ignoring emacs auto buffers in (next/previous)-buffer

I am about 2 yr old emacs user now. I've been doing basic stuff with emacs for long and now trying to transition into emacs power user after getting inspiration from screencasts like this one. More such vids can be found at emacs wiki.

Anyway, The traditional commands for going to next and previous buffers in emacs are "C-x <left/right arrow>". I read a pro tip somewhere that whenever you use next/prev buffer commands, you almost never want to go to one of emacs auto buffers such as *scratch*, *Messages* etc and that unnecessarily slows you down. It sounded so true to me and I got the itch to write elisp for it that ignores those buffers and here it is(I'm sure it could be done better, but then I'm a noob :) )

(defun emacs-buffer-p (name)
  (string-match-p "\\*.*\\*" name))

(defun next-non-emacs-buffer (&optional original)
  "Similar to next-buffer, but ignores emacs buffer such as *scratch*, *messages* etc."
  (interactive)
  (let ((tmp-orig (or original (buffer-name))))
    (next-buffer)
    (if (and
         (not (eq (buffer-name) tmp-orig))
         (emacs-buffer-p (buffer-name)))
        (next-non-emacs-buffer tmp-orig))))

(defun previous-non-emacs-buffer (&optional original)
  "Similar to previous-buffer, but ignores emacs buffer such as *scratch*, *messages* etc."
  (interactive)
  (let ((tmp-orig (or original (buffer-name))))
    (previous-buffer)
    (if (and
         (not (eq (buffer-name) tmp-orig))
         (emacs-buffer-p (buffer-name)))
        (previous-non-emacs-buffer tmp-orig))))

and re-mapped "C-b", "M-b"(I never used their default keybindings anyway) to them

(global-set-key (kbd "C-b") 'next-non-emacs-buffer)
(global-set-key (kbd "M-b") 'previous-non-emacs-buffer)

Now if, occasionally, I want to goto emacs auto buffers then I can still use "C-x <left/right arrow>".

my emacs cheat-sheet

This post will be a record of my random emacs cheats, will keep on updating it whenever I learn something new.

Navigation:
C-a -- Go to start of current line
M-m --Go to start of the current line after the whitespaces
C-e -- Go to end of current line
M-a -- Go to start of current sentence
M-e -- Go to end of current sentence
C-n -- goto next line
C-p -- goto prev line
C-f -- forward char
M-f -- forward word
C-b -- backward char
M-b -- backward word
M-r -- reposition point to centre/top/bottom of the page without scroll
C-v -- Scroll one page down
M-v -- Scroll one page up
C-M-v --Scroll other window
C-l -- Bring current line to the centre
C-< -- Go to start of buffer
C-> -- Go to end of buffer
M-g g -- Go to a particular line

Dired Mode Tips:
o -- open file in other buffer and move cursor there
C-o -- open file in other buffer but dont move cursor
g -- refresh dir listing
^ -- go to parent director
q -- close directory
D -- delete file/dir
+ -- create new directory
R -- rename/move file
C -- copy file

m -- mark a file
u -- unmark a file
U -- unmark all

Essential Org Mode:
tab / shift-tab : fold / unfold
M-up/down : move a headine up/down
M-RET : enter a new headline
M-left/right : increase/decrease indentation of an item but not its children
M-S-left/right : increase/decrease indentation of an item and its children
C-c C-n/p : next/previous heading
C-c C-f/b : next/previous heading, same level
C-c C-u : backward to higher level heading
S-up/down : previous/next plain list item
you can have lists. unordered list start with -/+/*  and ordered list start with number and dot e.g. 1., 2.
list line which is a  term and its description can be written as term :: description
also you can make words *bold*, /italic/, _underlined_, =code=, ~verbatim~ and +strike-through+


IDO Mode Tips:
C-f -- go to open file selection
C-b -- go back to open buffer selection
C-j -- open directory in dired mode
C-g -- cancel

Mark:

C-SPC -- Set mark at current location
C-x C-x -- Swap mark and point (or go back to most recent mark location, this can be used to go to and fro start-end of just yanked text)
C-u C-SPC -- Cycle through mark ring(stores last 16 mark locations)

Copy/Cut/Kill:
C-k -- cuts/kills current line
C-w -- cuts/kills region
M-w -- copies/save-on-kill-ring region

Yank/Paste:
C-y -- paste most recent copy/cut
M-y -- replace pasted text with earlier copied/cut text

Undo:
C-/ OR C-_ OR C-x u

Search/Replace:
C-s -- Forward search [Use M-c to toggle case-sensitivity]
C-r -- Backward search
C-s C-w -- Search the word under cursor
C-s C-s -- repeat last search query
M-% -- query replace, y for yes, n for no, ! for all
C-M-s -- regex forward search
C-M-% -- regex query replace

when in Search mode you can use..
M-c --toggle case sensitivity
M-n, M-p --go through history of past searches
(Regexp Syntax on Emacs Wiki and "M-x regexp-builder" can be useful)

Macros:
C-x ( -- Start recording a macro
C-x ) -- Finish recording a macro
C-x e -- Call the macro

Repeats:
C-u <n> -- Repeat a command n times
C-M-0 to C-M-9
M-0 to M-9
C-0 to C-9

Font:
Increase Buffer Font Size: C-x C-+
Decrease Buffer Font Size: C-x C--

Windows:
C-x +  -- balance size of all windows

Dynamic Abbreviation Expand:
M-/ -- call command dabbrev-expand

Line-Endings:
Call set-buffer-file-coding-system, then give a value of "mac", "dos", "unix". For details, see http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_line_ending_char.html

Deleting-Lines:
M-x flush-lines RET <regex>  RET (To delete empty lines regex would be ^\s-*\$ )

Typing Ctrl-<char> :
C-q C-<char>
C-q C-j (for newline char)

Cancel:
C-g

Editing Remotely:
You can open file or dired buffer using "/ssh:user@remote_host_or_ip:/path/to/file_or_dir"
You can use emacs bookmarks for remote hosts visited frequently. Also, you can run eshell on a buffer visiting remote file/dir and that eshell will effectively be running on the remote machine.

Other Important ones:
kill-rectangle, yank-rectangle, delete-rectangle
delete-trailing-whitespace, delete-whitespace-rectangle

Emacs Daemon:
emacs --daemon[=optional_name] #starts daemon
emacsclient -c [-n] #in a X window, -n to return control to terminal
emacsclient -t #run in terminal
emacsclient -e "(kill-emacs)" #kill daemon from shell
(kill-emacs) or (save-buffers-kill-emacs) #kill daemon from within emacs frame
You might want to set following env variables..
EDITOR=emacsclient -c
VISUAL=emacsclient -c

Finding Help:
C-h k -- find out what a key does
C-h m -- info about currently active modes
C-h f -- describe a function
C-h a -- type a regex/string and find info about it
M-x describe-bindings -- list all key bindings
Use menu on top to see [mode specific] key shortcuts

Tips:
Use Incremental search for jumping around
Use repeat functionality wherever you can
Use M-/ for auto word completion

Others:
GNU Emacs Manual
GNU Emacs-Lisp Reference Manual
Org Mode Basics
Org Mode Key bindings

running cygwin bash within emacs

I've used cygwin on windows for a long time and I don't like the cygwin interface that much. So, I decided to run cygwin bash from within emacs. I put following(found here) in my emacs init file:

(defun cygwin-shell ()
  "Run cygwin bash in shell mode."
  (interactive)
  (let ((explicit-shell-file-name
          "C:/path/to/cygwin/bin/bash"))
    (call-interactively 'shell)))

Now, I can do "Meta-x cygwin-shell RET" to run bash inside emacs and get all the editing power of emacs :) .
PS: Don't forget to append "C:/path/to/cygwin/bin/" to PATH or else most of the commands like ls, grep etc would not work.

emacs on windows and org-mode

Since last couple of weeks I have found it hard to manage my todo list, notes and specially book reading notes. I googled about how people manage their reading notes and got to know about org-mode for emacs that allows one to do all of the above and much more. It comes prepackaged from emacs version 22, so I thought the easiest way to get it was to upgrade my emacs on windows.
I downloaded emacs-22.3 here, extracted it in C:\Program Files and then created a shortcut for runemacs.exe (found in bin/ of extracted archive) in D:\bin(this is where I keep all my shortcuts and add it to PATH so that I can start them from command prompt).