Emacsclient Setup with Desktop Integration

When using a typical text editor (e.g. gedit or vim) it is expected to be able to quickly open and close files from your file manager or terminal. Emacs, while a great editor, is not well suited for this workflow as typical users have long configuration files that must be loaded slowing the start-up time. This is not a problem if you start Emacs once and do everything inside of it, but if you are frequently opening and closing windows you would be better off just starting Emacs once and connect to it using the fast and lightweight emacsclient.

Running Emacs as a daemon

emacs --daemon

This can be added to startup files that are sourced at login like your bash profile (~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile) to automatically start the daemon at login.

Using a systemd service

Alternatively, as of GNU Emacs 26.1 a systemd unit file is included, using systemd allows for convenient management commands through the familiar systemctl utility as used with other services.

Systemctl commands	Description
start	Start (activate) one or more units
stop	Stop (deactivate) one or more units
restart	Start or restart one or more units
enable	Enable one or more unit files
disable	Disable one or more unit files

Emacs's unit file is a user service, meaning it doesn't require root access and is started at login rather than boot. In order to control user services we must preface our commands with --user flag.

systemctl --user start emacs.service   # Start emacs for the current session
systemctl --user enable emacs.service  # Enable emacs to be started at login

Open files from your graphical file browser

Now like any other graphical editor you will need a desktop icon in order to open files from your graphical file browser. To do so create a desktop file for emacsclient and place it in ~/.local/share/applications/emacsclient.desktop¹

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Emacs Client
GenericName=Text Editor
Comment=Edit text
MimeType=text/english;text/plain;text/x-makefile;text/x-c++hdr;text/x-c++src;text/x-chdr;text/x-csrc;text/x-java;text/x-moc;text/x-pascal;text/x-tcl;text/x-tex;application/x-shellscript;text/x-c;text/x-c++;
Exec=emacsclient -c %f
Icon=emacs
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Categories=Utility;TextEditor;

Note that some distributions ship with an Emacs client desktop icon by default, like Debian, so this step may be unnecessary unless you want to make use of the script below.

Open all files in one frame

This desktop file will result in each file being opened as a new Emacs frame (a new window). This will clutter up your desktop if you open many files. A better approach would be to open a new frame only if none exist otherwise open the file as a new buffer in the existing frame. This is accomplished with the following script ²

#!/bin/bash

# if no args open new frame
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
    emacsclient -c -n
    exit
fi

emacsclient -e "(frames-on-display-list \"$DISPLAY\")" &>/dev/null

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    emacsclient -n "$*"
else
    emacsclient -c -n "$*"
fi

Make the script executable:

chmod +x emacsclient-one-frame.sh

And place it somewhere accessible from your $PATH. I use ~/bin but if you would like it hidden ~/.local/bin is another option. Add both to your $PATH by adding the following to your ~/bashrc:

PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/bin:$PATH"
export PATH

Change the Exec line in the desktop file to the script.

Exec=emacsclient-one-frame.sh %f

Set as default in Nautilus

In nautilus file browser find a text file type you wish to be associated with Emacs client. Right click it, select properties, move to the "Open With" tab choose Emacs Client and press "Set as default".

Add a command alias

If you frequently start Emacs from the commandline you'll want to start using emacsclient to speed up your startup time. In your ~/.bashrc consider adding one of the following aliases

alias emacs='emacsclient-one-frame.sh'
alias ec='emacsclient -t'                # Opens emacs inside terminal

Set emacsclient as your default terminal editor

In your ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile add the following lines

VISUAL='emacsclient -t'
export VISUAL

VISUAL means full-screen or visual editor, this variable should be used over EDITOR. EDITOR is a fallback used when full-screen editing features are not available. ³

Footnotes:

GNOME Desktop file guide

Shell script adapted from StackOverflow user mzuther

VISUAL versus EDITOR