Alias to make emacs open a file in a new buffer (NOT frame) and be activated/come to front?

Question

What I have so far is

alias em="open -a /Applications/Emacs.app "$@" && osascript -e 'tell application "Emacs.app" to activate'"

But I am stumped.

With that code, em file.txt will activate, but won't open the file. And I get '22:23: syntax error: Expected end of line but found unknown token. (-2741)'

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Doing

alias em=open -a /Applications/Emacs.app "$@"

Works fine and then it will open the file, but obviously not bring emacs to the front.

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And for some strange reason

osascript -e 'tell application "Emacs.app" to activate'

doesn't activate emacs.... I have no idea what is going on.

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I am happy to fix this either with alias code, or with .emacs code

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edit: see comments for another thing tried.

Answer 1

Could the problem be that you need to escape you quotes, like this?

alias em="open -a /Applications/Emacs.app \"$@\" && osascript -e 'tell application \"Emacs.app\" to activate'"

Answer 2

Try this:

(setq ns-pop-up-frames nil)

Works fine for me.

Found it here

Answer 3

I have the following in my .bashrc sourced by my .profile:

alias emacs='open -a /Applications/Emacs.app "$@"'

And in my .emacs custom area:

(custom-set-variables
 ;; yadda yadda
 ;;...
 '(ns-pop-up-frames nil))

Or if you don't like to M-x customize-variable your way into it, as Jeff said:

(setq ns-pop-up-frames nil)

I didn't need any AppleScript to do this; although I noticed you were missing the end tell? Anyway, works like a charm for me, pops Emacs open, or uses the existing window if there is one, and it's on top, and the Terminal remains ready for more input.

Answer 4

You can use:

emacsclient -nt somefile

in your terminal, which would open specified file(s) in new buffer using your existing frame rather than a new client frame.

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/emacsclient-Options.html