Question

I am enjoying learning the EMACS text editor…but I can’t help thinking that the HTML mode could use some work.

I am currently programming in Legacy ASP/Javascript/CSS/HTML and was wondering if there is a mode that works with this. If possible, I was also hoping the mode wouldn’t be from 10+ years ago or in a buggy state.

Thanks for your help!
Will

Answer 1

nXhtml supports classic ASP JavaScript, is frequently updated and is not very buggy. It has better ASP support (except debugging) than current versions of Visual Studio IMO; I just use VS2010 for server-side debugging when necessary.

Here are the relevant sections of my .emacs:

(load "autostart" t)
(eval-after-load "mumamo-fun"
  '(define-mumamo-multi-major-mode asp-html-mumamo-mode
     "Turn on multiple major modes for ASP with main mode `nxhtml-mode'.
This also covers inlined style and JavaScript."
     ("ASP Html Family" nxhtml-mode
      (mumamo-chunk-asp%
       mumamo-asp-chunk-inlined-script
       mumamo-chunk-inlined-script
       mumamo-chunk-style=
       mumamo-chunk-onjs=
       ))))
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.inc$" . asp-html-mumamo-mode))

; XXX this is a total hack, see:
; http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg00197.html
(defun tab-width-4 ()
  (setq tab-width 4))
(add-hook 'mumamo-after-change-major-mode-hook 'tab-width-4 t)

Update: For newer versions of nXhtml, you may need to change mumamo-asp-chunk-inlined-script to mumamo-chunk-asp-server-script.

(The last bit is necessary because the ASP code I’m working on assumes 4-space tabs; feel free to ignore it if this isn’t a problem for you.)

If you have ASP that ends in anything other than .asp or .inc, you’ll need to edit auto-mode-alist further.