Creating a Cygwin emacs macro

Question

I have been researching how to get Cygwin to work under emacs. I have it working, but now I want to write a macro that will do the following:

• Launch by typing M-x cygwin
• Have the script stored in some obvious place (probably my .emacs file)
• M-x shell
• Rename the buffer to cygwin (or cygwin1, cygwin2, cygwin3, ... if cygwin exists) probably using M-x rename-buffer
• M-x ansi-color-for-comint-mode-on
• M-x set-buffer-process-coding-system 'undecided-unix 'undecided-unix
• Open and run cygwin

It will basically do all of the above steps. I think most of the organization for this little project is done. How do I tie it all together so I can just type M-x cygwin and see a happy new cygwin buffer? What exactly needs to be added to .emacs? Also, where exactly is .emacs in Windows?

I still want the ability to run M-x shell for the windows shell for now. I may also make similar macros for MSYS and ssh'ing to my Linux boxes. How do I get started?

Answer 1

Many questions, here are some answers:

Your .emacs can exist many places, it depends, read here. In short try C-x C-f .emacs, or check the value of the variable 'user-init-file (C-h v user-init-file).

I think the command you want is something along the lines of this:

(require 'comint) ; this does require comint
(defun cygwin ()
  "do what i want for cygwin"
  (interactive)
  (let ((buffer (get-buffer-create (generate-new-buffer-name "cygwin"))))
    (pop-to-buffer buffer)
    (unless (comint-check-proc buffer)
      (apply 'make-comint-in-buffer (buffer-name buffer) buffer "c:/cygwin/Cygwin.bat"
             nil
             nil)
      (ansi-color-for-comint-mode-on)
      (set-buffer-process-coding-system 'undecided-unix 'undecided-unix))))

Note: I directly ran the process Cygwin.bat instead of running shell and then starting that batch program. I believe the effect is the same, and more straight forward. I did choose the easy way out for naming the buffer (using 'generate-new-buffer-name) - you'll want to customize to what you want.

You can dump the above command in your .emacs easiest by doing the C-x C-f .emacs and pasting it in the buffer that gets opened up. Save it and restart (or do M-x eval-defun when your cursor is in the body of that command. Then M-x cygwin will run the command.