To make emacs more modern looking in v26, you can enable a “natural title bar” (the color of title bar matches the color of the buffer).
Compile emacs with the right flags (using railwaycat/homebrew-emacsmacport):
brew install emacs-mac --with-natural-title-bar
Add the settings to your init.el:
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(ns-transparent-titlebar . t))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(ns-appearance . dark))
(setq ns-use-proxy-icon nil)
(setq frame-title-format nil)
Hide the document icon:
defaults write org.gnu.Emacs HideDocumentIcon YES
Restart and enjoy a modern looking emacs.
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Turn Emacs into a Focused Writing Tool
Emacs can be customized to create a beautiful, focused writing environment akin to Ulysses, iA Writer, Bear, or other minimalist markdown editors.