Can Emacs be used as a text editor component inside another program?

Question

I am specifically inspired by the Python IDE Spyder. Here, for example IPython can be used as Python console for running programs. I was wondering if there could be any hope of modifying it to use Emacs as its "text editor window" as well, i.e. integrated into the GUI?

Answer 1

(Spyder dev here) This is not possible right now, sorry. There are two options we are considering for the future:

1. Adding Emacs keybindings to our editor pane.

2. Adding a Qt widget that emulates a real terminal, where users can start Emacs and then use it as their editor.

Perhaps option 2 is the best one but I don't know of such a widget that is licensed BSD/MIT (the only licenses we can use).