MacOS – On OS X, how to start Cocoa emacs and bring it to front

cocoaemacsmacosshell-scriptzsh

I wrote a little zsh function to allow me to run emacs from the command-line:

function emacs() {
    /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs $@ &
}

This works perfectly, but it seems to start emacs as the last window in my Cmd-tab list. Is there any way to make it take focus when it's started?

Best Answer

The emacs way to open files into emacs is to use emacsclient from the command line. This requires that emacs is running the emacs server (using M-x server-start or put (server-start) into your .emacs file).

I've got this in my .bashrc (adapt for zsh as appropriate):

alias em='emacsclient -n'

I'm running GNU Emacs 23.1.50.5 (built from CVS last week sometime) and this version brings my emacs window to front.

If you're opening and exiting emacs for each file you edit, you're not taking full advantage of emacs' possibilities. I typically start emacs shortly after a reboot and it stays open until the next Mac software update requires a reboot.

Related Solutions

Mac – How to set the initial window position in Cocoa emacs

Futzing with the initial-frame-alist settings, ala:

http://paste.lisp.org/display/6194

might work. Specifically, try playing with the top and the left properties.

Mac – Emacs as daemon on OS X with window-system

Running a process or application as a launchd daemon gives it a very different environment from running it normally or on the command line. I wonder if it might not work better to instead use a shell script as a login item.

For example:

#!/bin/bash
while true
do
  open -W /Applications/Emacs.app
done

This script would need to be saved to a file with a .command extension and 755 permissions (chmod 0755 myemacsscript.command) and then added to the System Preferences : Login : Login Items pane.

When you login, Terminal will launch and run this script. You will probably want to setup a default terminal profile that excludes terminal from prompting on quit for this particular script, so that it doesn't hold you up when you log out.

I have no idea if this will fix the particular problems with Emacs.app, but it may at least provide an environment closer to what Emacs.app expects.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Mac – How to set the initial window position in Cocoa emacs

Mac – Emacs as daemon on OS X with window-system

Related Question