Symlinking Emacs.app to the $PATH

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Nov 13, 2008, at 18:22, Tim Visher wrote:

> I'm attempting to make Emacs.app my default installation.  I read
> somewhere that one way to do this is to symlink
> /Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs onto your path.
>
> What I've done so far is to `ln -s
> /Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs ~/.bin/emacs`
> where `~/.bin` is on my $PATH.  Unfortunately, when I run this, I get
> the following error:
>
>     Warning: arch-dependent data dir
> (/opt/local/var/macports/build/ 
> _opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_aqua_ 
> emacs-app/work/emacs-23.0.0_NS-9.0rc3/nextstep/build/Emacs.app/ 
> Contents/MacOS/libexec/emacs/23.0.60/i386-apple-darwin9.5.0/)
> does not exist.
>     Warning: arch-independent data dir
> (/opt/local/var/macports/build/ 
> _opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_aqua_ 
> emacs-app/work/emacs-23.0.0_NS-9.0rc3/nextstep/build/Emacs.app/ 
> Contents/Resources/share/emacs/23.0.60/etc/)
> does not exist.

Odd. Those directories have of course been cleaned up after the  
build; Emacs shouldn't be referring to them.

>     Cannot open load file: encoded-kb
>
> What's even stranger is that if I actually run
> `/Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs` directly, it
> works exactly as I want it to.
>
> Anyway, ideas?  Thanks in advance!

If all you're trying to have happen is for Emacs.app to open when you  
type "emacs" in the Terminal, then you can create an alias in  
your .bashrc:

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