Draw a Beautiful Diagram in Emacs
I've been using emacs for quite some time now, a decision I plan to stick with for now. several years back i've been using obsidian for note-taking purpose for all my learning journey. then i discovered emacs org-mode which caught my attention for its integration within a vast emacs ecosystem.
Now i use emacs for almost every purposes - such as note-taking, some light coding, writing my blog, and etc. for most of the time, it's note-taking because it's much simpler to do such in emacs than in obsidian. less distraction but more friction at the start.
Recently I installed emacs org-tree-slide and org-present to be able to present something in emacs like a powerpoint or google slide, and i love it. then i wonder, if i want to put some diagram with it, it's kind of weird because i can see the attribute syntax while presenting it and it somewhat annoys me. what if i can draw a diagram inside emacs directly but not in artist-mode? then i discovered uniline, it let you draw a diagram directly using unicode in emacs, not an ASCII but a Unicode.
Installation
It is quite simple to install it, and it's already on MELPA so we can go ahead and use use-package inside our init.el. here i'm gonna use the transient variant of the uniline instead of the hydra. what's the difference? the transient package is built into emacs and used heavily by Magit, so i don't have to install more package since i already have magit which make transient already installed. and transient mode acts more like a popup and will disappear after an actions. i can just add this to my init files:
(use-package uniline-transient :ensure uniline :after transient :commands (uniline-mode uniline-launch-interface) :config (global-set-key (kbd "C-<insert>") #'uniline-launch-interface))
I'm not gonna use defer here since it's a small package. after that i restart my emacs and wait for the package install finished its job. to use it, i can call it using M-x uniline-mode RET and start moving my cursor using the arrow keys. here's an example:
╭──────────────────╮ ╭─╮ ╭╮ ╭─╮
╭─────────╮ │ │ │░│╭╮╭╮ ││ │░│
│ hello! ├───┤ some text ├───┤░├╯││╰╮╭╯╰─┤░│••→ hello from
╰─────────╯ │ │ │░│ ││ ╰╯ │░│ uniline!
╰──────────────────╯ ╰─╯ ╰╯ ╰─╯
To quit uniline, i can press C-c C-c or M-x uniline-mode RET again. to use other features of uniline, i can use the interface by running M-x uniline-launch-interface RET or i can press C-<insert> as we set the keybinding before on the files.
◆ ◊ ▪ ▫ △ → ╳ ▒ ░ ▓ ¤ ↔
And that is the example of an available option, there are much more option available on the interface.
Notice
On the hydra variant of uniline, the 3D brushes are available. on the other hand, the transient will be supporting the 3D brushes soon as the readme stated:
3D brushes are experimental. They are available only with the Hydra interface. Transient coming soon.
Keep in mind that in order to display the line smoothly, we need to use a font that is supporting unicode such as JetBrains Mono, Unifont, Agave, FreeMono and so on. check it on the readme here. i use JetBrains Mono because that font is SUPERIOR to me than any other fonts.
Check my emacs config here for more. this is my personal emacs config and it will grows as my understanding evolves. i am open for any critiques and i'd love to hear it. i will continue in the state of perpetual learning with it.
"All editors can save your files, but only Emacs can save your souls!".
