Tips To Learn Emacs Fast as in Very Fast

Use it a lot. Since it is a customizable editor you can't really learn it all. Figure out what you want to use it for and learn the key bindings for that. Then continue to read about additional packages and integrate those into your workflow. emacs is a journey.

well you are right i think my mindset is of a destination whereas computers and software (emacs in this case) are like journey. thanks brah i will stick to the journey

As was stated, just use it. Constantly. I can’t remember my learning curve as I learned EMacs *43 years ago* and still use it almost daily! I imagine having a sheet with the top 50 commands nearby is a good idea.

I started by checking out 'Learning GNU Emacs' from the local library. Don't know how the book compares to other books or free resources but I personally found it very helpful.

You forgot to include your tips. What are they? I too want to learn Emacs very fast (if not faster).

My process for learning Emacs was to start with an empty config, do the tutorial, then start writing. I knew what was possible in previous text editors, so when I hit that point, I went looking for packages. Critical in all of this was getting something like Marginalia and Consult so I could get a better sense of what was available. Also Helpful was amazing. I created menus, using Hydra then Transient to remember functions. I have changed and dropped some of those menus as I no longer need to remember them. Ultimately, I looked at my config as malleable. What is there today is what I thought I needed yesterday, what I use today, and notes to help me consider how I'll use it tomorrow.

20 years after, this sheet is still printed and somewhere on my desk. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/refcards/pdf/refcard.pdf Just start from an empty config and go through the commands on this pdf, you may find some useful and some not. Once you're confident with the basic commands, you can start exploring to install packages and tweak your config file.

There are no shortcuts, there is no way to get around doing the work, putting in the time and slowly integrating it into your brain and fingers. How many times have you seen ads saying you can learn to speak a new language in two weeks. If someone said "tips to learn to play the violin fast, as in very fast," you would likely laugh. And if you didn't, I can sell you a very nice bridge in Brooklyn. Take the built-in tutorial that is linked on the splash page when you first start Emacs. That is what you can learn fast, very fast. It will allow you to use the Emacs as a basic editor. After that it's up to you because it's up to you what you learn to match your specific needs. No one can tell you what you need except you. There is no one-size-fits all in Emacs -- it can be as small or as large as you need it to be. And what you will need it to be will be different at different times in your life. Then simply keep using it, day in, day out, year in year out, and in my case, decade in, decade out. Emacs is not a destination, it is a journey. Invest in yourself and learn to enjoy that journey. If you do you will be rewarded far more than the sum of the different things you have learned.

Read this book (6hrs?): https://www.masteringemacs.org/ Knowing what you can do / exists is just as important as learning.

Agree!

You can use something like spaceman's or doom at first and once you are comfortable with a little bit of configuration and feel ready make your own? I've never really experienced this as I stayed with spacemacs but I do think about making my own config every now and then

I tried spacemacs and found it really slow, briefly tried doom, before using Prelude. I think using those first is backwards if you really want to learn emacs, although Prelude is definitely just someone’s nice and useful config, so it could provide a good model for understanding elisp and what packages are out and about. I think there are three things about learning emacs. One, is general movement and editing, understanding the concepts of buffer/ window/ frame etc, sort of low level emacs. Two, is the package ecosystem, what’s available out there for you to pick up and use. Three, is ELisp itself, how you can write functions and your own config, maybe a package doesn’t exist and you can write it. All of these things take time and through daily use get picked up concurrently. I have seen people actively avoid learning elisp and you essentially limit yourself to what other people write. If you copy and paste configs, I don’t think you will get any closer to making it your editor. And that was an important aspect for me. Your config is usually a work in progress. In the couple of years I’ve been using emacs, I’ve rewritten it from scratch maybe four times? Now it’s much more stable, because I know what packages I like for general use and for specific language ecosystems, my config organization is basically just adding new elisp files for new things, so that I don’t have a big monstrous single file config, I’ve learned how use-package really works so I’m not mixing and matching that with require, from hodge podge copy pasting.

Forgot to mention, learn how to debug your config. And `C-h` is your friend

> tips to learn to play the violin fast, as in very fast Ask Emacs to do it for you - 1. Play the violin slowly, carefully, recording that as an Emacs keyboard macro. 2. Replay the macro.

I get your point, but is that really learning?

If you want to learn Elisp, or want to understand others code, definitely check out Edebug!

When you find a command or function, mode, feature etc. you like take note in org mode and try to use every time you need it instead of working around it. Try to write your own functions. Cheers

This is what I’ve done. Rn my config is a bit of a hybrid between regular emacs and spacemacs-like keybindings. I thoroughly enjoy it

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Read the manual? IMHO the best way to make some progress fast, and understand what is going on.

Shortcutfoo

Here are a few tips that I think will work for someone trying to learn emacs quickly: 1. Use C-h and apropos often to learn more about emacs, also search the internet for whatever features you may want to try whether it's for programming, text editing, email, etc. Packages like helpful and elisp-demos will probably help. 2. Write your emacs configuration from scratch rather than using something like doom or spacemacs so you have a better understanding how everything works, but still look at them and their source code in order to see what's possible. I recommend looking at witchmacs and rational-emacs to start off writing your init.el since they're relatively simpler configurations. 3. read/watch and follow some emacs blogs and youtube channels like System Crafters (also has a great discord server with emacs users), Prot, Sacha Chua, etc. You can use elfeed actually to keep track of them. Don't forget to read the emacs manual and documentation for packages you want to learn aswell. 4. Write a few scripts in elisp to get used to the language. Learn various elisp concepts and write programs that use them. Some examples could be to write hooks, learn how to make minor and major modes, make an http request, write macros, make charts, learn how to implement your own version of doctor, tetris, dunnet, or whatever else sounds interesting to you. These could be interesting to look through to see what's out there: https://github.com/p3r7/awesome-elisp#org-mode-outlines https://github.com/alphapapa/emacs-package-dev-handbook 5. Practice the keybindings you use (default, evil, god, etc.) and add your own or change them whenever you feel the need to (use can use general, hydra, etc.). Emacs should be adapted to whatever you feel the ideal editor for you should be. If you find yourself naturally using another editor or whatever comparable program ask yourself why and see if you can make emacs a more convenient option for that reason. Emacsclient for example will help with startup time (after initially running it) and other things. 6. If you want to try using emacs for different things, look into some emacs packages that focuses on certain areas like org, tramp, magit, dired, exwm, vterm, mu4e, etc. 7. Finally just get started with emacs. Try to use it and improve your experience by a little bit each day. You'll learn a lot faster by doing than just reading. It might sound like I listed a lot of information but don't let that stress you out, just open emacs and start working on a project, taking notes, or whatever else you may want to do.

32 years in my case, and I'm still using it ...for everything.

Make Emacs your world. Period. Dont use another program for anything. Browse with it. Use it as your terminal. Use it as your only program. Learn the help commands so you can figure out how to do things, and only use Emacs for literally everything. You will know very well within a month. It will suck for some things go, as a browser, for example, bit it functions well enough. And the point is you will learn.

Do a tutorial, learn how to use built-in help and info manual, and use Emacs as much as you can, for literally everything. Do a web search when you hit a problem. Install [which-key](https://github.com/justbur/emacs-which-key), it will help you a lot.

I watched the System Crafters series on Youtube. Started with Davids? config from series but deviated when I wanted different shortcuts. I also explored alot of packages, trying to understand how they worked, some I really liked other not so much. Put you config on github/gitlab/bitbucket, use magit to manage changes. Works like a charm, and it makes you work with emacs. Also if you miss a parenteses by misstake - you can always go back pretty easy. Others can also look at you config to make good suggestions. Mine is here if you want to have some inspiration: https://github.com/konrad1977/emacs I also switched from doing 90% of my daily work in Emacs instead of Xcode. I also do all my notes/planning in org-mode. I even started using the browser (xwidget). I am still a newbe but I learn new things every day. Ask questions, like here on reddit. Emacs community seems to be very friendly and tend to help each other. Not many RDFM. Also Emacs is very much self documented, setup shortcuts for checking functions/variables (describe-function/describe-variable) so you can easily customize it as you want it.