Using Emacs - Setting up the Package Manager

This video will step you through setting up Emacs to use MELPA for packages.

We configured emacs by creating a folder named .emacs.d and creating a file within it named init.el.

Here's the contents of that file:

(setq inhibit-startup-message t)


(require 'package)
(setq package-enable-at-startup nil)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
	     '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))

(package-initialize)

;; Bootstrap `use-package'
(unless (package-installed-p 'use-package)
	(package-refresh-contents)
	(package-install 'use-package))

(use-package try
	:ensure t)

(use-package which-key
	:ensure t 
	:config
	(which-key-mode))

The last two inituse-package clauses install two helpful packages:

• try: let's you try packages without installing them.
• which-key: brings up help on key combinations.

Relavent links:

• Video series overview page:
  • http://cestlaz.github.io/stories/emacs
• Code for this video:
  • https://github.com/zamansky/using-emacs/tree/lesson-1-setup
• Complete code built up over all videos:
  • https://github.com/zamansky/using-emacs/tree/master
• Melpa and packages
  • http://melpa.org
  • which-key
  • try