eg. fundamental, org, c++)
(snippet-name "snippet body")

Top 5 Snippets

#1 - `up`

This is my most used snippet. I use it all the time for when I need to make a use-package declaration in my Emacs configuration.

(up "(use-package "p n> ":ensure t" n> (s configuration) q")")

#2 - `today`

today evaluates the native Emacs function format-time-string. This is a great example of how tempel can use existing functions in it's snippets.

(today (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d"))

#3 - `begin`

Begin starts a LaTeX begin macro for formatting anything. When you type begin, it moves you to the brackets and then you can fill out both ends of the begin at once with equation, center, aligned, etc.

  (begin "\\begin{" (s env) "}" r> n> "\\end{" (s env) "}")

#4 - `mode`

Emacs has a feature for adding local file variables with a prop line at the beginning of files. I use this to give a mode to files without an extension like scheme scripts I write.

(mode "-*- mode: " (s mode) " -*-")

#5 - Programming-related snippets

These are things I would type anyway while programming that are condensed. They could probably be converted into abbrev-mode expansions, but I just cooked these up quickly while I was working.

  sh-mode
  (! & "#!/usr/bin/bash" n q)
  perl-mode
  (! & "#!/usr/bin/perl" n "use strict;" n "use warnings;" n n q)
  c++-mode
  (log "std::cout << \"" p "\" << std::endl;")

Conclusion

Snippets/templates are a really useful way to speed up your text-editing. If you're going to repeat typing something a bunch, you might as well make a snippet for it.

Yasnippet

I used to use yasnippet (probably the most popular snippet package), but I realized it's not for me because I didn't like making a new file for every snippet. I was too lazy to figure out the syntax to make my own, so I switched to tempel. I could probably still use it, but I'll use what works.

Boox Notes, Linux and Emacs

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 18:36:33 -0500

Introduction

I recently got a BOOX Go 10.3 e-ink tablet this past Christmas. I use this device to take notes that require handwriting (Math/Physics), and annotating/reading a lot of notes/books/documents.

🚩 A note about the BOOX company 🚩

BOOX is a Chinese company that specializes in E-ink tablets that run Android. They have continued to violate the GPL license of Android by not releasing source code to their custom build. I don't like that they violate GPL, but sacrificing privacy sometimes necessary for convenience. As far as I know, there isn't a free and open source e-ink tablet with all the same features.

Here is a guide on how to de-spook your tablet

Benefits of Android OS

Because this tablet runs android (which is a heavily modified Linux) we can do a lot of "Linux-y" things with it. I can run syncthing, GNU Emacs, and scrcpy on it. I have sideloaded fdroid which is my app store. I don't log in to google or the BOOX sync service. I created zero accounts for this device. If enough interest is gathered, I can release an article about my setup.

Running GNU Emacs 30 from Fdroid

Default notes app export

The default notes app has the ability to export notes to pdf after saving. I use syncthing to access these new documents. It was super easy to set up

Organizing with epic Emacs tools

A big dilemma with handwriting notes is that they are hard to search. I devised a plan to organize these notes using denote (org-mode), pdftools, and org-pdftools.

Methodology

I start with one main file, I call it pdf-notes. This will be the main hub. Next I created other files for certain subjects. These have the keywords: pdfs and meta. They are "notes about notes" thus "meta" notes about pdfs.

A dired buffer with all my pdf meta-notes

The main note contains a heading for table of contents, and a heading for the actual content of the files. Both are generated with denote-org-extras-dblock-insert-links and denote-org-extras-dblock-insert-files. All of the blue underlines are org links to pdfs (from org-pdftools) that are in a syncthing folder on my pc. I can open up the link and start reading my notes again. I also use consult-outline and consult-line to fuzzy search around these files when needed.

Examples

open to see images

Main meta note

Specific subject note

side by side

same note but irl

My EmacsConf 2024 Presentation

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 17:37:00 +0000

TLDR: I had gave a talk for EmacsConf 2024 about student workflows.

Motivation for talk

There is a lot of great content out there for all kinds of Emacs things, but it's all jumbled around. If you don't know what you want or where to look it's scary. When I was learning Emacs, I could have been spared from too much tinkering (even though it's fun) if someone had pointed me in the right direction. This presentation was a point in the right direction to students who want to get started with Emacs. It's become increasingly often for me to see students and fans of James Scholz (whom I also admire) to try using DOOM Emacs after seeing his videos. If people do try Emacs, I would be sad if they left because they couldn't find their workflow. After all, Emacs can have almost any kind of workflow if you invest time into it.

Although their great, they don't give a strong direction/recommendation on how to use Emacs. Starting out with Emacs can be very daunting because there are almost "too many" options. My talk presents the ones that I have settled with (for now). Hopefully students watch it and decide to try Emacs.

How I made it

I created the slideshow using org-mode's export to beamer. Beamer is a LaTeX presentation software that has great formatting. I recorded a voice over of me going reading through the rough script/outline I had made from that file. Afterwards, I recorded my screen flipping through the slideshow and doing the demos, combining the video with the audio in Kdenlive.

Common Git Commands on the Command Line

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 19:04:47 -0400

Hopefull you have read my previous article on the basics of git. This article will talk about how to use git on the command line. Hopefully this is not too scary, please email me if you have any questions.

Commits

Let's say you're working on the basic pushbot code. You want to add forward/backward movement first, then turning.

  # first, write your initial drive code
  # after testing that basic driving works:
  git add src/drive.cpp
  git commit -m "Add basic forward/backward movement"
  # later, you add turning functionality
  # after testing that turning works:
  git add src/drive.cpp
  git commit -m "Add left/right turning functions"

Think of commits like save points. Each commit represents a working state of your code. If your turning code breaks something, you can always go back to the previous commit where just driving worked.

Pulling

Before starting any work, you have to sync your local (on your computer) repo with the remote repo (GitHub). To do that, you have to run git pull. Before starting your work for the day always run:

  git checkout master
  git pull origin master

After running this you will have a up-to-date version of the master branch and you are ready to work.

Common Mistakes

If you forget to pull and make changes run:

  git pull origin master

You might see a bunch or warnings or messages about merge conflicts! This happens when git is trying to sync the files from the repo and finds them to have clashing changes before they merge together. To fix them:

Open the files with conflicts with your editor
Look for <<<<<<< HEAD markers
Decide which code to keep
Save and commit the fixed files

The nuclear option: You can delete your changes by resetting the branch. This is outside the scope of this basic guide, but you can shoot me an email or ask me in person.

TODO Stashing

TODO Pushing

Branches

Here's a practical example of branches:

Let's say you had a main/master branch that has all of the features for a basic pushbot (driving, turning). Later, your team decides that they want to experiment with a claw design. This would be a good time to make a new branch.

  # start from the master/main branch
  git checkout master

  # create your new branch
  git checkout -b feature/clawbot

Now you can safely make commits without affecting the master branch. If you mess up the clawbot branch, you can delete it without breaking the stable part of your code that you know already works.

In summary here are the benefits:

Safety
Easy to abandon/delete
You can work in parallel on a feature while a teammate is doing something else

Here's a final example of a branch workflow:

  # create branch
  git checkout -b feature/clawbot

  # make changes, test changes, add and commit them
  git add src/clawbot.cpp
  git commit -m "Add clawbot feature"

  # push feature branch to share with others on remote repo
  git push origin feature/clawbot

  # once you're done, you can do a pull request to merge it into master
  git checkout master
  git merge feature/clawbot

Learning to use Git Version Control

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 11:42:24 -0400

Basics of Git

What is Git?

Git is used to track different versions of files. It is useful for group projects, ensuring that everyone can work on it without overwriting each other. Think of it as the tracker of the multiverse versions of your files; it can manipulate the timelines.

Why Learn it?

It makes it a lot easier to keep track of changes between people.
Easy to back up
You can rollback changes that broke something

Essential Git Concepts

Repository (Repo)

A project folder that Git watches. It contains all the files in your project and their histories. Can be local or put on remote platform like GitHub/GitLab.

Commits

A commit is a snapshot that you make of committed files at a specific point in time. The basic structure of a commit contains:

unique identifier (hash)
timestamp/author
commit message describing what was changed (VERY IMPORTANT)

You can think of them as saves in the video game that can go back to.

Branches

Branches work exactly like the parallel universes you see in movies. When you want to work on a major feature (by adding commits), you would typically create a new branch.

Create new branches to:

add a new feature
fix a lot of bugs
experiment with something

There is a bit more specifics of branches later.

Common Workflows

This section describes the general overview of how git would be used without getting into the specifics on commands, those will come later.

Starting a new project

Create a repo on GitHub
Clone it to your computer (follow instructions it shows you)
Add your files
Commit and push changes to remote repo

Working on existing project

Clone repo
Create a new branch for your feature
Make your changes, commit regularly
Push your branch to remote
Create pull request to merge into master

Best Practices

Commit often, this allows for rolling back changes This is still within reason, like don't commit grammar changes to comments separately
Write clear commit messages Explain what you did so the owner of the repo can tell what's going on
Use branches in a group setting Don't work directly on master, it's only for stable features

EMMS: Emacs Multimedia System

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 22:37:00 +0000

Description

From the official page:

Emms is the Emacs Multimedia System. Emms displays and plays multimedia from within GNU/Emacs using a variety of external players and from different sources.

…

Emms can run as a minimalist player and controlled with a handful of M-x Emacs commands, or a fully-fledged, interactive media browser. Emms can display album art, play streaming audio, tag music files, search for lyrics, provide MPD connectivity, control the volume, and more.

I cannot describe it better, this tool exemplifies the Emacs golden standard for extensibility and practicality.

Installation

EMMS is official GNU software, which means that it is available through the GNU ELPA repository.

EMMS uses an external player, so you will need one. Mpv is what I use, but you can use VLC, MPD, and others (as described in the manual).

Example Configuration

This is a simple use-package declaration that sets up some simple keybinds.

  (use-package emms
    :ensure t
    :bind
    (:map emms-playlist-mode-map
          ("M-<f8>" . emms-browser)
          ("A" . emms-add-directory)
          ("T" . emms-add-directory-tree)
          ("F" . emms-add-file)
          ("U" . emms-add-url)
          ("L" . emms-toggle-repeat-track)
          ("<mouse-3>" . emms-pause)
          ("<SPC>" . emms-pause))
    :bind ("<f8>" . emms))

How I Like To Use It

I have my music saved as mp3 files. Sometimes I download longer mixes from YouTube with yt-dlp as mp4 or webm (usually mp4). I don't need much in a multimedia player, and EMMS provides it.

Normally my process for playing music is like this:

Open emms with <f8>.
Click the A key to add a subdirectory in from my music library.
Then I pick the song I want to listen to and start working.

EMMS Browser in action, sorry for the FFMPEG artifacts.

References and Documentation

Programs I Use

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Gallery

You can view a gallery of my desktop screenshots here.

Philosophy For Programs

1. Functionality

I want my programs to be minimal, but not the point of being completely featureless. I'm can't use a TTY for browsing the modern web. I'm also don't need to use the behemoth that is the Gnome desktop environment. I use something in between these two.

2. Bloat

I use many of its features, and it is basically like a secondary operating system. It does make computing fun and efficient so I will continue using it despite its few flaws.

3. Aesthetically Pleasing

The main reason why I got into Linux was to make my desktop look nice (no really). I stayed because of the utilities that are commonly associated with it. The programs I use should not be ugly and clunky.

I don't go as extreme as the average hyprland zoomer and make my windows 30% opacity with rounded corners and animations, or the boomer with default themes for everything. I like to keep my programs functionally aesthetic.

Why Choose These Tools Over Windows/MacOS

I can't change many default behaviours of these proprietary operating systems. I want to enjoy using my computer. The tools that make my computing experience enjoyable work best on linux. If I didn't have a choice, like in a work environment, I would have to comply. However, my preference would still be for Linux.

Main Programs

Operating System

GNU/Linux is my favorite choice for desktop computing. In the past I have used: PopOs!, Manjaro, ArcoLinux, Debian, Ubuntu Server.

~~I settled with Debian and Gentoo as my main choices. Gentoo for my desktop and laptop, Debian 12 for my home server.~~

As of October 2025, I have been using NixOS for a couple months. I like parts of it, others not so much, but I think that it is saving a lot of time. NixOS is not a minimal distribution of Linux, but it provides useful features that make me more productive. I use Gentoo on my desktop for now, but I might switch it to NixOS before the new year.

Pros of NixOS:

Declarative setup, makes packages somewhat stable
Configure system in code, just like n(vim)/Emacs

Cons of Nixos:

kind of bloated
small security concerns, I feel like Gentoo is better with it
can't just run sudo make install whenever I want
systemd

Pros of Debian:

quick to setup and easy to maintain
wide range of avaiable software/drivers
stable

Cons of Debian:

systemd
not as minimal as Gentoo
outdated versions of some packages

Pros of Gentoo:

ability to meticulously control everything about your system → how unstable/stable it is, how minimal it is, and so on
compiling packages may increase performance
more init system choices (systemd, openrc, etc)
more benefits here

Cons of Gentoo:

not easy to setup/maintain for most people
a pretty significant time investment
takes a long time to install (might be my fault)
compiling packages can take a long time

(2025 addition)

I have started using Artix+openrc on my laptop

Web Browsing: Firefox and Librewolf

These are easy to use and don't eat up as much RAM as chromium. They are also both free and open source which makes it easier to install them on linux.

Extensions/Addons

I don't use many extensions. Bitwarden is a password manager that I highly recommend. I also really like Tridactyl, a vim browsing extension. It provides vim bindings for actions like clicking on links, switching tabs, scrolling, etc. It's great because I never have to touch my mouse

Aesthetics

Both browsers can use a userChrome.css for customizing the interface. I use the i3wm lookalike theme.

Why Do I Have Two Browsers?

I like to seperate school/home browsing. Also some websites, like twitch.tv, don't allow Librewolf users to log in because the browser is "unsupported" even though I can watch streams perfectly fine. In this case I just use Firefox as a backup.

Text Editor: GNU Emacs

This has been text editor of choice since I found DOOM emacs in 2022. I really like the extensible nature of Emacs lisp and the packages that are avaiable. If you want to here more about my Emacs workflow, click here.

Window Manager - DWM

I have jumped between different WMs. First preconfigured dwm on arcolinux, then i3, then xmonad, and then to Luke Smith's dwm with my own configurations. ~~I don't see myself moving away from dwm anytime soon.~~

I have made several configurations for window managers and I kind of hope between them when I feel like it. Until I write my own wm, there is no perfect one. They don't all have the same features, but one day there will be a wm that is perfect for me. I haven't started working on it, but it will likely be called something like клетка-wm.

open windows: Emacs and Librewolf editing this article

Media

MPV: I use this to play video files that I download from the internet/produce myself. It never lags and the UI is functionally minimal. I don't customize it or script it with the Lua programming language. I use mpv to play video files from the command line.

Emacs: Emacs has a package called EMMS (Emacs Multi Media System) that I have been using since my start with DOOM Emacs. It uses MPV to play music/videos with Emacs. It's very convenient as a music player because you can create playlists with Emacs text buffers. Here is a more extensive description of my multimedia workflow with Emacs.

Utilities

Terminal - ST Suckless Terminal

Suckless terminal (st): It is fast, never crashes, minimal, and full of features. Since it is a suckless tool, you start with the original codebase and can add patches to it.

I never really felt the need to deeply customize it from the ground up as people have already done the hard work for me. I just cloned Luke Smith's fork and changed the fonts and colors. It is patched to have support for Xresources themeing, changing font scale, scrolling, and much more.

I also have URxvt installed and customized as a backup incase something breaks one day because it offers almost the same experience. They look identical with certain customizations. The reaason I don't use it is because I don't know perl make it more extensible with scripts.

dired with hidden mode on to reduce clutter

File Manager - Emacs Dired

It's pretty basic and easy to use. It is just a text buffer in Emacs that you can manipulate with its built-in functions. You can even generate thumbnails with it if you are in a directory with pictures with image-dired. Because its part of Emacs, it benefits from the extensibility of it.

tmux windows: terminal, btop, and plain terminal

dmenu

dmenu stands for dynamic menu. A user can input options with stdin and select one with dmenu and get an output to stdout.

This is useful for scripts like my dired_selector scripts that gives me a selection of predefined directories and when I choose one, it opens a dired buffer in Emacs with that directory.

dmenu can also be used as a launcher for programs in a minimalist window manager. The options are nearly limitless.

Because this is suckless software, features can be added in. The only patches I have added are the Xresources, center, and lineheight patches that make it look nice.

Notification Daemon - dunst

dunst is a minimal notification daemon. I don't really get a lot of notifications, but it's there for when I do. You can add sounds to it, rice it, script it and much more. Check out the dunst project website to learn about more of its features.

Image Viewer - nsxiv

nsxiv is a pretty basic image viewer. It has a nice gallery mode and I made it able to select/set my wallpaper with a feh script. It has stdin/stdout capabilities, just like most other suckless software.

bardman's website

Alternative BOOX Stylus

Tracking Time With Denote Journal and Org Clock

Introduction

Purpose of the workflow

Workflow

Step one - Denote journal

Step two - decide on task and clock in

Modeline info

Video

Introducing My Literate Emacs Configuration

Announcement

Emacs PDF Processing Workflow

Purpose of Workflow

Workflow

Step 1: org-attach

Step 2: org-noter

Step 3: Refractoring

Addendum — 2026-01-09

Video Demo

Stationary and Writing Instruments

Writing Instruments

Pencils

Pens

Pictures

Notebooks

Traveler's Notebook

Pictures

Note Silos and Sequential Notes

Introduction and Background

How I Decided To Use Denote Silo Functionality

Not the most traditional method

How I Decided To Use Denote Sequence Functionality

How howm Inspired Me To Take Another Look

The Old System

The "New?" System

The Unconventionally Rigid Way Of Using Sequences

What I Ended Up With

Conclusion

Desktop Customization Gallery

FAQ

Where are the dots????

Why are windows floating in twm?

2025

Gruvbox dwm

Open windows (left to right)

Pictures

NixOS + i3

XMonad and Ef Elea Dark Theme

WindowMaker Scylla Theme and Gruber Darker

FVWM3 With Gruber Darker on Artix-openrc

Xmonad with gruber darker

i3wm

Summer 2024-2025

FVWM

Watch YouTube with Emacs Elfeed and GNU EMMS

Description

Installation/Setup

How I Like To Use It

Elfeed-org

YouTube Feed

Watching YouTube with Elfeed + EMMS

Demonstration

References and Documentation

Top 5 Tempel.el Snippets For Emacs

Introduction

Setup

Defining a snippet

Top 5 Snippets

#1 - up

#2 - today

#3 - begin

#4 - mode

#5 - Programming-related snippets

Conclusion

Yasnippet

Boox Notes, Linux and Emacs

Introduction

Benefits of Android OS

Default notes app export

Step 1: `org-attach`

Step 2: `org-noter`

#1 - `up`

#2 - `today`

#3 - `begin`

#4 - `mode`