Emacs auto-complete-mode at startup

Question

I just install auto-complete-mode, however everytime I start emacs I have to M-x auto-complete-mode. Is there anyway to have it loaded automatically ?

My .emacs is as follows:

;; auto-complete
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/")
(require 'auto-complete-config)
(add-to-list 'ac-dictionary-directories "~/.emacs.d//ac-dict")
(ac-config-default)

Thanks

Solution 1

I think you can do it in various ways. To enable it globally you should use

(global-auto-complete-mode t)

But it uses auto-complete-mode-maybe, which turn AC on only those listed in ac-modes. You can add them manually just like this

(add-to-list 'ac-modes 'sql-mode)

You can make your own list if you wish AC be active only for few modes

(setq ac-modes '(c++-mode sql-mode))

Or rewrite it to have AC everywhere.

(defun auto-complete-mode-maybe ()
  "No maybe for you. Only AC!"
  (auto-complete-mode 1))

edited:

Autocomplete in minibuffer is bad. I think this will be better.

(defun auto-complete-mode-maybe ()
  "No maybe for you. Only AC!"
  (unless (minibufferp (current-buffer))
    (auto-complete-mode 1)))

Solution 2

I just needed this:

(require 'auto-complete)
(global-auto-complete-mode t)

added to my .emacs.d/init.el file.

I installed auto-complete with the package manager. I'm using Emacs 24.

Comments

[William Everett]

It may be helpful to point out that you need a (require 'auto-complete) somewhere before (global-auto-complete-mode t) is executed.

[Mike Vella]

I found (setq ac-modes '(c++-mode sql-mode)) to be the easiest way (and least ambiguous) to accomplish what I wanted.

[xxks-kkk]

Please alert even with this setting, AC mode will not be turned on for every mode. For instance, AC mode will not work in ReST mode without rewrite auto-complete-mode-maybe () like the accepted answer.

[Sonny]

None of these options work for me on emacs 24.3.1 on Ubuntu x86. I see that the status on the modeline (AC) but none of the AC features work, and I know they do because I used to turn it on manually using M-x auto-complete-mode. What worked for me was in emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/18982/…

[alper]

Should I press TAB ? @Frank Henard

[alper]

How could I assign a key-binding for auto-complete-mode-maybe ? @desudesudesu