For ages I've been seeking a decent browser frontend for my org-mode notes and todo lists. Until I realised that nothing prevents me from having emacs itself in my browser.

Selfhost your Emacs with your favorite configuration.

Motivation

Since I've became hooked on emacs (all-in TODO with org-mode, evil-mode and helm), I've been looking for ways to use it TODO.

TODO My usecase is non-personal computers where it's undesirable to install emacs and dropbox/syncthing to sync your personal data. So I've been looking for some cloud solution (I've got a VPS).

Dropbox is not capable of previewing arbitrary text files (let alone), and obviously you won't get anything close to your usual emacs workflow.

Filestash TODO support vim/emacs keybindings TODO, but still rest of navigation is TODO

And you could imagine that while elisp/vim style editing is fairly application agnostic (TODO point to surfingkeys?), it's a thankless job to rewrire/port all the amazing emacs packages and features I'm used to: nerdtree, helm, refile, swoop, agenda, org-drill etc.

So I figured the only thing that would keep me happy is to run emacs itself over the web! Thankfully, due to its TUI interface that works surprisingly well.

It works really well with spacemacs style SPC/, bindings because they for the most part don't overlap with OS/browser hotkeys.

Try it out locally

1. cp docker-compose.example.yml docker-compose.yml

2. Edit necessary variables in docker-compose.yml, presumably your want to

   • map the files you want to make accessible to container
   • map the path to your config files/directories (e.g. .spacemacs.d)
   • change port (see 'selfhost' secion)

3. Run the container: ./run.

4. Check it out in browser: 'http://localhost:7001**.

Customize

If you want to use some elisp package, e.g. magit, you're gonna need git binary in your container. There are to ways you can deal with it

1. Extend cloudmacs dockerfile and mix in the packages you need: see example. Then you can build it, e.g.:

   docker build -f Dockerfile.customized -t customized-cloudmacs --build-arg RIPGREP_VERSION="11.0.2" .
   

   Don't forget to update docker-compose.yml with the name of your new container.

2. Install packages directly on running container. The downside is that it's easy to lose changes if you delete the container. Unfortunately docker-compose file doesn't support post-start scripts so if you want to automate this perhaps easiest would be to write a wrapper script like this:

   #!/bin/bash -eux
   docker-compose up -d
   docker exec cloudmacs sh -c "apk add --no-cache git"
   

Selfhost

• TODO cloning emacs.d first? not sure if should just reuse .emacs.d? I guess better not to to avoid potential problems coming from different builds?
• TODO reverse proxy -- same instuctions as for gotty
• TODO basic auth?
• TODO docker compose up -- how to make sure it restarts after reboot?

Potential improvements

TODOs

• post-start
• write about asUserEnv?
• rg turds
• split rg/locales/gotty in separate docker containers? maybe locales could be somehow moved to original emacs container?

Limitations

• Phones? (use orgzly)

Credits

• dit4c/dockerfile-gotty
• JAremko/docker-emacs

License

GPL due to the fact that I looked at other GPL licensed dockerfiles as reference.