John Gruber had to write an AppleScript to ‘Save MarsEdit Document to Text File’. With Microbe, my 99% Gemini-generated first attempt to create a Micro.blog client in Emacs, this function came built in without my having to specify it. Now, I am yet to add an actual Draft status to the Microbe posts. But since I post these as soon as I write them without much time left to simmer, for better or worse, this has not been a priority. Since the interface for composing posts is just another Emacs buffer you can save it as a text file as you would any other buffer: with a C-x C-s. Which is to say, Ctrl-x, then Ctrl-s. Emacs' propensity towards shortcuts extends to the text descriptions of the shortcuts themselves.
The functionality comes for free, but let’s face it Emacs is not the prettiest thing to look at right out of the box, and to my knowledge there is no way to beautify that toolbar. I had a feeling it was the antithesis to Gruber’s design sense, and that was indeed the case as far back as 2002 when he described it as being “at opposing end of the spectrum” from his favorite text editor, BBEdit. Of course, some implementations are worse than others. There was a positive mention, albeit inderectly, when Gruber quoted from an interview with Donald Knuth. In it, Knuth mentioned that:
I have special Emacs modes to help me classify all the tens of thousands of papers and notes in my files, and special Emacs keyboard shortcuts that make bookwriting a little bit like playing an organ.
This is the power of Emacs: to make you forget about its (lack of) interface because it is the Hole Hawg of text, all the more powerful now that generative AI can create custom modes in a blink. You will look at it in awe even as it leaves you dangling from a ladder.