Emacs: file and Dired basics

UPDATE 2025-08-11 08:45 +0300: Tweaked the configuration for opening files externally.

Video overview of file navigation in Emacs. There are lots of powerful commands to find files, open directories, and perform operations on the contents of the filesystem. Technically, I talk about find-file, dired and its numerous accoutrements, the minibuffer and its histories, file permissions, keyboard macros, and projects.

Same basic configurations based on what I mentioned in the video:

;; Install the `vertico' package to get a vertical view of the
;; minibuffer.  Vertico is optimised for performance and is also
;; highly configurable.  Here is my minimal setup:
(setq vertico-resize nil)
(vertico-mode 1)

;; Install the `marginalia' package.  This will display useful
;; annotations next to entries in the minibuffer.  For example, when
;; using M-x it will show a brief description of the command as well
;; as the keybinding associated with it (if any).
(marginalia-mode 1)

;; When you first call `find-file' (C-x C-f by default), you do not
;; need to clear the existing file path before adding the new one.
;; Just start typing the whole path and Emacs will "shadow" the
;; current one.  For example, you are at ~/Documents/notes/file.txt
;; and you want to go to ~/.emacs.d/init.el: type the latter directly
;; and Emacs will take you there.
(file-name-shadow-mode 1)

;; This works with `file-name-shadow-mode' enabled.  When you are in
;; a sub-directory and use, say, `find-file' to go to your home '~/'
;; or root '/' directory, Vertico will clear the old path to keep
;; only your current input.
(add-hook 'rfn-eshadow-update-overlay-hook #'vertico-directory-tidy)

;; Do not outright delete files.  Move them to the system trash
;; instead.  The `trashed' package can act on them in a Dired-like
;; fashion.  I use it and can recommend it to either restore (R) or
;; permanently delete (D) the files.
(setq delete-by-moving-to-trash t)

;; When there are two Dired buffers side-by-side make Emacs
;; automatically suggest the other one as the target of copy or rename
;; operations.  Remember that you can always use M-p and M-n in the
;; minibuffer to cycle through the history, regardless of what this
;; does.  (The "dwim" stands for "Do What I Mean".)
(setq dired-dwim-target t)

;; Automatically hide the detailed listing when visiting a Dired
;; buffer.  This can always be toggled on/off by calling the
;; `dired-hide-details-mode' interactively with M-x or its keybindings
;; (the left parenthesis by default).
(add-hook 'dired-mode-hook #'dired-hide-details-mode)

;; Teach Dired to use a specific external program with either the
;; `dired-do-shell-command' or `dired-do-async-shell-command' command
;; (with the default keys, those are bound to `!' `&', respectively).
;; The first string is a pattern match against file names.  The
;; remaining strings are external programs that Dired will provide as
;; suggestions.  Of course, you can always type an arbitrary program
;; despite these defaults.
;;
;; Note that the * can be added to a program to instruct it to open
;; all the files as a set rather than all as separate instances.  You
;; write the name of the program, then space followed by the asterisk
;; (thanks to @mac68tm on YouTube for pointing this out).
(setq dired-guess-shell-alist-user
      '(("\\.\\(png\\|jpe?g\\|tiff\\)" "feh *" "xdg-open")
        ("\\.\\(mp[34]\\|m4a\\|ogg\\|flac\\|webm\\|mkv\\)" "mpv *" "xdg-open")
		(".*" "xdg-open")))