Aquamacs

Aquamacs is the Emacs editor that Mac users love. Aquamacs lets you write text from LaTeX manuscripts to to-do lists, from C to Cobol, Java, Python, Shell-script, Lisp, everything! Aquamacs looks and behaves like other Mac programs - even though it's still the powerful GNU Emacs with all the extensibility that millions have come to appreciate.

Emacs is a text editor of legendary power and configurability, but it also has a complex user interface that is very, very different from the familiar Mac way of doing things. Aquamacs tames the Emacs tiger: you get standard Apple shortcuts (in addition to the Emacs ones), nice fonts, tabs or one file per window, international input methods, Apple Help manuals and more. Aquamacs comes with a range of modes for various markup and programming languages: HTML, C/C++, Java, Python, Perl, AppleScript, Tcl, XML, R (S)... These modes have extra functions for the languages, including excellent syntax highlighting. You can even use Aquamacs to read news and e-mail, just like any Emacs.

Note: While the software is classified as free, it is actually donationware. Please consider making a donation to help support development.

• Command-Shift-Left/Right now select the text from point to the left or right side of the line, as they did in Aquamacs 2. Reported by Daniel Stegmuller.
• The order of menu items in the Options/Line Wrapping submenu has been restored. Reported by Gracjan Polak.
• Isearch using the Mac key bindings (A-f, A-g) has seen some improvements. A-g will now highlight all other search results (just like regular isearch), and it will continue a regexp isearch (started with C-u A-f). Because you remain in `isearch-mode' after a A-g, additional simple keys will just extend the search string. (You may, as before, do other things like insert text clippings with A-v.)
• During Isearch started with A-f or A-g, you may now use the Enter (RET) key to advance to the next location, and S-RET to go back to the previous one (same bindings as A-g and A-S-g). This is in accordance with search functions in other Mac applications. Traditional Emacs behavior of isearch when started with C-s is not affected. Suggested by Jeremy Cole.
• Cursor motion with arrow keys will follow the visual order of characters on the screen: always moves to the left, always moves to the right, disregarding the surrounding bidirectional context. You may change this setting with the customization variable `visual-order-cursor-movement'.
• Aquamacs is now based on Emacs 24.4. Please see etc/NEWS for detailed information. Some more important, user-visible changes are:
  • Frames and windows now resize smoothly, pixel by pixel.
  • In keymaps where SPC scrolls forward, S-SPC now scrolls backward. This affects View mode, etc.
  • The cursor stops blinking after 10 blinks (by default) on X and Nextstep. You can change the default by customizing `blink-cursor-blinks'.
  • `electric-indent-mode' is now enabled by default. Typing RET reindents the current line and indents the new line. `C-j' inserts a newline but does not indent. In some programming modes, additional characters are electric (eg `').
  • The behavior of `C-x TAB' (`indent-rigidly') has changed. When invoked without a prefix argument, it now activates a transient mode in which typing , , , and adjusts the text indentation in the region. Typing any other key resumes normal editing behavior.
  • New command `C-x SPC' (`rectangle-mark-mode') makes a rectangular region. Most commands are still unaware of it, but kill/yank do work on the rectangle.
• Package-specific information is now stored in /Library/Preferences/Aquamacs Emacs/Packages. Files are automatically moved to the new location so that correctly implemented packages should not be affected. (Switching to a previous Aquamacs version, however, will cause some settings to be lost.)
• Tramp reliability improved. Reported by Steve Bellan.
• `ams-tex-mode' is functional again. Reported by Albert Fisher.
• Switching buffers when tabbar-mode (``Show Tabs'') is off and one-buffer-one-frame-mode (``Show Buffers in New Frames'') no longer produces an error message in certain situations. Reported by Bob Berwick.
• Dragging and dropping colors from the color selection panel now works more reliably. Reported by Konrad Podczeck.
• ESS mode was updated to version 14.09. See here for new features: http://ess.r-project.org/Manual/ess.html#New-features
• Markdown-mode 2.0 is now provided with a default configuration of its faces, which no longer hides markup.
• Version 3.1a only: an incompatibility with older OS X versions (pre-10.9) and the use of secondary displays was resolved. Reported by Erik Marklund.
• Version 3.1a only: a warning indicating a failure to create a file in the Library folder (in new installations) has been resolved. Reported by `xenzo' and Torsten Mahne.