MacOS App should detect running emacs brew service and connect as a GUI emacsclient.

[cwlbraa]

I love that this formula includes a brew service, and for the longest time I was running that service alongside the Emacs.App. I only recently realized that these 2 paths to invoking Emacs are unaware of each other, and the App will not attempt to connect to the daemon started by the brew service.

If this worked, it'd be amazing for startup times and keeping a single persistent Emacs daemon.

[d12frosted]

Hey @cwlbraa

I think this kind of relates to #158. That issue stagnated though.

What do you think about the following solution?

In addition to Emacs.app, emacs-plus provides extra application Emacs Client.app that is a wrapper around emacsclient. This way we don't need to come up with fancy heuristics, but instead rely on emacsclient itself that knows how to work.

The only possible issue I see - there will be no way to configure socket and server, you'll have to use defaults.

[cwlbraa]

I'd use the simple solution if it existed, so yeah I think it's good. I'd probably hide the full Emacs.app from Alfred and end up with basically the same behavior as the fancy thing I previously described. I'd also be perfectly happy with defaults.

[shaunsingh]

Currently I use an "application" created via automator that runs emacsclient -c, its been working great for me so far

The solution you propose seems about the same, having it included with emacs-plus would be very nice

[C1oud555]

It would be great to have the Emacs Client.app.

[diocletiann]

I'm having trouble finding Emacs Client.app, do you have to install with a specific flag? Thanks.

[d12frosted]

@restfuladi you can't find it because it doesn't exist :) But there is emacsclient binary installed that you can use for your needs.

[diocletiann]

@restfuladi you can't find it because it doesn't exist :) But there is emacsclient binary installed that you can use for your needs.

Makes sense, thanks. Any ideas on how to integrate that with Spotlight/Alfred?

[gf3]

@restfuladi Spotlight/Alfred have issues with symlinks, however Raycast works really well!

[mjgiffin]

@restfuladi you can't find it because it doesn't exist :) But there is emacsclient binary installed that you can use for your needs.

Makes sense, thanks. Any ideas on how to integrate that with Spotlight/Alfred?

If you create an Automator application for emacs client and put it in /Applications, that should work with Spotlight. I recommend full path:
/opt/homebrew/bin/emacsclient -c -a emacs "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1

[rross101]

Piggy-backing on this issue, happy to make another one - when I launch emacsclient from terminal or Alfred, it doesn't switch to the app - the window opens behind other windows, and then I have to manually switch to it. Has anyone a fix for that?

[ChauhanT]

Hi, I think Emacsclient.app is a fantastic idea. Is this something that will become available in the homebrew installation? I am new to macos (coming from linux), and I have very little experience doing mac-y things. I also observed what @rross101 said. It's a minor inconvenience, but of course, if it can be addressed it's even better.

Software architecture of the mac is so, so inefficient. It's like homebrew is creating an OS within an OS, and obviously there are no standards like XDG or how permissions are managed etc. I can't even get my brew-installed hunspell to integrate with emacs-plus. Sorry for the rant, but macos is just such a user unfriendly environment to work in if you are trying to something even remotely technical.

[d12frosted]

Hi, I think Emacsclient.app is a fantastic idea. Is this something that will become available in the homebrew installation?

The idea is to provide this as part of Emacs+ installation. But it's not high on my priority list. So if someone really wants it, contributions are welcome.

Software architecture of the mac is so, so inefficient. It's like homebrew is creating an OS within an OS, and obviously there are no standards like XDG or how permissions are managed etc.

Indeed, macOS is slightly (quite?) different in many regards and might be confusing if you come from newer Linux-es. macOS is based on older FreeBSD.

I can't even get my brew-installed hunspell to integrate with emacs-plus. Sorry for the rant, but macos is just such a user unfriendly environment to work in if you are trying to something even remotely technical.

Look, if you need some help, don't hesitate to open a discussion. The problem you describe is not really related to Emacs+, but it's somewhere on the border, so maybe it's fine :)

[citizen428]

@ChauhanT This is what I did:

1. Start the emacs-plus service and register it to launch on login/boot:

   brew services start emacs-plus@29

2. Create an "application" with Automator:
   
3. If you want, change the app icon (Right click -> "Get info" or Cmd-i). I used the same I compile emacs-plus with, nobu417-big-sur-icon:
   

@rross101 You could use Apple Script for that: osascript -e 'tell application "Emacs" to activate' You can wrap that up in aliases or shell functions, e.g.

function ec() {
  emacsclient $@ && osascript -e 'tell application "Emacs" to activate'
}

[johnhamelink]

I found I had to tweak @citizen428's answer a little bit to get the applescript to work reliably:

[rross101]

I found I had to tweak @citizen428's answer a little bit to get the applescript to work reliably:

This works for me. Thank you!

[GauravTalreja]

I changed it to following to set Emacs Client as the default text editor:

[michaelssingh]

I just checked quickly and noticed that these Automator scripts do not launch emacs when the server is not running. Has anyone else encountered this?