Specifically for org, and specifically for org-roam, it's pretty good, but not good enough. It's not as good as desktop emacs, and it's also somehow not as good as a 1st class android app.
the fdroid build of emacs doesn't really work very well with my org-roam, so i use a termux build,,, well nix-on-droid+emacs-overlay... and it's fine, for capture and recall. but i'm not authoring a lot of text with it. a custom extra-keys in the termux config so that your common emacs keybindings are on screen in a tool bar can get you close to a point-and-click interface... but you don't really have a good "swipe" input or voice input to input text efficiently, it's a character interface, a TUI, which is actually not what you want on a phone, you want a word-based interface. so when i want to do org-mode right now, i pull a unihertz titan 2 out of my pocket. without a sim card, the titan battery lasts for about three days unless i fire up an nix devShell & lsp server on it.
calc-mode is my default android calculator tho.
tbh don't listen to me, though: i've been teaching myself 8vim[1] and building a markdown document graph database in my free time. don't listen to ~any emacs user's opinion with any authority, we all have found our own local minima, our opinions and advice usually aren't so useful to each other
I didn't know about modified-bar-mode, though, that's neat.
What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Emacs in much depth at all). Is that annoying, or is it easy enough to do that the annoyance fades into the background?
Also, is there a preconfigured config for Android that can be downloaded so that you don't have to spend too much time in the Customize mode to get started? (I'm assuming, though the article didn't go into detail, that much of the reason for spending time in Customize would be to remap some of those shortcuts to be easier to type on a virtual keyboard, e.g. fewer modifiers).
You can connect a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to an Android device -- somehow everybody thinks you have to buy some special $300 keyboard to attach one to a tablet but the basic keyboard from Amazon Basics does just ifne.
Good point, though I don't always have my Bluetooth keyboard available so I'm still interested in hearing people's experiences with those virtual keyboard apps.
You can use a pretty standard config. You are likely not going to be writing pages of code and for prose there are better things on a phone than the keyboard. You can get pretty far though github searching Emacs lisp files with android in the text.
Its slow there are some keyboard like unexpected keyboard that make it easier. There's also modifier-bar-mode which displays a little bar you can click to get modifier keys.
A/B: Any reason not to do emacs or neovim everywhere? You can copy your dotfiles to the server if needed?
C: I wouldn't/don't use Dropbox either. If bash+scp works then great, but have you considered keeping your files in git? Still easy to sync over ssh from one machine to another, but natively handles things like sync conflicts.
I just haven't found Emacs to be particularly productive over SSH. IMO it works best on a local machine, there's just too much in the GUI which isn't as workable over terminal. Font rendering, images, clickable text links all take a hit. None are really deal breakers, but Emacs TUI just kind of feels like an afterthought. X11 over SSH doesn't feel responsive to me.
Its almost more of an aesthetic choice really, its just that Emacs feels comfier to me on a local machine. You otherwise lose too much of that feeling of customizing everything to your own taste, which is to me the nicest part of Emacs. It's kind of what I imagine a well tuned Forth to feel like.
Neovim is great over SSH, and I kind of prefer it as an editor - but Org support is too compelling. I've tried Neovim Org configs but they just can't compete with the legacy of Emacs Org. Org roam is unbeatable even with the preponderance of wiki style knowledge base apps. Org publish is just too good, as well. I've played with Neorg, and I really like it as a project, but it does feel like it is about 20 years behind.
I use git a lot but it runs into the large binary problem. I know git-annex is supposed to be good, but I haven't used it much. Syncthing is good but a lot of UI. I like unison but it isn't super well suited to the 'background sync' workflow.
My laptop is also a modified chromebook with a 50 GB HDD. I could get a real computer and solve a lot of my sync issues tomorrow, but then what would I have to complain about?
I see people with surface pros running VB studio, drinking Folger's with no discernable side effects and they are probably happier and more productive than I am.
I've been using Emacs 30 on my android tablet for a few months now with a bluetooth keyboard. Needless to say, you can't really leverage eglot so it's basically a no-go for any meaningful software development. I've been using it for org-mode and it is fantastic for that.
Not to criticize you - I also use eglot and it's great - but let me mention that people have been doing pretty meaningful software development for several decades now, and LSPs are, I don't know, 5 years old?
There's a saying in my language, "the appetite grows while you eat"...
the fdroid build of android doesn't have a real linux environment that you can install arbitrary binaries on to. you can switch to a termux-ish proot environment and do x-forwarding or TUI emacs but those are shenanigans
Specifically for org, and specifically for org-roam, it's pretty good, but not good enough. It's not as good as desktop emacs, and it's also somehow not as good as a 1st class android app.
the fdroid build of emacs doesn't really work very well with my org-roam, so i use a termux build,,, well nix-on-droid+emacs-overlay... and it's fine, for capture and recall. but i'm not authoring a lot of text with it. a custom extra-keys in the termux config so that your common emacs keybindings are on screen in a tool bar can get you close to a point-and-click interface... but you don't really have a good "swipe" input or voice input to input text efficiently, it's a character interface, a TUI, which is actually not what you want on a phone, you want a word-based interface. so when i want to do org-mode right now, i pull a unihertz titan 2 out of my pocket. without a sim card, the titan battery lasts for about three days unless i fire up an nix devShell & lsp server on it.
calc-mode is my default android calculator tho.
tbh don't listen to me, though: i've been teaching myself 8vim[1] and building a markdown document graph database in my free time. don't listen to ~any emacs user's opinion with any authority, we all have found our own local minima, our opinions and advice usually aren't so useful to each other
I didn't know about modified-bar-mode, though, that's neat.
[1] https://f-droid.org/packages/inc.flide.vi8/
What's the experience like pressing Ctrl+Shift+Meta+key shortcuts with those virtual keyboard apps? I assume they turn Ctrl, Shift, etc. into toggles so that you tap Ctrl, tap Shift, tap Meta, tap the shortcut key. But that's still four taps. (I know many of Emacs's commands have fewer modifiers than that, but I don't know which ones since even on a full keyboard I prefer the Vim control scheme so I never learned Emacs in much depth at all). Is that annoying, or is it easy enough to do that the annoyance fades into the background?
Also, is there a preconfigured config for Android that can be downloaded so that you don't have to spend too much time in the Customize mode to get started? (I'm assuming, though the article didn't go into detail, that much of the reason for spending time in Customize would be to remap some of those shortcuts to be easier to type on a virtual keyboard, e.g. fewer modifiers).
You can connect a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to an Android device -- somehow everybody thinks you have to buy some special $300 keyboard to attach one to a tablet but the basic keyboard from Amazon Basics does just ifne.
Good point, though I don't always have my Bluetooth keyboard available so I'm still interested in hearing people's experiences with those virtual keyboard apps.
I used to have a flexible silicon keyboard I could roll up and carry but some of the keys died
Honestly these things are not the biggest worry.
You can use a pretty standard config. You are likely not going to be writing pages of code and for prose there are better things on a phone than the keyboard. You can get pretty far though github searching Emacs lisp files with android in the text.
More interesting is dealing with androids permissions. The original article mentions this and I have some notes here. https://gsilvers.github.io/me/posts/20250921-emacs-on-androi...
Its slow there are some keyboard like unexpected keyboard that make it easier. There's also modifier-bar-mode which displays a little bar you can click to get modifier keys.
(menu-bar-mode 1)
(tool-bar-mode 1)
(scroll-bar-mode 1)
(modifier-bar-mode 1)
(menu-bar-set-tool-bar-position `bottom)
I've been using emacs in terminal mode inside termux for a few years and it's not bad. Full GUI emacs would be nice, I'll have to give this a try
For small edits, has anybody configured a leader-key scheme? Something like Doom Emacs has with space as a leader.
It seems to me to be the best possible configuration for Emacs on Android (on a phone) and I was wondering if I should invest time in such a solution.
strokes-mode.el would also be very nice, but apparently it doesn't have touchscreen support.
I'm a little embarrassed by my current workflow, which is:
A. Emacs and org mode on my laptop
B. Neovim to do development via SSH on my dedicated Hetzner box, because my laptop is too potato for dev
C. A bash script to push up any random notes I have up to the server
I have used sshfs, syncthing and unison in the past, but never quite got the workflow for either to click.
After about 13 years of trying I still am not as functional as most Dropbox users. I just can't stand Dropbox.
Don't be embarrassed by a setup that works.
In the spirit of hopefully constrictive feedback:
A/B: Any reason not to do emacs or neovim everywhere? You can copy your dotfiles to the server if needed?
C: I wouldn't/don't use Dropbox either. If bash+scp works then great, but have you considered keeping your files in git? Still easy to sync over ssh from one machine to another, but natively handles things like sync conflicts.
I just haven't found Emacs to be particularly productive over SSH. IMO it works best on a local machine, there's just too much in the GUI which isn't as workable over terminal. Font rendering, images, clickable text links all take a hit. None are really deal breakers, but Emacs TUI just kind of feels like an afterthought. X11 over SSH doesn't feel responsive to me.
Its almost more of an aesthetic choice really, its just that Emacs feels comfier to me on a local machine. You otherwise lose too much of that feeling of customizing everything to your own taste, which is to me the nicest part of Emacs. It's kind of what I imagine a well tuned Forth to feel like.
Neovim is great over SSH, and I kind of prefer it as an editor - but Org support is too compelling. I've tried Neovim Org configs but they just can't compete with the legacy of Emacs Org. Org roam is unbeatable even with the preponderance of wiki style knowledge base apps. Org publish is just too good, as well. I've played with Neorg, and I really like it as a project, but it does feel like it is about 20 years behind.
I use git a lot but it runs into the large binary problem. I know git-annex is supposed to be good, but I haven't used it much. Syncthing is good but a lot of UI. I like unison but it isn't super well suited to the 'background sync' workflow.
My laptop is also a modified chromebook with a 50 GB HDD. I could get a real computer and solve a lot of my sync issues tomorrow, but then what would I have to complain about?
I see people with surface pros running VB studio, drinking Folger's with no discernable side effects and they are probably happier and more productive than I am.
Point being I might try Emacs on android
Your setup is pretty awesome. But if you miss dropbox so much, why not set up owncloud on the hetzner machine?
I've been using Emacs 30 on my android tablet for a few months now with a bluetooth keyboard. Needless to say, you can't really leverage eglot so it's basically a no-go for any meaningful software development. I've been using it for org-mode and it is fantastic for that.
Not to criticize you - I also use eglot and it's great - but let me mention that people have been doing pretty meaningful software development for several decades now, and LSPs are, I don't know, 5 years old?
There's a saying in my language, "the appetite grows while you eat"...
Is there an Android app that does Waypipe or wprs to forward a remote Emacs (with eglot/LSP) to your Android tablet?
what is preventing you from using eglot on android?
the fdroid build of android doesn't have a real linux environment that you can install arbitrary binaries on to. you can switch to a termux-ish proot environment and do x-forwarding or TUI emacs but those are shenanigans
Another (easier imo) way is to just install Emacs in the standard termux installation and run an X11 server, see https://hadi.timachi.com/posts/emacs_GUI_on_android/emacs_GU...
(Travels back to the 90s)
Pretty good for Emacs*
Long live VI.
Now I want to see how it performs in android 16 desktop mode
Well duh, I first used emacs on a lowly 386 running a variant of unix.
Today's SOCs are much more powerful.