[OS X Emacs] Using emacsclient under OS X

[Rainer M Krug]

Hi

I have installed emacs from homebrew, and I would like to use
emacsclient.

I an using the following script, found at [1]:

,----
| #!/bin/bash
| 
| # This script starts emacs daemon if it is not running, opens whatever file
| # you pass in and changes the focus to emacs.  Without any arguments, it just
| # opens the current buffer or *scratch* if nothing else is open.  The following
| # example will open ~/.bashrc
| 
| # ec ~/.bashrc
| 
| # You can also pass it multiple files, it will open them all.  Unbury-buffer
| # will cycle through those files in order
| 
| # The compliment to the script is et, which opens emacs in the terminal
| # attached to a daemon
| 
| # If you want to execute elisp, pass in -e whatever.
| # You may also want to stop the output from returning to the terminal, like
| # ec -e "(message \"Hello\")" > /dev/null
| 
| # emacsclient options for reference
| # -a "" starts emacs daemon and reattaches
| # -c creates a new frame
| # -n returns control back to the terminal
| # -e eval the script
| 
| # Number of current visible frames,
| # Emacs daemon always has a visible frame called F1
| visible_frames() {
|   emacsclient -a "" -e '(length (visible-frame-list))'
| }
| 
| change_focus() {
|   emacsclient -n -e "(select-frame-set-input-focus (selected-frame))" > /dev/null
| }
| 
| # try switching to the frame incase it is just minimized
| # will start a server if not running
| test "$(visible_frames)" -eq "1" && change_focus
| 
| if [ "$(visible_frames)" -lt  "2" ]; then # need to create a frame
|   # -c $@ with no args just opens the scratch buffer
|   emacsclient -n -c "$@" && change_focus
| else # there is already a visible frame besides the daemon, so
|   change_focus
|   # -n $@ errors if there are no args
|   test  "$#" -ne "0" && emacsclient -n "$@"
| fi
`----

It works nicely from the terminal, but I have two problems:

1) Even though the script works from the terminal, it does not work when
I call it from the automator script as it tells me that it can't find a
running emacs server, although it should start it, which it does from
the terminal. The same when it is already started from the terminal.

2) When using R under ESS, I can't plot, as it does not find X11

These two points made me think, that the emacsclient is somehow not
running in the same environment as the graphical UI / app launchers
are. 

I guess that if the first problem is solved, the second one will also be
solved.
 
Any suggestions on how I can use emacsclient under mac, via an automator
app?

Thanks,

Rainer


Footnotes: 
[1]  http://mjwall.com/blog/2013/10/04/how-i-use-emacs/

-- 
Rainer M. Krug

email: RMKrug<at>gmail<dot>com