Emacs Head

Emacs Head is an Homebrew Formula based on the original Homebrew Emacs one.

This formula currently supports:

• GNU Emacs 26.3
• GNU Emacs 27.2 (or emacs-27 branch)
• GNU Emacs 28.2 (or emacs-28 branch)
• GNU Emacs 29.4 (or emacs-29 branch)
• GNU Emacs 30.0.93 (emacs-30 branch)
• GNU Emacs HEAD (currently 31.0.50)

Installation

You can install this formula using:

GNU Emacs 26

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install emacs-head@26 --with-cocoa

GNU Emacs 27

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install emacs-head@27 --with-cocoa

If you wish to install the latest commit of the emacs-27 branch then:

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install --HEAD emacs-head@27 --with-cocoa

GNU Emacs 28

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install emacs-head@28 --with-cocoa

If you wish to install the latest commit of the emacs-28 branch then:

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install --HEAD emacs-head@28 --with-cocoa

GNU Emacs 29 (default)

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install emacs-head --with-cocoa

If you wish to install the latest commit of the emacs-29 branch then:

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install --HEAD emacs-head --with-cocoa

GNU Emacs 30

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install emacs-head@30 --with-cocoa

GNU Emacs 31

brew tap daviderestivo/emacs-head
brew install emacs-head@31 --with-cocoa

Screenshots

GNU Emacs running in terminal mode (28.x)

GNU Emacs running in GUI mode (28.x)

GUI Theme: atom-one-dark-theme

Modeline Theme: smart-mode-line-atom-one-dark-theme

Compilation options

The following compilation options are available:

Option	Description
--with-crash-debug	Append `-g3` to CFLAGS to enable crash debugging
--with-cocoa	Build a cocoa version of GNU Emacs
--with-ctags	Don’t remove the ctags executable that GNU Emacs provides
--with-dbus	Build with dbus support
--without-gnutls	Disable gnutls support
--with-imagemagick	Build with imagemagick support
--without-librsvg	Disable librsvg support
--with-mailutils	Build with mailutils support
--with-multicolor-fonts	Enable multicolor fonts support on macOS (only on emacs-head@26)
--without-modules	Disable dynamic modules support
--with-no-frame-refocus	Disables frame re-focus (ie. closing one frame does not refocus another one). Not required in emacs-head@30 and emacs-head@31
--without-libxml2	Disable libxml2 support
--with-pdumper	Enable pdumper support (not available on emacs-head@26)
--with-xwidgets	Enable xwidgets support (not available on emacs-head@26)
--with-native-comp	Enable elisp native compilation support (not available on emacs-head@26 and emacs-head@27)
--with-native-full-aot	Enable elisp ahead-of-time native compilation support (not available on emacs-head@26 and emacs-head@27)
--with-tree-sitter	Enable Tree-sitter support (only on emacs-head@29 and emacs-head@30)
--with-poll	Use poll() instead of select() to support > 1024 file descriptors
--with-mps	Use the Memory Pool System garbage collection library (only on emacs-head@31)

For the terminal version only of GNU Emacs please omit --with-cocoa.

By default:

• gnutls
• librsvg
• libxml2
• dynamic modules

are enabled. If you want to disable them please use the above --without-* options.

System appearance change support

This patch is enabled by default and can’t be disabled. It adds a hook, ns-system-appearance-change-functions, that is called once the system appearance is changed. Functions added to this hook will be called with one argument, a symbol that is either light or dark. This mainly allows loading a different theme to better match the system appearance.

(defun my/apply-theme (appearance)
  "Load theme, taking current system APPEARANCE into consideration."
  (mapc #'disable-theme custom-enabled-themes)
  (pcase appearance
    ('light (load-theme 'tango t))
    ('dark (load-theme 'tango-dark t))))

(add-hook 'ns-system-appearance-change-functions #'my/apply-theme)

Note that this hook is also run once when Emacs is initialized, so simply adding the above to your init.el will allow matching the system appearance upon startup. You can also determine what the current system appearance is by inspecting the value of the ns-system-appearance variable.

The hook is NOT run in TTY Emacs sessions.

Pdumper support

Note: portable dumper is not supported on emacs-head@26, and won’t work with native-comp support.

To enable this feature please use --with-pdumper.

For a pdumper configuration example, you could take inspiration from Galactic Emacs: pdumper-init.el and pdumper-config.el configuration files.

Xwidgets support

Note: xwidgets feature is not supported on emacs-head@26.

This formula supports native macOS X Cocoa Xwidgets via embedding a native webkit window. To enable this feature please use --with-xwidgets.

Native-comp support

Note: native-comp feature is not supported on emacs-head@26 and emacs-head@27.

This formula supports native Elisp code compilation. In order to enable it please follow the below instructions:

brew install emacs-head@28 --with-cocoa --with-native-comp

NATIVE_FULL_AOT is disabled by default to improve build time. Only few lisp source files will be compiled during the build, all of the remaining ones will be dynamically compiled in the background once the Emacs application is launched for the first time. If you wish to enable native full AoT, please use --with-native-full-aot option together with --with-native-comp.

More details about native Elisp code compilation can be found in the below links:

• Bringing GNU Emacs to Native Code (Slides)
• Bringing GNU Emacs to Native Code (YouTube Video)
• gccemacs

Additional useful links:

• Use pre-built gccemacs
• build-emacs-for-macos
• gccemacs
• gccemacs on OS X

MPS garbage collector

Note: MPS is only supported on emacs-head@31

This formula supports the MPS garbage collector which theoretically can improve performance. It is a stable system that has been in use for years. However, in emacs this is an experimental feature.

More details about MPS can be found in the below links:

• Memory Pool System
• MPS on GitHub
• MPS docs

Available icons

Option	Description	Image	URL
--with-modern-icon-sjrmanning	Use a modern style icon by Sjrmannings		Link
--with-modern-icon-asingh4242	Use a modern style icon by Asingh4242		Link
--with-modern-icon-paper-icons	Use a modern style icon by Sam Hewitt		Link
--with-modern-icon-azhilin	Use a modern style icon by Andrew Zhilin		Link
--with-modern-icon-mzaplotnik	Use a modern style icon by Matjaz Zaplotnik		Link
--with-modern-icon-bananxan	Use a modern style icon by BananXan		Link
--with-modern-icon-vscode	Use a modern style icon by Valentin Degenne		Link
--with-modern-icon-sexy-v1	Use a modern style icon by Emacs is Sexy		Link
--with-modern-icon-sexy-v2	Use a modern style icon by Emacs is Sexy		Link
--with-modern-icon-cg433n	Use a modern style icon by Cg433n		Link
--with-modern-icon-purple	Use a modern style icon by Nicolas Petton		Link
--with-modern-icon-yellow	Use a modern style icon by Unknown		Link
--with-modern-icon-orange	Use a modern style icon by Omar Jair Purata Funes		Link
--with-modern-icon-papirus	Use a modern style icon by Papirus Development Team		Link
--with-modern-icon-pen	Use a modern style icon by Kentaro Ohkouchi		Link
--with-modern-icon-pen-3d	Use a modern style icon by Unknown		Link
--with-modern-icon-pen-lds56	Use a modern style icon by lds56		Link
--with-modern-icon-pen-black	Use a modern style icon by Cayetano Santos		Link
--with-modern-icon-black-variant	Use a modern style icon by BlackVariant (Patrick)		Link
--with-modern-icon-purple-flat	Use a modern style icon by Jeremiah Foster		Link
--with-modern-icon-spacemacs	Use a modern style icon by Nasser Alshammari		Link
--with-modern-icon-alecive-flatwoken	Use a modern style icon by Alessandro Roncone		Link
--with-modern-icon-elrumo1	Use a modern style icon by Elias Ruiz Monserrat		Link
--with-modern-icon-elrumo2	Use a modern style icon by Elias Ruiz Monserrat		Link
--with-modern-icon-savchenkovaleriy-vector-flat	Use a modern Vector flat style icon by Valeriy Savchenko		Link
--with-modern-icon-savchenkovaleriy-3d-flat	Use a modern 3D flat style icon by Valeriy Savchenko		Link
--with-modern-icon-savchenkovaleriy-3d-curvy	Use a modern 3D curvy style icon by Valeriy Savchenko		Link
--with-modern-icon-bokehlicia-captiva	Use a modern style icon by Bokehlicia		Link
--with-modern-icon-c9rgreen-sonoma	Use a modern style icon by Christopher Green		Link
--with-modern-icon-nuvola	Use a modern style icon by David Vignoni		Link
--with-modern-icon-black-gnu-head	Use a modern style icon by Aha-Soft		Link
--with-modern-icon-dragon	Use a modern style icon by Will B Chang		Link
--with-modern-icon-black-dragon	Use a modern style icon by XYang and kongds		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon1	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon2	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon3	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon4	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon5	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon6	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon7	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon8	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-icon9	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-card-blue-deep	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-card-british-racing-green	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-card-carmine	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-emacs-card-green	Use a modern style icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-modern-icon-doom	Use a modern style icon by Eccentric J		Link
--with-modern-icon-doom3	Use a modern style icon by Eccentric J		Link
--with-modern-icon-doom-cacodemon	Use a modern style icon by Christian Westrom		Link
--with-retro-icon-emacs-logo	Use a retro style icon by Luis Fernandes		Link
--with-retro-icon-gnu-head	Use a retro style icon by Aurélio A. Heckert		Link
--with-retro-icon-gnu-meditate-levitate	Use a retro style icon by Nevrax Design Team		Link
--with-retro-icon-sink-bw	Use a retro style icon by Unknown		Link
--with-retro-icon-sink	Use a retro style icon by Erik Mugele		Link
--with-GoldenYak	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-adacious	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-akadabra	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-alaka	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-amoto	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-amura	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-andwhite	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-astra	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-noir	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-onfire	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-onthewater	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-satori	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-shack	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-infinity-yak-topia	Use a Infinite Yak icon by Jasonm23		Link
--with-skamacs-icon	Use a modern style icon by Compufox		Link

Why yet another Homebrew GNU Emacs formula?

Since the option --with-cocoa is not available anymore in the latest GNU Emacs homebrew-core formula (see pull request), I decided to build my own formula.

About the logo

‘Kitchen Sink’ OS Announced

Coding has begun on a new operating system code named ‘Kitchen Sink’. The new OS will be based entirely on GNU Emacs. One programmer explained, “Since many hackers spend a vast amount of their time in Emacs, why not just make it the operating system?” When asked about the name, he responded, “Well, it has been often said that Emacs has everything except a kitchen sink. Now it will.” — James Baughn

(https://web.archive.org/web/20180814225320/http://humorix.org/10016)

Collaborating

If you are interested in collaborating please open a Pull Request.