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Appine.el 🍎

Appine means "App in Emacs", which is an Emacs plugin using a Dynamic Module that allows you to embed native macOS views (WebKit, PDFKit, Quick look PreviewView, etc.) directly inside Emacs windows.

You can open a browser, read PDFs, listen to music, and watch videos in Emacs. Enjoy the full power of native macOS rendering, smooth scrolling, and hardware acceleration without leaving Emacs!

Latest Updates

v0.1.0 Release

✨ Features

1. Introduced the Appine RSS reader, allowing you to browse your favorite RSS feeds directly from your elfeed.org file.
2. Added Outline support to the PDF reader, along with automatic restoration of your last read position. (Resolves #14)
3. Full support for macOS Light and Dark themes. (Resolves #10)

🐛 Fixes & Improvements 4. Enhanced session management: Automatically restores all previously opened tabs after restarting Emacs. 5. Fixed an issue where the tab bar would overflow or scale incorrectly when opening multiple tabs or resizing the window. (Fixes #8)

✨ Features

• Use It Like an Emacs Buffer: When Appine starts, it opens an embedded Appine Window tied to an *Appine Window* buffer. You can maximize it with C-x 1, close it with C-x 0, and switch between buffers with C-x o. If you close it, you can reopen it with C-x b by switching to the Appine Window buffer. You can also scroll through the embedded Appine Window using C-n, C-p, C-v, M-v, M-<, and M->, just as you would in an Emacs buffer.
• Native Web Browsing: Embed a fully functional Safari-like WebKit view inside an Emacs window, with full support for cookies.
• Native PDF Rendering: View PDFs with macOS's built-in PDFKit for buttery-smooth scrolling and zooming, and easily copy content from it to other Emacs buffers.
• RSS Reader: Say goodbye to basic plain text and embrace a modern RSS UI within Emacs.
• Native Word/Excel Rendering: View Word/Excel files with macOS's built-in Quartz for buttery-smooth scrolling and zooming. Unfortunately, you cannot edit them yet.
• Seamless Integration: The native views automatically resize and move when you split or adjust Emacs windows.
• Tab Management: Support for multiple embedded tabs, switching, and closing directly from Emacs.
• Org-mode Integration: Use Appine to open links and files within Org files.
• Plugin Support: You can now write some simple plugins for Appine's browser. Currently supported features include Link Hints for quick navigation and a Selection Assistant (which allows you to select content on a webpage to perform org-capture, search, translate, or even have a conversation with ChatGPT based on the selected content).

📖 Usage

Open Appine

Run M-x appine to open the Appine Window. If you open it for the first time, the Appine Window will show a brief usage.

You can close it with M-x appine-close or simply C-x 0. If you want to open the Appine window again, run M-x appine or just open the *Appine Window* buffer.

You can kill the Appine window completely with M-x appine-kill.

Two States of Embedded Apps

The embedded App has two states: Active and Inactive.

• Active State: When the *Appine Window* buffer is active, it can be used just like a native Mac App.
• Inactive State: When the *Appine Window* buffer is not active, the embedded App is locked, grayed out, and cannot be interacted with. You can use Emacs normally at this time.

A video demonstrating the two states.

appine-two-mode.mp4

Open a Web Page

Run M-x appine-open-url. You will be prompted to enter a URL. A native WebKit view will open in the current Emacs window. A demonstration video is as follows:

A video demonstrating Open Web Page.

appine-open-web.mp4

Built-in Browser Plugins

To facilitate daily browser operations, Appine's browser comes with a built-in Selection Assistant plugin. When you select text content on a webpage, a floating toolbar will appear as shown below.

• Capture: Captures the selected content along with the webpage link into your inbox.org.

  You need to configure org-capture-template. An example is as follows:

  (setq org-capture-templates
      `(("i" "Inbox" entry (file, (concat chaoswork/gtd-directory "inbox.org"))
         "* TODO %?\n%i\nfrom: %a\n/Entered on/ %U")
        ("c" "org-protocol-capture" entry (file ,(concat chaoswork/gtd-directory "inbox.org"))
         "* TODO [[%:link][%:description]]\n\n %i" :immediate-finish t)))
  

  The shortcut key for org-protocol-capture here is set to c. If you prefer a different key, you can modify it in the settings.

• Search: Searches for the selected content. The default search engine is Google, but you can configure it to use a different search engine.

• Translate: Translates content using AI. You can customize the translation system_prompt.

• Ask AI: Uses the selected content as context, allowing you to have a conversation with AI based on it.

You can follow the steps below to configure the Selection Assistant and view conversation history:

To quickly open links on web pages, I wrote a simple link-hints plugin for Appine's built-in browser. It works similarly to Vimium — pressing f will highlight the links on the page, and then pressing the corresponding key will quickly open the link on the current page, or pressing q to quit the link hints, as shown below:

Opening PDFs and Other Documents

Run M-x appine-open-file. If you select a PDF file, it will be rendered using macOS PDFKit. Other files will be previewed using Quick Look.

When you forced on the Appine window, you can typing C-x C-f to open file in the macOS file chooser.

You can now highlight text and add notes to PDFs.

A video demonstrating Open PDF.

appine-open-pdf.mp4

RSS Reader

emacs-elfeed/elfeed is great, but I now prefer the Appine RSS Reader.

Simply set (setq appine-rss-path "/your/path/elfeed.org"), and then run M-x appine-rss to enjoy a modern RSS UI experience.

The format of elfeed.org is as follows. You can also refer to remyhonig/elfeed-org:

* Feeds                                                              :elfeed:
** Frontier & Deep Research                                     :ai:research:
*** [[https://lilianweng.github.io/index.xml][Lil'Log]]
*** [[https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/feed][dwarkesh.com]]
*** [[https://gwern.substack.com/feed][gwern.net]]
*** [[https://geohot.github.io/blog/feed.xml][geohot.github.io]]
*** [[https://garymarcus.substack.com/feed][garymarcus.substack.com]]
** Build & Use AI                                                  :ai:build:
*** [[https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/][simonwillison.net]]
*** [[https://www.geoffreylitt.com/feed.xml][geoffreylitt.com]]
*** [[https://minimaxir.com/index.xml][minimaxir.com]]
*** [[https://xeiaso.net/blog.rss][xeiaso.net]]
** Engineering Perspective                                   :engineering:ai:
*** [[http://antirez.com/rss][antirez.com]]
*** [[https://lucumr.pocoo.org/feed.atom][lucumr.pocoo.org]]
** Games
*** [[https://store.steampowered.com/feeds/news/app/2868840/][Slay the Spire 2]]
*** [[https://www.wowhead.com/news/rss/all][WoW Head]]

Org-mode Integration

Setting (setq appine-use-for-org-links t) enables opening URLs and files with Appine. You can toggle this feature on or off by running M-x appine-toggle-use-for-org-links.

TODO: Add a video demonstrating Org-mode integration.

Toolbar

The Toolbar implements common App operations such as New Tab, Open File, etc., and also includes editing operations like Cut/Copy/Paste. Since Appine introduces the macOS Quick Look Preview module, most common files can be previewed. You can open files through the Open File button in the Appine window.

Copy/Paste video

appine-copy-paste.mp4

Window Management

The native view is tied to an Emacs buffer (named *Appine-Window*). You can split windows (C-x 3, C-x 2), resize them, or switch buffers. The native view will automatically track the Emacs window's geometry.

📦 Requirements

• macOS (Tested on macOS 12+)
• Emacs 29.1 or higher compiled with Dynamic Module support (--with-modules). You can use M-: (functionp 'module-load) to check if the module-load function is available. (Note: Most popular distributions like Emacs Plus, Emacs Mac Port, and emacsformacosx have this enabled by default).

🚀 Installation

Method 1: Pre-built Binary (Recommended)

The easiest way to install Appine is using use-package with straight.el or quelpa. The package will automatically download the pre-compiled native binary (.dylib) for your Mac (supports both Apple Silicon and Intel) on the first run.

(use-package appine
  :straight (appine :type git :host github :repo "chaoswork/appine")
  :defer t
  :custom
  ;; enables opening URLs and files with Appine, default is nil
  (appine-use-for-org-links t)
  (appine-rss-path "~/.emacs.d/elfeed.org") ;; optional
  ;; bind any prefix you like
  :bind (("C-x a a" . appine)
         ("C-x a u" . appine-open-url)
         ("C-x a o" . appine-open-file)
         ("C-x a r" . appine-rss)))         

Method 2: Build from Source

If you prefer to build the module yourself, you need the Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/chaoswork/appine.git ~/.emacs.d/lisp/appine

2. Compile the C/Objective-C module:

   cd ~/.emacs.d/lisp/appine
   make

3. Add to your init.el:

   (add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/lisp/appine")
   (require 'appine)
   (setq appine-use-for-org-links t)
   (global-set-key (kbd "C-x a a") 'appine)
   (global-set-key (kbd "C-x a u") 'appine-open-url)
   (global-set-key (kbd "C-x a o") 'appine-open-file)
   (global-set-key (kbd "C-x a r") 'appine-rss)   

🛠️ Continuous Improvement

Appine uses Emacs Dynamic Modules to bridge C/Objective-C and Emacs Lisp.

The project is still under continuous improvement. If you encounter any problems, feel free to open an issue.

Support for Windows and Linux systems will be considered in the future. The main reason is that I currently don't have a Windows computer, and the Linux distribution I use doesn't have a GUI, which makes it impossible for me to debug the plugin at present. Moreover, unlike macOS, Windows and Linux lack native system-level rendering frameworks for web pages, PDFs, and Office files, requiring third-party libraries to implement, which often introduces instability. Cross-platform libraries like Qt are often too massive and too heavy for a small Emacs plugin. If you use Linux or Windows and really want to use browsers, PDFs, and other apps in Emacs, you can try the EAF project.

ChangeLog

• v0.1.0

  1. Introduced the Appine RSS reader, allowing you to browse your favorite RSS feeds directly from your elfeed.org file.
  2. Added Outline support to the PDF reader, along with automatic restoration of your last read position. (Resolves #14)
  3. Full support for macOS Light and Dark themes. (Resolves #10)
  4. Enhanced session management: Automatically restores all previously opened tabs after restarting Emacs.
  5. Fixed an issue where the tab bar would overflow or scale incorrectly when opening multiple tabs or resizing the window. (Fixes #8)

• v0.0.9:

  1. Added PDF editing support :) You can now highlight text, add notes, and undo actions.
  2. Fixed a bug where the address bar sometimes disappear.
  3. Added clearer visual indicators for Active/Inactive states.
  4. Improved readability in Inactive mode: The grayed-out state no longer interferes with reading.
  5. Fixed an issue where audio/video would continue playing after closing a tab.

• v0.0.8: Added the Selection Assistant plugin, which allows you to capture selected webpage content to inbox.org, translate, search, and chat with AI. appine-open-url is now smarter.

• v0.0.7: Added browser plugin functionality, added a "Find" feature to the browser and PDF reader, and support for automatic plugin updates.

• v0.0.6: You can now manipulate Appine Windows just like regular Buffers.

• v0.0.5: org-mode integration.

• v0.0.4 and earlier: Improvements to the browser, PDF reader, and Quick Look features.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPLv3) - see the LICENSE file for details.