How to set up emacs for clojure, evil, hinting, paren highlighting?

Question

I'm brand-new to both Emacs and Clojure and would like to set up hinting and syntax highlighting somehow similar to the video here. I have installed:

Emacs 24.x
Leiningen 2.x
Marmalade

...Then within Emacs and via Marmalade, installed the following packages:

Evil
clojure-mode
nrepl

My big-idea question is how do these major/minor modes interact and is there a "right" way to set these things up?
My smaller-idea question is how do I get the pretty syntax highlighting and code-hinting? Thanks!

Are you trying to learn Emacs? Just want to point out that if you are a Vim user (guessing from Evil), then vimclojure-static and fireplace make for a pretty good syntax highlighting and REPL interaction respectively. — A. Webb, Aug 08 '13 at 15:10
Yes, I'm trying to learn Emacs. I would consider myself a novice Vim user but I found it faster to install Evil than to even navigate around the Emacs tutorial using the default Emacs shortcuts. :) I am okay with the other aspects of the Emacs learning curve since it appears to integrate better with Clojure. — Alex Shroyer, Aug 08 '13 at 16:12
FYI: the setup shown in the videos is available here: https://github.com/overtone/emacs-live. You can just install it, `lein repl` and M-x nrepl and get going. — tungd, Aug 09 '13 at 02:47

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 09 '13 at 09:57

3

Check out Emacs Live, its a full emacs configuration created by Sam Aaron. He codes allot of Clojure so this "battery included" setup works great for Clojure coding.

https://github.com/overtone/emacs-live

Once you have cloned this and follow the instructions you are up and running with Clojure, nrepl, git and much more.

answered Aug 09 '13 at 09:57

pjc

157
3

1

but not evil. And I think thats the hard part. – joefromct Jun 07 '14 at 20:43

abo-abo · Answer 2 · 2013-08-08T15:41:46.523

I list my setup. Some of the stuff is redundant, since I haven't written in Clojure for a while, but I checked and it still works.

Use clojure to start nrepl. You might have some issue with project.clj being in the appropriate directory, but you should figure this out.
Open a source file e.g. foo.clj.
Use C-c C-l to call nrepl-load-file By the way, it's the canonical shortcut to load the file into inferior process. It will work for Common Lisp, Python etc.
Use C-c C-z to switch to repl. This again is the canonical shortcut that works for many languages.

Here's the setup code:

(require 'clojure-mode)
(defun set-syntax-parens ()
  "highlight []{} etc."
  (interactive)
  (modify-syntax-entry ?[ "(]")
  (modify-syntax-entry ?] ")[")
  (modify-syntax-entry ?{ "(}")
  (modify-syntax-entry ?} "){"))
(defvar clojure.jars '("clojure-1.3.0.jar" 
                       "swank-clojure-1.4.2.jar" 
                       "clojure-contrib-1.2.0.jar"))
(defvar clojure.jars.d (concat dropbox.d "source/clojure/lib/"))
(defvar clojure.classpath 
  (apply #'concat 
         (mapcar (lambda (jar) (concat clojure.jars.d jar path-separator)) 
                 clojure.jars)))
(setq clojure.classpath 
      (concat clojure.classpath 
              dropbox.d "source/clojure/include/" 
              path-separator))
;;;###autoload
(defun clojure ()
  (interactive)
  (nrepl-jack-in))
(defvar clojure-server-cmd 
  (concat "java -Xss4096k -cp " clojure.classpath " clojure.main &"))
(add-hook 'clojure-mode-hook
      (lambda()
        (set-syntax-parens)))
(require 'nrepl)
(add-hook 'nrepl-mode-hook
      (lambda()
        (define-key nrepl-mode-map (kbd "C-l") 'nrepl-clear-buffer)))

What doees adding the clojure classpath manually like this do? — Arthur Ulfeldt, Aug 08 '13 at 16:12
I had to do it to add the contrib-1.2 back in the day. You can still use this technique to load the stuff that's not managed by `lein` — abo-abo, Aug 08 '13 at 16:19
not really. It's in `source/site-lisp/modes/clojure.el`. It's autoloaded when `clojure` is called. But you can put this in `~/.emacs`. — abo-abo, Aug 08 '13 at 16:36

Arthur Ulfeldt · Answer 3 · 2013-08-08T16:22:01.630

here is the operative section from my favorite emacs config:

(when (not package-archive-contents)                                                                                                                                      
  (package-refresh-contents))                                                                                                                                             

;; Add in your own as you wish:                                                                                                                                           
(defvar my-packages '(starter-kit starter-kit-lisp starter-kit-bindings clojure-mode                                                                                      
                       nrepl auto-complete ac-nrepl org rainbow-delimiters)                                                                                                
  "A list of packages to ensure are installed at launch.")                                                                                                                

(dolist (p my-packages)                                                                                                                                                   
  (when (not (package-installed-p p))                                                                                                                                     
    (package-install p)))                                                                                                                                                 

(require 'ac-nrepl)                                                                                                                                                       
(add-hook 'nrepl-mode-hook 'ac-nrepl-setup)                                                                                                                               
(add-hook 'nrepl-interaction-mode-hook 'ac-nrepl-setup)                                                                                                                   
(eval-after-load "auto-complete"                                                                                                                                          
     '(add-to-list 'ac-modes 'nrepl-mode))                                                                                                                                
(defun set-auto-complete-as-completion-at-point-function ()                                                                                                               
  (setq completion-at-point-functions '(auto-complete)))                                                                                                                  

(add-hook 'auto-complete-mode-hook 'set-auto-complete-as-completion-at-point-function)                                                                                    

(add-hook 'nrepl-mode-hook 'set-auto-complete-as-completion-at-point-function)                                                                                            
(add-hook 'nrepl-interaction-mode-hook 'set-auto-complete-as-completion-at-point-function)                                                                                
(define-key nrepl-interaction-mode-map (kbd "C-c C-d") 'ac-nrepl-popup-doc)                                                                                               
(add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'auto-complete-mode)                                                                                                                            

(add-hook 'nrepl-interaction-mode-hook                                                                                                                                    
          'nrepl-turn-on-eldoc-mode)                                                                                                                                    

(add-hook 'nrepl-mode-hook 'paredit-mode)

This turns on paredit-mode everywhere, which takes a bit of getting used to though it's entirely worth it because paredit and makes using Clojure much more fun. At least once you get a handle on slurping and barfing

How to set up emacs for clojure, evil, hinting, paren highlighting?

3 Answers3