emacs server

I start Emacs in "server-mode" alongside my graphical environment. Whenever I want to use it, everything is already loaded and ready to go. Thanks to that, from my perspective it opens pretty much instantly.

It can be easily set by editing `~/.xinitrc' file. This file is being used by `xinit(1)' to start the X Window System server and a first client program.

# .xinitrc
# ...
emacs --daemon
# ...

According to `emacs(1)' the `emacs --daemon' command starts Emacs as daemon (o rly?), enables Emacs server and disconnects from the terminal.

With server running in the background, I can connect to it with the `emacsclient(1)' command.

% emacsclient -c -a ""

To create a new frame, the flag `-c' is used. This is particularly useful when Emacs is already open but I don't want to reuse the existing frame. The second flag, `-a', initiates an alternate editor if the Emacs server is not running. If it is left empty, as in this case, it runs `emacs --daemon' and attempts to connect to it.

To make my life easier, I've placed that line in a file named `ec', made it executable, and saved it in a directory within my `PATH' (`/usr/local/bin/', to be specific). Now, I can launch Emacs client just like any other program.