How to use one instance of emacs as the default text editor? [Linux]

Question

What I would like to achieve

• one instance of emacs
• if i open any text file from nautilus, it should open in the current emacs instance
• if i close emacs, it shouldn't really close it, just hide it

What I have currently

• I set emacs23 to start at startup
• I have (start-server) in my init
• I leave emacs open
• I have emacsclient as the default texteditor

Issues I encountered while trying to achieve what I wanted

• emacs gives the following error if i quit emacs and try to start it again

File error: Cannot bind server socket, address already in use

Things I tried

• emacs wiki

• stackoverflow

• emacs fu

Update: I tried again with the stackoverflow link, and now most of it is working. However, something I would like to be able to do is to reload the init file, so that I can make changes to my init file without restarting the computer. Any ideas?

Also, if the server is running and I have emacs false-closed (see emacs fu link), how can i start it again without loading a file? eg what would the equivalent of running emacs23 be, as this doesn't work (see error written above)

Answer 1

• remove (start-server) from .emacs
• use emacsclient "$@" -a "" to start emacs whether it is running or not

If you save emacsclient "$@" -a "" as a script e.g. in editor file then editor -c creates a new frame, editor -t opens new frame in the terminal, and editor FILE visits FILE in an existing frame. It starts emacs server if it is not running.