Setup Emacs for development with Clojure/Leiningen

Edit: [2011 Oct 16] This post works only for Emacs-Starter-Kit 1, and is hence out of date
Edit: [2011 April 8] Works on Mac OS X (Intel)
Edit: [2010 October 10] Updated for Windows 7

This post is to describe how to set up Emacs for Clojure development on Mac, Linux and Windows. I assume you have setup a project structure using Leiningen already. You can follow this to setup Leiningen on Windows.

Swank-Clojure

You need to get Swank-Clojure running first.

1. Mention

:dev-dependencies [[swank-clojure "1.2.1"]]

in project.clj as described here: http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen

2. Get the dependencies:

lein deps

3. Start Swank

lein swank

Run Emacs

1. Download and install Emacs (at least version 22, recommended version 23 or higher). Mac users can get Emacs from here: http://emacsformacosx.com/. Windows users can download Emacs binaries from here and set the PATH: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/windows/emacs/

2. Delete any previous .emacs.d directory from home directory.

Mac/Linux:

mv ~/.emacs.d ~/.emacs.d.bak

Windows XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data

Windows 7:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming

3. Install Git.

Windows users can download Git (MSys Git) from here and set the PATH: http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list (version 1.7.3.1 is fine as of October 2010)

4. Clone the Emacs Starter kit in a working directory (this command clones the starter kit as .emacs.d directory):

git clone http://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit/ .emacs.d

OR

git clone git://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit.git .emacs.d

5. Copy the cloned .emacs.d directory to your home directory (~ on Mac/Linux, or "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data" on Windows XP, or "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming" on Windows 7).

6. Run Emacs, and follow the steps below ("M" means "Meta", which is the Alt key i.e. M-x means Alt+x. Press Enter after each Emacs command.):

(a) Install necessary Emacs packages.

M-x package-list-packages

You will be presented with a list of modes. Select clojure-mode and swank-clojure packages by navigating to those items in the list and pressing "i" against each. After selection, press "x" to install.

(b) Connect to the Swank server.

M-x slime-connect

It will ask for hostname and port. Press Enter key for both and it will take the defaults. If all goes well upto this point, you will be connected to the Swank-Clojure running via Lein. Emacs would be ready for use.


Just in case you are an Emacs newbie and don't know how to exit, use the following keys to quit Emacs ("C" means "Control", i.e. C-x means Ctrl+x):

C-x C-c

Please let me know your feedback and suggestions.