aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/README.md
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorGabriele Bozzola <sbozzolator@gmail.com>2020-02-21 17:25:28 -0700
committerGabriele Bozzola <sbozzolator@gmail.com>2020-03-01 17:54:19 -0700
commit0b5a71ba0687f66a29a0879bc9957ba93275984d (patch)
treeccedbf47d5babb4dd16136861c8ca8ff358c5777 /README.md
parent61a5be82c9ebd3a153c4801e992d6287a0fa2e87 (diff)
Expand introduction section in readme
Diffstat (limited to 'README.md')
-rw-r--r--README.md57
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 24 deletions
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f438a93..f08d188 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -2,27 +2,24 @@
# Introduction
-This emacs module implements a bridge to
-[libvterm](https://github.com/neovim/libvterm) to display a terminal in an Emacs
-buffer.
+Emacs-libvterm (_vterm_) is fully-fledged terminal emulator inside GNU Emacs
+based on [libvterm](https://github.com/neovim/libvterm), a C library. As a
+result of using compiled code (as opposed to elisp), emacs-libvterm is fully
+capable, fast, and it can seamlessly handle large outputs.
## Warning
-This is an **alpha release**, so it will crash your Emacs. If it does, please
-[report a bug](https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm/issues/new)!
+This package is in active development and, while being stable enough to be used
+as a daily-driver, it is currently in early **alpha** stage. Moreover,
+emacs-libvterm deals directly with some low-level operations, hence, bugs in the
+code can lead to segmentation faults and crashes. If that happens, please
+[report the problem](https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm/issues/new).
# Installation
-## Manual
+## Requirements
-Clone the repository:
-
-```sh
-git clone https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm.git
-```
-
-Before installing emacs-libvterm, you need to make sure you have
-installed
+Before installing emacs-libvterm, you need to make sure you have installed
1. GNU Emacs (>= 25.1) with [module
support](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Dynamic-Modules.html).
You can check that, by verifying that `module-file-suffix` is not `nil`.
@@ -30,18 +27,30 @@ installed
3. libtool-bin (related issues:
[#66](https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm/issues/66)
[#85](https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm/issues/85#issuecomment-491845136))
- 4. OPTIONAL: libvterm. This library can be found in the official repositories
- of most distributions (e.g., Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSUSE,
- Ubuntu). In case you want to use the version already installed on your
- system, change `cmake ..` with `cmake -DUSE_SYSTEM_LIBVTERM=yes ..` in the
- following instructions. If `-DUSE_SYSTEM_LIBVTERM` is not explicitly set to `yes`
- (or if it is set to `no`), emacs-libvterm will download the latest version
- available of libvterm (from [here](https://github.com/neovim/libvterm)),
- compile it, and use it.
+ 4. OPTIONAL: [libvterm](https://github.com/neovim/libvterm). This library can
+ be found in the official repositories of most distributions (e.g., Arch,
+ Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSUSE, Ubuntu). If not available, it will be
+ downloaded during the compilation process.
+
+## Manual installation
+
+Clone the repository:
+
+```sh
+git clone https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm.git
+```
+
+In case you want to use the version of libvterm already installed on your
+system, change `cmake ..` with `cmake -DUSE_SYSTEM_LIBVTERM=yes ..` in the
+following instructions. If `-DUSE_SYSTEM_LIBVTERM` is not explicitly set to
+`yes` (or if it is set to `no`), emacs-libvterm will download the latest version
+available of libvterm (from [here](https://github.com/neovim/libvterm)), compile
+it, and use it.
Build the module with:
``` sh
+cd emacs-libvterm
mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake ..
@@ -67,8 +76,8 @@ Or, with `use-package`:
`vterm` is available on [MELPA](https://melpa.org/), and it can be installed as
a normal package. If the requirements are satisfied (mainly, Emacs was built
-with support for modules), `vterm` will take care of the compilation of all its
-components.
+with support for modules), `vterm` will compile the module the first time it is
+run.
`vterm` can be install with MELPA with `use-package` by adding the following
lines to your `init.el`: