Try

Try is a packages that allow you to try out Emacs packages without installing them. If you pass a URL to a plain-text .el-file it evaluates the content, without storing the file.

Packages from ELPA will temporarily be stored in /tmp/ by default.

Installation

You can install Try using elpa.

It's available on marmalade and melpa:

M-x package-install try

Usage

Remember to make packages from your package-archives available for download with

M-x package-refresh-contents

if you haven't already.

Then to try out a package you can run

M-x try RET some-package

Or if you want to try out some package from the web, just paste in the URL

M-x try RET https://url.com/to/some/file.el

Example

If you for instance have melpa in your package-archives you can try multiple cursors by running:

M-x try RET multiple-cursors RET

If you on the other hand want to test out a single .el-file from somewhere you can simply insert an URL. Trying out Leuven-theme can be done by running:

M-x try RET https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fniessen/emacs-leuven-theme/master/leuven-theme.el RET

Unfortunately, you won't be able to try Try with M-x try RET try.