MicroEmacs text editor is an Emacs like text editor suitable for experienced programmers and as well beginners.

In contrast to other editors it offers a set of unique features:

• small size 1-2MB on your disk
• single file binaries available - easy to install
• low memory footprint - 1-2 MB (yes MB)
• terminal and GUI version working the same way with full menu support
• hypertext help system within your editor for MicroEmacs help but as well man pages or R help pages
• alternative key bindings available (Emacs, CUA, nedit)

As other editors it has obviously:

• session management (pro: parallel sessions for every project - due to low memory footprint are no problem)
• extensible by a macro language (as well a macro recorder)
• syntax highlighting for many languages - even nested highlighting (R, Python etc in Markdown documents )
• spell checking for many languages
• and much more ...

Cons (because it is a Micro-Emacs):

• no Unicode support - but all the ISO and extended Windows encodings are usable, even on UTF-8 terminals
• no soft (visual) wrap - what you see is what you get (you can let ME autowrap for you the text during writing)

Left: GUI version - theme "Basic Black on Cream", Right: Greek Text in the Terminal version within a Tmux session with an open menu entry - theme: "Default White on Black". The menu entry can be opened on a terminal version usually with "Esc =". There are more than 25 themes (schemes) to choose from ... The main appplication frame is split here into two windows, one is for editing a file, the other here has the hyperhelp documentation open. You can as well edit the same file within several separate windows, for instance writing something on top, and then in the other windows more down in the same file ... but obviously editing one file in a single window is as well possible.

Left: GUI version - theme "Solarized Light", displaying on top a help page defined using Markdown (bottom window) for the pydoc macro,
Right: GUI version - theme "Ayu Dark", displaying the hypertext enabled R documentation browser defined with the r-doc command.

You can compile the code yourself, or you pick one or two of the pre-compiled single file executables from the Release page or you install the usual mec/mew executables using curl or the homebrew package manager. For Windows you have as well a installer which is available here:

Installation using curl for Linux and MacOS by copying and pasting the following command into your terminal:

/bin/sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://github.com/bjasspa/jasspa/releases/latest/download/microemacs-install)"

Thereafter you have to add the folder ~/.local/bin to your PATH variable. This is explained in the install output on your terminal. Thereafter you can check that the binaries are installed by typing in the terminal.

mec -V 

Installation using Homebrew package manager on Linux or MacOS:

brew tap bjasspa/jasspa
brew install microemacs

These two install methods will provide you with the terminal version of MicroEmacs (mec) and the GUI version (mew) which requires X11 on Linux MacOS (using for instance XQuartz.

The MicroEmacs single file executables with macro files embedded come in two flavors:

• mecs - terminal version ('c' stands for console, 's' for single file)
• mews - GUI version (require X11 on Linux and MacOS, 'w' stands for Window)

Download one of the following zip archives with the binaries inside and place the executables into a folder belonging to your PATH

To test the integrity of the downloads you can use the sha256 hash keys

Then test the executable in your terminal:

mecs -V

This should printout the version and exit MicroEmacs.

Jasspa's MicroEmacs ships with a comprehensive set of documentation which covers most aspects of the use of the editor. It can also be browsed on-line here.

After starting your first real session you are proposed to do call the init-session function if you like to save your settings on the current system. You can do this by calling the init-session function. Press Esc and then the x key, you see that you are in the command line at the bottom can write some text, write init-session press ENTER.

Then you should select your keyboard layout. Either you use the menubar on top to find that functionality "Esc =" should work in the terminal and in the GUI application, the latter can use as well mouse or "Alt-t" key and then u combination, or you enter the command Esc x user-setup. In the Menu you have to access the "(T)ools - (U)ser Setup" entry.

In User setup select in the "Start-Up" tab your keyboard layout and in GUI mode in the "Platform" tab your font. X11 users here will greatly benefit if they installed the xfontsel tool as it allows to visually select the font on a MacOS or Linux system.

If you are ready use "File-Save All" to save your settings. The next ME session should start with these saved settings.

• X11 (macOS, Linux):
  • xfontsel - to interactively select fonts from within your ME session
  • mkfontscale - if you like to add your own TTF fonts as available fonts

MicroEmacs versions before 20241001 might require the tools luit and abduco for better support of international character encodings on UTF-8 enabled terminals.

GPL - see the file COPYING.txt

• Dave Conroy 1985-1986
• Daniel M. Lawrence 1986-1988
• John Green 1990-2024
• Steven Phillips 1990-2024
• Detlef Groth 2021-2024