I have deleted The GitHub repositories referred to in this post; see Clearing the deck for details.

Emacs isn't just a text editor, it's a cross-platform scriptable productivity tool. You can use it to debug your Ruby applications, run terminals, browse the web, check your email, and more.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting a series of HOWTOs covering many of the cool Emacs tricks I've figured out.

If you're not already familiar with the basics of Emacs, I suggest installing as per my instructions below, then working through this excellent Emacs Beginner's HOWTO by Jeremy D. Zawodny. If you're in a hurry, the Keyboard Basics section covers opening and saving files, and navigating through buffers.

So far ...

• Index - the post that you're reading right now!
• Linux Installation - installing Emacs 22 on Ubuntu & derivatives.
• Windows Installation - installing Emacs 22 on Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.
• Encrypted Files - how to use Emacs to automagically encrypt and decrypt files.
• My first real-world LISP code - how to write an Emacs macro to close all open unmodified file buffers.

In the pipeline ...

• how to make your Emacs configuration portable, so you can take it with you wherever you go
• some of my favourite Emacs plugins (oriented towards Rails development and productivity)
• how to enhance it by writing your own Elisp code

(Thanks to Dr. Nic for his inspirational presentation on tools & efficiency at Trampoline; the motivation to actually get into gear and write up this series is in no small measure due to his infections enthusiasm while evangelising TextMate).