# Emacs + org mode packages and tips
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-org-mode-packages-and-tips/47911
**Category:** Tooling
**Tags:** emacs
**Created:** [October 7, 2020, 3:41am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-org-mode-packages-and-tips/47911 "2020-10-07T03:41:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@timquelch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/timquelch)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2020, 3:41am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-org-mode-packages-and-tips/47911/1 "2020-10-07T03:41:16Z")
What is everyone’s experiences with the different julia packages for Emacs? How have you found the literate programming experience in org mode?
- **julia-repl:** Quite a good repl interface. No real complaints
- **ob-julia (ess?):** The org-babel interface. This is what allows you to run `julia` code blocks in org mode. It is pretty bad as far as I can tell. Not maintained since 2017. Running single source blocks runs it in a single command line process. Running it in a session seems starts an ess repl which I couldn’t get to work.
- **emacs-jupyter:** Gives both a REPL and running of org mode source blocks with `jupyter-julia` code. Seems to be fairly well maintained. Not sure if it is just my setup, but the completion-at-point functionality seems incredibly slow (basically unusable).
- **lsp-julia:** The interface between `lsp-mode` and julia. This allows language server functionality (similar to the vs-code plugin). My experience is pretty good so far, I’m getting completions, warnings, renaming, and some code actions. The warning behaviour is a little bit dodgy in and around macro calls. I often get MissingReference warnings on symbols defined or used in macros.
I think ideally I would love to see `ob-julia` rewritten in terms of `julia-repl` rather than `ess` (mostly because `julia-repl` actually works). However I’m also fairly happy `emacs-jupyter`.
What are everyone else’s experiences with these packages (or any other ones that I haven’t discovered yet)? Any tips or tricks?
---
### Author:  [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2020, 8:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-org-mode-packages-and-tips/47911/2 "2020-10-07T08:24:55Z")
> [@timquelch](#):
>
> **julia-repl:** Quite a good repl interface. No real complaints
As the author, I am happy to hear this! But I see quite a few areas for improvement — `libvterm` integration is my current priority.
---
### Author:  [@antoine-levitt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/antoine-levitt)
#### Post date: [October 7, 2020, 9:00am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-org-mode-packages-and-tips/47911/3 "2020-10-07T09:00:06Z")
I use `julia-repl` which works pretty well (and will be even better once vterm is in). I never tried any of the more fancy options like lsp-julia and emacs-jupyter, cool to see it works well! Regarding tips and tricks, if you do a lot of math I highly recommend the following snippet:
```julia
;; Math insertion
(defun julia-math-insert (s)
"Inserts math symbol given by `s'"
(when s
(let ((sym (gethash (concat "\\" s) julia-mode-latexsubs)))
(when sym
(if (and (eq major-mode 'term-mode) (term-in-char-mode))
(progn
(term-send-raw-string sym))
(insert sym))))))
;; unicode insertion of math symbols
(define-minor-mode julia-math-mode
"A minor mode with easy access to TeX math commands. The
command is only entered if it is supported in Julia. The
following commands are defined:
\\{LaTeX-math-mode-map}"
nil nil (list (cons (LaTeX-math-abbrev-prefix) LaTeX-math-keymap))
(if julia-math-mode
(set (make-local-variable 'LaTeX-math-insert-function) 'julia-math-insert)))
(define-globalized-minor-mode global-math-mode julia-math-mode
(lambda ()
(unless (eq major-mode 'latex-mode)
(julia-math-mode))))
(global-math-mode 1)
;; (add-hook 'julia-mode-hook 'julia-math-mode)
;; (add-hook 'inferior-julia-mode-hook 'julia-math-mode)
;; (add-hook 'inferior-ess-mode-hook 'julia-math-mode)
;; (add-hook 'message-mode-hook 'julia-math-mode)
;; Make math insertion work in isearch
(add-hook 'isearch-mode-hook 'isearch-setup-latex-math)
(add-hook 'isearch-mode-end-hook 'isearch-unsetup-latex-math)
(define-key isearch-mode-map (LaTeX-math-abbrev-prefix) LaTeX-math-keymap)
(defun isearch-setup-latex-math ()
(if (eq (current-mm) 'latex-mode)
(set (make-local-variable 'LaTeX-math-insert-function) (lambda (s) (isearch-process-search-string (concat "\\" s) (concat "\\" s))))
(set (make-local-variable 'LaTeX-math-insert-function) (lambda (s) (isearch-process-search-string (gethash (concat "\\" s) julia-mode-latexsubs) (gethash (concat "\\" s) julia-mode-latexsubs))))))
(defun isearch-unsetup-latex-math ()
(if (eq (current-mm) 'latex-mode)
(set (make-local-variable 'LaTeX-math-insert-function) 'TeX-insert-macro)
(set (make-local-variable 'LaTeX-math-insert-function) 'julia-math-insert)))
```
---
### Author:  [@yarnton](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/yarnton)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2020, 10:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-org-mode-packages-and-tips/47911/5 "2020-10-16T22:03:52Z")
I’m also a happy camper when using `julia-repl`, so thanks for the package @Tamas_Papp!
I used to use `ess`, but it is a bit unstable with Julia.
`julia-mode` + `julia-repl` are a good basic setup. What else do you use in conjunction with these?
I always build Emacs configurations slowly, and I prefer minimal setups. Is LSP (via `lsp-mode` or `eglot`) the preferred way to get completions?