the gnu emacs software suite, with this configuration, allows for c development features such as auto complete, syntax highlighting, and source code navigation, through its system of keybindings. although it has a steep learning curve, when fully comfortable with its feature set it becomes a valuable asset to any programmer, or internet centric user

gnu emacs was originally written for freebsd by richard stallman, who i believe, is the internet devil, who has for the longest time occupied internet hell in order to combat internet god, who chances are is like, well, in the cloud? whatever

this article is for someone already family with emacs

with these instructions you should have a complete c developemnt environment for emacs, sorry i cant just tarball the ~/.emacs.d dir but yeah, im worred about security issues as it is lol

first you'll need to add melpa, the oldest running freebsd addon site on the internet, for reference, and i believe you can trust this website, is

(add-to-list 'package-archives
'("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/") t)

add that to your ~/.emacs.d/init.el file, and tye in M-x (which M' is default alt on many terminals, including freebsd/linux and i believe emacs on macos binds the 'option' key to M) and type in eval-buffer, this parses the file in the current buffer and loads all configured libraries into memory

then type M-x, then list-packages

this should pull the most recent list of emacs addons

then, search for (its C-s on my emacs, which is control+s, repeat searches are done through C-s) and install these packages:

flycheck
flycheck-pkg-config
company
company-c-headers

you'll also need semantic mode, which is a major mode for emacs that provides auto completion

also note you will need a c file loaded into the current window (meaning the active buffer in emacs) to properly execute some commands

just click if on graphical client or if youre on the terminal, put the terminal cursor under the underlined package name, hit enter, and use C-x o (thats press control and x together, then immediately after press o, takes some experimenting to get used to)
anyways, after those packages are installed, load the lisp functions by doing M-x, and loading: company-mode, flycheck-mode, semantic-mode

C-x o (press control and x, and RIGHT after press o in sequence) swiches between emacs windows

after theyre successfully loaded, youre going to have to configure semantic to load the directory where your gtk libraries are installed, since you cant portably do /usr/local/gtk4 because in that directory is another gtk/ directory and that breaks compatability

type in M-x semantic-customize-system-include-path and add the directory where the gtk directory is, in my case /opt/homebrew/Cellar/gtk4/4.16.12/include/gtk-4.0

then click apply and save, it should reload this configuration everytime semantic is loaded with a compatible source file, ie if writing c, file extentnion must be .c

after that, while all the noted addons are loaded, type in M-x flycheck-pkg-config and type in 'gtk4' (or whatever your pkg-config name is for gtk, if youre using pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk4 to compile gtk, then you would type in gtk4, if you would type pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-3.0, you would type in gtk+-3.0

this configures syntax highlighting for the specified library for flycheck, a well noted syntax highlighting framework for emacs

you can also download the function-args module from melpa and you can bind or execute fa-show and it will show your function arguments, not sure if theres a man page addon for emacs but yeah

heres my init.el, if you just download the packages i listed above it will bind CTRL-` to show function arguments (which arent as descriptive as xcode), CTRL-TAB to an auto complete window (meaning if you type in gtk_window it will show all similar functions, and Gtk would show all gtk structures. company works on pretty much 99.99% of c's defined functionality along with flycheck). the lisp functions load at run time too
but here you go

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/") t)
;; Comment/uncomment this line to enable MELPA Stable if desired. See `package-archive-priorities`
;; and `package-pinned-packages`. Most users will not need or want to do this.
;;(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/") t)
(package-initialize)

(custom-set-variables
;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
'(package-selected-packages
'(anaconda-mode autumn-light-theme company-anaconda company-box
company-c-headers company-irony
company-irony-c-headers company-web
exec-path-from-shell flycheck flycheck-pkg-config
flymake-ruff function-args jdee python-coverage
python-mode))
'(semantic-c-dependency-system-include-path
'("/opt/homebrew/Cellar/glib/2.82.4/include/glib-2.0" "/usr/include"
"/opt/homebrew/Cellar/gtk4/4.16.12/include/gtk-4.0"
"/opt/homebrew/Cellar/openssl@3/3.4.0/include"
"/opt/homebrew/Cellar/openssl@3/3.4.0/include"
"/opt/homebrew/Cellar/libgcrypt/1.11.0/include"
"/opt/homebrew/opt/libgpg-error/include")))
(custom-set-faces
;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
)
(add-to-list 'exec-path "/opt/homebrew/bin/")
(semantic-mode t)
(global-company-mode t)
(global-flycheck-mode t)

(function-args-mode t)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-`") 'fa-show)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-") 'company-semantic)

with everything setup, you should be able to write gtk programs in emacs on pretty much any supported operated system and suggested development toolchain

this configuration also works for pretty much any supported development environment, including the freebsd and linux kernel with configuration!

!!!
unidef