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-
-
-Emacs Beginner's HOWTO
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!!Emacs Beginner's HOWTO
-
-!!Jeremy D. Zawodny:
-Jeremy@Zawodny.comv1.12, 2001-03-25
-
-
-----
-''This document introduces Linux users to the Emacs editor. It assumes
-minimal familiarity with vi or a similar editor. The latest
-version of this document is usually available from
-http://www.wcnet.org/jzawodn/emacs/''
-----
-
-
-
-
-!!1. Introduction
-
-
-*1.1 Copyright
-
-*1.2 Audience and Intent
-
-*1.3 What is Emacs?
-
-
-
-
-
-!!2. Running Emacs
-
-
-*2.1 Starting & Quitting Emacs
-
-*2.2 Some Terminology
-
-*2.3 Keyboard Basics
-
-*2.4 Tutorial, Help, & Info
-
-
-
-
-
-!!3. Emacs Modes
-
-
-*3.1 Major vs. Minor Modes
-
-*3.2 Programming Modes
-
-*3.3 Authoring
-
-*3.4 Other Modes
-
-
-
-
-
-!!4. Customizing Emacs
-
-
-*4.1 Temporary Customization
-
-*4.2 Using a .emacs File
-
-*4.3 The Customize Package
-
-*4.4 X Windows Display
-
-
-
-
-
-!!5. Popular Packages
-
-
-*5.1 VM (Mail)
-
-*5.2 Gnus (Mail and News)
-
-*5.3 BBDB (A rolodex)
-
-*5.4 AucTeX (another TeX mode)
-
-
-
-
-
-!!6. Other Resources
-
-
-*6.1 Books
-
-*6.2 Web Sites
-
-*6.3 Newsgroups
-
-*6.4 Mailing Lists
-
-*6.5 The Emacs Lisp Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-!!7. Credits
-----
-
-!! 1. Introduction
-
-!!1.1 Copyright
-
-
-
-Copyright (c) 1998 - 2001 Jeremy D. Zawodny. Permission to
-distribute and modify this document is granted under the GNU General
-Public License. An on-line copy is available at
-http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
-
-
-
-!!1.2 Audience and Intent
-
-
-
-This document is targeted at the Linux user interested in learning
-a bit about Emacs and trying it out. This actually began as the
-outline of a brief tutorial that I was to give at a Toledo Area Linux
-User Group meeting:
-http://www.talug.org/. It has since grown a bit as the result of
-the helpful feedback I have received from the community. See the
-Credits section for details.
-
-
-
-
-
-Having said that, there is virtually nothing Linux-specific in this
-document. It applies to virtually all flavors of Unix and even Emacs
-running on Microsoft Windows. But since this document is part of the
-Linux Documentation Project, I make a point of saying that it was
-developed for Linux users--because it was.
-
-
-
-
-
-And finally, those of you who prefer the name GNU/Linux to simply
-``Linux'' (read
-http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html to see why one might)
-are welcomed to mentally substitute GNU/Linux for all occurrences of
-Linux in this document. While I don't disagree with the reasoning and
-spirit behind that idea, I don't feel compelled to write GNU/Linux.
-
-
-
-
-!!1.3 What is Emacs?
-
-
-
-Emacs is different things to different people. Depending who you
-ask, you'll could get any of the following responses:
-
-
-
-
-
-*Text Editor
-*
-
-*Mail Client
-*
-
-*News Reader
-*
-
-*Word Processor
-*
-
-*Religion
-*
-
-*Integrated Development Environment
-*
-
-*Whatever you want it to be!
-
-*
-
-
-
-
-
-
-But for our purposes, let's just pretend it's a text editor--an
-amazingly flexible text editor. We'll dig deeper into the question
-later on. Emacs was written by Richard Stallman (founder of the Free
-Software Foundation:
-http://www.fsf.org/ and the GNU project
-http://www.gnu.org/) and he still
-maintains it today.
-
-
-
-
-
-Emacs is one of the most popular and powerful text editors used on
-Linux (and Unix). It is second in popularity only to __vi__. It
-is known for it huge feature set, ability to be easily customized, and
-lack of bugs. It's large feature set and ability to be customized
-actually are the result of how Emacs was designed and
-implemented. Without going into all the details, I'll simply point out
-that Emacs isn't ``just an editor''. It is an editor written mostly in
-the programming language __Lisp__. At the core of Emacs is a
-full-featured Lisp interpreter written in C. Only the most basic and
-low-level pieces of Emacs are written in C. The majority of the editor
-is actually written in Lisp. So, in a sense, Emacs has an entire
-programming language ``built in'' which you can use to customize,
-extend, and change its behavior.
-
-
-
-
-
-Emacs is also one of the oldest editors around. The fact that is
-has been used by thousands of programmers over the past 20 (?) years
-means that there are many add-on packages available. These add-ons
-allow you to make Emacs do things that Stallman had probably never
-dreamed possible when he first began work on Emacs. More on that
-in a later section.
-
-
-
-
-
-There are many other web sites and documents which give a better
-overview of Emacs, its history, and related matters. Rather than
-attempt to reproduce much of that here, I suggest that you check out
-some of the places listed in Section
-Other Resources section of this document.
-
-
-
-
-!Ports and Versions
-
-
-It's worth pointing out that there are actually two different Emacs
-editors: GNU Emacs and XEmacs. Both come from the same heritage and
-share most of the same features. This document focuses on GNU Emacs
-(version 20.3, specifically) but much of what you'll read here will
-apply just as well to XEmacs and earlier versions of GNU
-Emacs. Throughout this document I will simply refer to ``Emacs''. When
-I do so, bear that in mind.
-
-
-
-
-!Getting Emacs
-
-
-Getting Emacs is easy. If you are using a popular Linux
-distribution like Debian, !RedHat, Slackware, or any of the others,
-Emacs is probably an optional package that you can install from your
-distribution media. If not, you can get the Emacs source code and
-compile it yourself. Visit the GNU web site for the exact location:
-http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html
-
-
-----
-
-!! 2. Running Emacs
-
-!!2.1 Starting & Quitting Emacs
-
-
-
-As a new user, you'll probably want to launch Emacs just to mess
-around and try it out. Once you're into Emacs and want to exit,
-however, you may not be able to figure out what to do. So if you've
-never used Emacs before, give it a shot right now. At your shell
-prompt, type emacs and hit enter. Emacs should start up. If
-not, it is either not installed or not in your path.
-
-
-
-
-
-Once you've seen Emacs, you need to know how to exit. The
-keystrokes for leaving Emacs are C-x C-c. The C-x
-notation means hold down the Ctrl key and press
-x. In this case, you'll then need to hold down Ctrl
-and press c to finish the task.
-
-
-
-
-
-The keystrokes used in Emacs will likely seem odd, foreign, and
-maybe even uncomfortable to you at first--especially if you're a
-vi user. Unlike vi, Emacs doesn't have separate
-modes for editing text and issuing commands.
-
-
-
-
-
-To re-cap: emacs will start Emacs. C-x C-c will
-exit Emacs.
-
-
-
-
-!What you'll see
-
-
-When Emacs starts up it will consume a whole X window (or screen if
-you're running on a console instead of in the X Window System). You'll
-see a menu across the top, some text in the main part of the screen,
-and a couple of lines at the bottom.
-
-
-
-
-
-It will look something like this ASCII sketch:
-
-
-
-
-+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
-|Buffers Files Tools Edit Search Mule Help |
-| |
-|Welcome to GNU Emacs, one component of a Linux-based GNU system. |
-| |
-| |
-| |
-| ... |
-| |
-|---1:---F1 *scratch* (Lisp Interaction)--L1--All-------------|
-|For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p. |
-+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
-
-
-
-
-
-
-__NOTE:__ Emacs will usually fill the entire
-screen/window. I've shrunk the above example to save space here. You
-will also see a welcome message in Emacs when you first start it. I
-omitted that as well and substituted ``...'' instead. The
-welcome message simply identifies the exact version of Emacs you are
-using as well as pointing you to the on-line help and related items.
-
-
-
-
-!The Menu Bar
-
-
-The topmost line of the Emacs interface is a menu. If you're
-running X, you'll recognize them as traditional pull-down menus that
-you can access using your mouse. Otherwise you'll need to use keyboard
-shortcuts (not covered here) for accessing the menus.
-
-
-
-
-!The Status Bar and Mini-buffer
-
-
-Of the last two lines in the Emacs interface, the topmost one is
-essentially a status bar. It contains information about the buffer
-you're working in, which mode Emacs is in, and various other
-things. For now, just realize that it's there.
-
-
-
-
-
-The bottommost line is called the __mini-buffer__. It is
-separated from the main buffer by the status bar we just
-discussed. You can think of the mini-buffer as the Emacs
-``command-line''. It is where commands that you give Emacs appear and
-it is where status messages are printed in response to things you do.
-
-
-
-
-
-You'll find that what I've called the status bar is usually referred
-to as the mode line in Emacs related documentation. It is where Emacs
-displays information about the current modes(s) you may be using as
-well as things like the current date and time, line number, file size,
-and almost anything else you might want to see there.
-
-
-
-
-!!2.2 Some Terminology
-
-
-
-This section covers the most basic of Emacs terminology that you'll
-encounter when using and reading about Emacs.
-
-
-
-
-!Buffers & Files
-
-
-Unlike some editors, when you open a file in Emacs it does not stay
-``open'' the entire time you're working with it. Instead, Emacs reads
-the file into a __buffer__ in memory. While you're editing the
-buffer and working with the data nothing is changed on disk. Only when
-you actually save the buffer does the file on disk get updated. There
-are advantages and disadvantages to this approach but it is only
-important that you understand that it works this way.
-
-
-
-
-
-As a consequence, you will see the term ``buffer'' used in Emacs
-documentation, modes, packages, and so on. Just realize that buffer
-means ``a copy of the file that is currently in memory.'' Oh, it's
-worth pointing out that a buffer doesn't always have to refer to a
-specific file on disk. Often times Emacs will create buffers as the
-result of commands you run. Such buffers may contain the result of the
-command, a list of selections to pick from, and so on.
-
-
-
-
-!Point & Region
-
-
-In Emacs lingo, you'll often hear or see references to the
-__point__. In general terms the point is the cursor. The actual
-distinction between the point and cursor probably isn't important when
-you're first starting out with Emacs. But if you are curious, think
-about it this way. The cursor is the visual representation of the
-point. The cursor is always ``on'' a particular character position in
-the current buffer. The point, on the other hand, lives in the space
-''between characters'' on in the buffer. So you might say that if
-the cursor is on the letter `h' in the word ``the'' then the point is
-between the `t' and the `h'.
-
-
-
-
-
-Like many modern editors, Emacs allows to perform operations
-(indent, spell-check, reformat, cut, copy, paste, ...) on a section of
-the current buffer. You can highlight (or ``mark'') a block of text
-using the keyboard or mouse and then perform operations on just the
-selected block of text. In Emacs, that block of text is called a
-__region__.
-
-
-
-
-!Windows
-
-
-Okay, this will be a bit confusing to anyone who has ever used a
-GUI interface before. Just remember that Emacs was developed long
-before GUI interfaces and window managers were popular.
-
-
-
-
-
-A __window__ in Emacs is an area of the screen in which a
-buffer is displayed. When Emacs is first started, you have one window
-on your screen. Some Emacs functions (such as the help and
-documentation) often
[[temporarily
] open up additional windows in your
-Emacs screen.
-
-
-
-
-
-Emacs windows have nothing to do with X windows in the GUI
-sense. You can open up additional X windows to display Emacs buffers,
-maybe to compare two files side by side. Those new X windows are
-referred to as __frames__ in Emacs lingo. Read on.
-
-
-
-
-!Frames
-
-
-In Emacs, a __frame__ is a separate X window in which an Emacs
-buffer is displayed. But both are part of the same Emacs session. The
-behavior is somewhat (but not too much) like what happens if you hit
-Alt+N in Netscape Navigator.
-
-
-
-
-!!2.3 Keyboard Basics
-
-
-
-This section covers the basics of keyboarding for Emacs. Like every
-powerful editor, everything that you can do with Emacs is just a few
-keystrokes away.
-
-
-
-
-
-If you're a vi user, the notion of using the k, j, l,
-h keys to move up a line, down a line, forward by a character,
-and backward by a character probably took some getting used to. In
-fact, it might have taken you a few hours or even weeks of practice
-before you could comfortably navigate a file using the various key
-combinations available in vi.
-
-
-
-
-
-Emacs is no different. There are different keystrokes and commands
-to learn. Just like vi, you only need to master the basics to
-get a lot of work done. Then, as time goes on, you can slowly expand
-your knowledge and find faster ways of doing things.
-
-
-
-
-!Command Keys (Meta, Esc, Control, and Alt)
-
-
-As you'll soon learn, Emacs makes heavy use of multi-key
-combinations. Because it is not a modal editor like vi, you
-don't have to think about being in ``command mode'' or ``editing
-mode'' before you can try to move the cursor or execute a
-command. Instead, you just press the right combination of keys and
-Emacs does as told (usually).
-
-
-
-
-
-The keys that Emacs makes the most use of are usually abbreviated in
-the documentation as C (for Control or Ctrl) and M
-for (Meta). While most modern PC keyboards have one or more keys
-labeled Ctrl few have one labeled Meta. You'll want
-to mentally substitute either Esc or Alt for the Meta
-key. In most standard configurations, both Esc and Alt do essentially
-the same thing.
-
-
-
-
-
-So when you see a reference in any Emacs related documentation to
-C-x f it means ``press control-x and then f.'' And if you see
-a reference to something like M-x shell is means ``press
-alt-x and type the word shell''.
-
-
-
-
-
-A very useful command for beginners is M-x apropos or
-C-h a. apropos will search the Emacs on-line documentation
-for all functions and search for the regular expression you type. This
-is a great way to discover all commands related to frames. Simply
-C-h a and then frame.
-
-
-
-
-!Moving Around in a Buffer
-
-
-Now that you know what all those fancy abbreviations mean,
here's a
-list of the most common keystrokes for moving within a buffer:
-
-
-
-
-Keystrokes Action
------------------------------------
-C-p Up one line
-C-n Down one line
-C-f Forward one character
-C-b Backward one character
-C-a Beginning of line
-C-e End of line
-C-v Down one page
-M-v Up one page
-M-f Forward one word
-M-b Backward one word
-M-< Beginning of buffer
-M-> End of buffer
-C-g Quit current operation
------------------------------------
-
-
-
-
-
-
-And, as you might expect, the cursor keys (or arrow keys) usually
-work just as you'd expect. Your Backspace may not. That's
-another story. :-(
-
-
-
-
-!Essential Commands
-
-
-Okay, now that you know how to move around within a buffer what
-about opening and saving files? Search? Here are some basic commands.
-
-
-
-
-
-Before we jump straight to those commands, I need to briefly point
-out how this works.
-
-
-
-
-
-All ``command keystrokes'' in Emacs (those that are M-x
-something or C-something) are actually just shortcuts to
-functions which are part of Emacs. You can call any of those functions
-by typing M-x function-name and hitting Enter. You
-can also use the keyboard shortcut for that function (if it has one).
-
-
-
-
-
-For example, the Emacs function which saves a buffer to disk is
-called save-buffer. By default it is also bound to C-x
-C-s. So, you can either use they shortcut to save the current
-buffer, or you could type M-x save-buffer and achieve the
-exact same result.
-
-
-
-
-
-All of the most common functions have keyboard shortcuts by
-default. Some of them are listed below.
-
-
-
-
-Keystrokes Function Description
--------------------------------------------------------------------
-C-x C-s save-buffer Save the current buffer to disk
-C-x u undo Undo the last operation
-C-x C-f find-file Open a file from disk
-C-s isearch-forward Search forward for a string
-C-r isearch-backward Search backward for a string
-replace-string Search & replace for a string
-replace-regexp Search & replace using regexp
-C-h t help-with-tutorial Use the interactive tutorial
-C-h f describe-function Display help for a function
-C-h v describe-variable Display help for a variable
-C-h x describe-key Display what a key sequence does
-C-h a apropos Search help for string/regexp
-C-h F view-emacs-FAQ Display the Emacs FAQ
-C-h i info Read the Emacs documentation
-C-x r m bookmark-set Set a bookmark. Useful in searches
-C-x r b bookmark-jump Jump to a bookmark.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
-
-
-
-
-As you try many of those functions, you'll notice that many will
-prompt you for input. They will always to do in the mini-buffer. This
-is similar to using the : commands in vi or most
-commands that you'd use within your favorite Unix shell.
-
-
-
-
-
-Emacs has literally hundreds of built-in functions available. The
-list above is a tiny sample that represents those that I use
-regularly. See the on-line help for a more complete listing of the
-available functions and more complete documentation on those I
-mentioned above.
-
-
-
-
-!Tab Completion
-
-
-Like many popular Unix shells (bash, csh, tcsh, ...) Emacs offers
-command completion via the Tab key. In fact, the command
-completion in bash was modeled after that in Emacs, so if you use that
-feature in bash you'll be right at home.
-
-
-
-
-
-As an example, try M-x search and then hit
-Tab. Emacs will append a hyphen to indicate that there are
-several possible completions but they all have a hyphen as the next
-character. Hit Tab once more and Emacs will display a list of
-the possible matches for you to choose from. Notice that it does so in
-a ''new window''. It temporarily splits your display into two
-windows: one which contains the buffer you were editing and the other
-contains the list of possible completions for ``search-''. You may hit
-C-g to exit out of the selection process and close the new
-window.
-
-
-
-
-!!2.4 Tutorial, Help, & Info
-
-
-
-Emacs comes with an on-line tutorial which walks you through the
-basic editing features and functions that everyone should know. It
-also explains how to use the other help features in Emacs.
-
-
-
-
-
-I highly recommend that you spend some time going through the
-tutorial if you plan on making a serious effort to learn Emacs. As
-shown in the table above, you can enter the tutorial via C-h
-t. The tutorial is self-guided and aimed at folks who are just
-getting started with Emacs.
-
-
-
-
-
-If you are running Emacs in X, you will see that the rightmost menu
-on the menu bar is labeled Help. As you explore the Help menu notice
-that some items have keyboard shortcuts and those are listed right in
-the menu.
-
-
-
-
-
-Finally, to see the volume of documentation available with Emacs,
-you should try M-x info or C-h i which launches
-Info, the Emacs documentation browser.
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!3. Emacs Modes
-
-
-Emacs modes are different behaviors and features which you can turn
-on or off (or customize, of course) for use in different
-circumstances. Modes are what make one editor (Emacs) equally useful
-for writing documentation, programming in a variety of languages (C,
-C++, Perl, Python, Java, and many more), creating a home page, sending
-E-Mail, reading Usenet news, keeping track of your appointments, and
-even playing games.
-
-
-
-
-
-Emacs modes are simply libraries of Lisp code that extend, modify,
-or enhance Emacs is some way.
-
-
-
-
-!!3.1 Major vs. Minor Modes
-
-
-
-There are fundamentally two types of modes available: Major and
-Minor. The distinction isn't the easiest thing to grasp until you've
-worked with a few of them off and on, but let's give it a shot.
-
-
-
-
-
-Only one major mode can be active at a given time. Many minor modes
-can be active at a given time. Major modes tend to be language or
-task-specific, while minor modes are smaller and less specific
-utilities that cut across many tasks.
-
-
-
-
-
-Sounds kind of abstract, so let's try an example. There's a mode
-that I use quite often when I'm writing plain old text files. It's
-called text-mode. This mode was designed for writing free
-form text like a README file. It understands how to identify words and
-paragraphs and generally makes sure that it does what I expect when I
-use the normal navigation keystrokes.
-
-
-
-
-
-When I'm writing text for human consumption, I typically want it
-to look good. It should be properly word-wrapped to a reasonable value
-and so on. To enable word wrapping I just turn on the
-auto-fill minor mode. This mode tries to do the Right Thing
-when I'm typing along and hit the end of the line. The fact that it is
-a minor mode means that it can work with several different major
-modes. My notion of the ``Right Thing'' to do when I hit the end of
-the line is different when I'm in text-mode than it is when
-I'm in java-mode for example. I don't want my Java code to be
-word-wrapped as if was English text. But I ''do'' want the blocks
-of comments in my Java code to be word wrapped! auto-fill
-mode is smart enough to figure that out.
-
-
-
-
-
-The authors of various Emacs modes have done a great job of making
-sure that things that should work as minor modes are minor modes.
-
-
-
-
-
-If you look back at that ASCII sketch of an Emacs screen, you'll
-notice that the mode line identifies the mode(s) that Emacs is in. In
-that case it was in a mode called ``Lisp Interaction'' which is the
-default mode. It's really only useful if you're going to be writing
-Lisp code. (But since most of Emacs is written in Lisp, why not?)
-
-
-
-
-!!3.2 Programming Modes
-
-
-
-First and foremost, Emacs was designed by a programmer for
-programmers. There are high-quality modes available for almost every
-popular programming language you can think of (and even some not so
-popular ones). I only briefly describe a few of them here.
-
-
-
-
-
-Most programming modes share some common characteristics. Usually,
-they'll do some or all of the following:
-
-
-
-
-
-*Provide color-syntax highlighting for the language.
-
-*
-
-*Provide automatic indentation and code formatting for the
-language.
-
-*
-
-*Provide context (language) sensitive help.
-
-*
-
-*Automatically interface with your debugger.
-
-*
-
-*Add language-specific menus to the menu bar.
-
-*
-
-
-
-
-
-
-In addition, there are some non-language specific modes that help
-out with tasks that are common to programming in many
-languages. Things like interfacing to your version control software,
-automatically adding comments to your code, creating Makefiles,
-updating Change Logs and so on.
-
-
-
-
-
-When you add all these modes together and consider the maturity and
-stability of the Emacs code, it compares quite nicely to commercially
-marketed Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) for languages like
-C++ and Java. And, of course, it's free.
-
-
-
-
-!C/C++/Java
-
-
-Because the syntax of C, C++, and Java are quite similar, there is
-one Emacs mode which handles all three languages (as well as
-Objective-C and IDL). It's a very mature and complete package and it
-included in the Emacs distribution. This mode is called either
-cc-mode or CC Mode.
-
-
-
-
-
-For more details or to download a newer version, visit
-http://www.python.org/emacs/.
-
-
-
-
-!Perl
-
-
-There are actually two modes for editing Perl code in Emacs. The
-first is called perl-mode (as you would expect) and the
-second is cperl-mode. I don't have a good grasp of this
-history and why there are two modes (the docs don't say), but it would
-appear that perl-mode was the original mode for editing Perl
-code in Emacs. It seems to have fewer features than
-cperl-mode and is lacking the ability to recognize some of
-Perl's fancier language constructs.
-
-
-
-
-
-Personally, I use and recommend cperl-mode which seems to
-be quite actively maintained and has just about every feature I could
-ever want. You can find the latest release here:
-ftp://ftp.math.ohio-state.edu/pub/users/ilya/emacs.
-
-
-
-
-
-But don't take my word for it. Try them both and pick the one that
-best meets your needs.
-
-
-
-
-!Python
-
-
-Python (another very popular scripting language) has an Emacs mode
-available for it as well. As far as I can tell, it is ''not''
-distributed with GNU Emacs but it distributed with XEmacs. It works
-quite well in both editors, though.
-
-
-
-
-
-You can get python-mode from the official Python web site
-http://www.python.org/emacs/python-mode/.
-
-
-
-
-!Others
-
-
-There are many many other editing modes available to help out
-programmers. Such modes help out with things like:
-
-
-
-
-
-*Shell Scripts (Bash, sh, ksh, csh, ...)
-*
-
-*Awk, Sed, Tcl, ...
-*
-
-*Makefiles
-*
-
-*Change Logs
-*
-
-*Documentation
-*
-
-*Debugging
-
-*
-
-
-
-
-
-
-And much more. See the last section of this document for more
-information on finding other modes and add-ins.
-
-
-
-
-!!3.3 Authoring
-
-
-
-Fancy Emacs modes are ''not'' limited to just those who write
-code. Folks writing documentation (of any sorts) can also benefit from
-a wide selection of Emacs modes.
-
-
-
-
-!Spell-Checking (ispell mode)
-
-
-Authors of many types of documents need to spell-check once in a
-while. If you have __GNU ispell__ installed, you can type M-x
-ispell and spell-check the current buffer. If ispell finds words
-that it doesn't know, it prompts you with a list of possible
-replacements and lets you select one (or none) of them. It's
-functionally equivalent to the spell-checkers in many popular non-free
-software packages.
-
-
-
-
-!HTML (html-helper mode)
-
-
-If you find yourself writing HTML files once in a while (or even a
-lot), you might want to try out html-helper-mode. It is
-available from
-http://www.santafe.edu/~nelson/tools/ as is the documentation
-and related stuff.
-
-
-
-
-
-As its name suggests, html-helper-mode provides lots of
-things to help out those folks who still write HTML by hand--the old
-fashioned way.
-
-
-
-
-!TeX (tex-mode)
-
-
-When you're writing documents in TeX, it's often helpful to get
-Emacs to add some color and highlight the backslashes, braces and
-other characters. tex-mode takes care of that for you.
-
-
-
-
-
-Though I don't write much directly in TeX anymore, when I did this
-mode proved to be quite helpful in making my TeX source a bit more
-readable.
-
-
-
-
-!SGML (sgml-mode)
-
-
-The document you're now reading was written in SGML (and probably
-converted to the format you're reading it in). sgml-mode
-provides all the basics for SGML documents: validation, highlighting,
-forward-tag, backward-tag, and much more. It is a standard part of
-Emacs.
-
-
-
-
-!!3.4 Other Modes
-
-
-
-Of course, there are lots of other handy modes to make life
-easier. Here's just a sampling of the popular ones:
-
-
-
-
-!Version Control (vc mode)
-
-
-vc mode interfaces with most of the popular version
-control back-ends (RCS, SCCS, CVS) to make it very easy to check files
-in and out, manage releases and so on. It is a standard part of Emacs
-and is documented in the Emacs documentation.
-
-
-
-
-!Shell Mode
-
-
-Why switch to another X window or virtual console just to run a few
-shell commands? Do it from within Emacs and save yourself the
-trouble. :-)
-
-
-
-
-
-M-x shell will launch a shell within an Emacs buffer. You
-can do most things with this buffer that you could do with a normal
-shell prompt (except for running full screen programs like vi
-or pine) because Emacs is talking to your real shell behind
-the scenes.
-
-
-
-
-
-This is a standard part of Emacs, too, so you'll find it documented
-in the Emacs docs.
-
-
-
-
-!Telnet and FTP
-
-
-Why switch to another X window or virtual console just to run telnet
-or FTP? Do it from within Emacs and save yourself the
-trouble. (Notice the pattern yet?)
-
-
-
-
-
-Just like running a shell inside of Emacs, you can telnet and
-ftp. Try M-x telnet or M-x ftp to experience it for
-yourself. See the documentation for all the gory details.
-
-
-
-
-!Man
-
-
-Why switch to another X window or virtual console just to read a
-manual page? Do it from within Emacs and save yourself the
-trouble. (I promise. I'll stop.)
-
-
-
-
-
-Just like running a shell inside of Emacs, you can read manual
-pages. Try M-x man to experience it for yourself. See the
-documentation for more.
-
-
-
-
-!Ange-FTP
-
-
-To quote the ange-ftp documentation:
-
-
-
-
-This package attempts to make accessing files and directories using
-FTP from within GNU Emacs as simple and transparent as possible. A
-subset of the common file-handling routines are extended to interact
-with FTP.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-That means you can treat files on remote machines as if there were
-local. So if you need to edit a file on a different computer, just
-tell Emacs to open it (using a slightly different path syntax) and it
-takes care of all the details of logging in and retrieving the
-file. Then, when you save the file via C-x C-s,
-ange-ftp intercepts the save and writes the file back to the
-remote machine.
-
-
-
-
-
-The slightly different path syntax goes like this... A file named
-``myfile'', in a ``user'''s directory, on a machine named
-``my.host.org'' can be opened by opening (C-x f) the file:
-
-
-
-
-/user@my.host.org:~user/myfile
-
-
-
-
-
-
-This, also, is a standard part of the Emacs distribution so you can
-find it documented in the Emacs documentation.
-
-
-
-
-
-Thanks to Etienne Grossmann (
-etienne@anonimo.isr.ist.utl.pt) for the example above.
-
-
-
-----
-
-!! 4. Customizing Emacs
-
-
-Virtually all Emacs customization is done via Lisp code. You can
-modify variables which influence the way Emacs operates or you can add
-new functions to Emacs (or override existing functions--replacing them
-with your own).
-
-
-
-
-!!4.1 Temporary Customization
-
-
-
-While experimenting with Emacs customization, you'll probably want
-to do it in a way that is temporary. If you do something horribly
-wrong, you can just C-x C-c to exit emacs and run it
-again. Once you've figured out what changes you'd like to make
-permanent, you can add them to your very own .emacs file so
-that they take effect every time you start Emacs. This is discussed in
-the next section.
-
-
-
-
-!Variable Assignments
-
-
-The easiest customizations are accomplished by changing the value
-of a variable in Emacs. The list code to do this looks like this:
-
-
-
-
-(setq variable-name new-value)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Where variable-name is the name of the variable and
-new-value is the value you'd like to give the variable. (In
-Lisp-speak, you're binding a variable to a value.) The setq
-function in lisp is analogous to the assignment operators (usually
-=) in other programming languages.
-
-
-
-
-
-__NOTE:__ I'm glossing over many details here for the sake of
-simplicity. You may also see me or others use the Lisp functions
-set and even setq-default. If you're really curious,
-feel free to look them up in an Emacs Lisp reference.
-
-
-
-
-
-Let's look at a line from my .emacs file
-
-
-
-
-(setq-default transient-mark-mode t)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-The variable transient-mark-mode controls whether or not a
-region becomes highlighted when I mark it. In many GUI applications,
-if you click and drag the mouse to select a range of text it becomes
-hi-lighted in reverse video or some other color. Emacs will do the same
-thing it the transient-mark-mode variable is set (to a non-nil
-value).
-
-
-
-
-
-A ''WHAT'' value?
-
-
-
-
-
-Okay. Brief digression. Most programming languages have some notion
-of true/false values. In C/C++ a value is considered true if it is a
-non-zero value. In Perl, a non-null or non-zero value is true. In
-Lisp, the same idea applies but the names and symbols are different.
-
-
-
-
-
-True is usually written as t and false (or null) is
-written as nil. Like in other languages, though, any non-nill
-value is considered true.
-
-
-
-
-
-To get the full description of what transient-mark-mode
-does, you can use the on-line help. Type C-h v or M-x
-describe-variable and then transient-mark-mode. If
-you're lazy like me, you can take advantage of variable name
-completion using the Tab key. Just type part of the variable
-name and hit the Tab key. If you've typed enough of it that
-Emacs can already uniquely identify it, you'll see the whole name
-completed for you.
-
-
-
-
-
-Another variable that folks often set is fill-column. It
-tells Emacs how wide the screen should be for the purposes of
-word-wrapping (and auto-fill-mode respects this value). To
-set the value to something absurd, you could type:
-
-
-
-
-(setq fill-column 20)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-But that won't actually do anything. You need to tell Emacs to
-__evaluate__ the expression you typed. To do so, put the point
-(cursor) at the end of the expression end then type C-x C-e,
-which calls the function eval-last-sexp in case you
-care. When you do that, notice that 20 (or whatever value you
-used) is echoed back to you in the mini-buffer at the bottom of the
-screen. That's just the return value from the expression you
-evaluated.
-
-
-
-
-
-Just to prove that it works, type a sentence or two. If you happen
-to have auto-fill-mode enabled (you probably don't), you'll
-notice the text wrapping at the 20 column mark. Otherwise, after
-you've typed some stuff, type M-q which calls the function
-fill-paragraph. It will then perform the word wrapping.
-
-
-
-
-!File Associations
-
-
-You can configure Emacs to automatically do something when you open
-a file of a particular type (just like some GUIs will automatically
-launch a specific application if you click on the icon for a
-particular file). For example, I may want Emacs to automatically
-switch to text-mode every time I open a file with a
-.txt extension. Well, that already happens. :-) So
-let's tell Emacs to always enter text-mode when you open a
-file named ``README''.
-
-
-
-
-(setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("README" . text-mode) auto-mode-alist))
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Huh?
-
-
-
-
-
-Without diving into lots of Lisp programming that you really don't
-need to know (but it wouldn't hurt you to learn), let just say that
-the variable auto-mode-alist contains a list of pairs. Each
-pair contains a regular expression and an Emacs mode name. If a file
-you open matches the regular expression (in this case, the string
-README) Emacs starts the mode you specified.
-
-
-
-
-
-The funny syntax above is because we're actually adding another
-pair to that mode list. You wouldn't want to just assign to
-auto-mode-alist without making sure the values that it
-already contains aren't lost.
-
-
-
-
-
-And if I wanted Emacs to automatically switch to
-html-helper-mode every time that I opened a file that ended
-with .html or .htm, I would add this to my .emacs
-file:
-
-
-
-
-(setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.html$" . html-helper-mode) auto-mode-alist))
-(setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.htm$" . html-helper-mode) auto-mode-alist))
-
-
-
-
-
-
-The possibilities are truly endless.
-
-
-
-
-!!4.2 Using a .emacs File
-
-
-
-After you've spent some time with Emacs and have a basic idea of
-what customization can do for you, you'll probably want to customize a
-few things permanently (or at least until you change your mind). If
-you find yourself using Emacs on a daily basis, you'll also notice
-that your .emacs file get bigger as time goes on. That's a
-''Good Thing'' because it means you've figured out how to make
-Emacs work the way __you__ want it do work. It's a shame that
-more software products don't let you do that.
-
-
-
-
-
-In case you haven't already guessed, every time you start Emacs, it
-looks for a file named .emacs in your home directory. Your
-.emacs file is where you should put any Lisp code that you
-want run automatically and that includes the sort of customization
-we've been dealing with here.
-
-
-
-
-
-Another example from my .emacs file:
-
-
-
-
-(setq inhibit-startup-message t)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-The inhibit-startup-message variable controls whether or
-not Emacs displays that welcome message when it starts. After a while,
-I got sick of looking at it (because I knew how to find the help and
-whatnot), so I went in search of a way to turn it off.
-
-
-
-
-
-As an exercise, try creating a .emacs file of your own and
-add that line to it. Then exit and start Emacs again. You should not
-see the welcome message.
-
-
-
-
-
-Often times when your read about an Emacs mode (or a package), the
-documentation will suggest some code to add to your .emacs
-file in order to make the mode or package work in a particular way.
-
-
-
-
-
-The GNU Emacs FAQ (C-h F) contains some items related to
-.emacs files that you might find useful.
-
-
-
-
-!!4.3 The Customize Package
-
-
-
-As Emacs has grown in popularity and continued to evolved, someone
-eventually said ``there has to be a better way to let novice users
-customize their Emacs.'' And customize was born.
-
-
-
-
-
-Customize provides a more intuitive method of customizing parts of
-Emacs. To try it out, either visit the Customize sub-menu in
-your Help menu, or type M-x customize.
-
-
-
-
-
-Customize groups customization into logical groups like
-``Editing'', ``Programming'', ``Files'', and so on. Some groups
-contain sub-groups.
-
-
-
-
-
-If you make changes using the customize interface, Emacs will save
-the changes to your .emacs file. That's rather handy, because
-you can easily inspect (and change) the changes it made for you.
-
-
-
-
-
-''I don't use the Customize interface, so I can't say much more
-about it.''.
-
-
-
-
-!!4.4 X Windows Display
-
-
-
-Like any well behaved X application, Emacs respects your X
-resources. That means you can control the initial colors, geometry,
-and other X specific things just as you could with an xterm,
-nxterm, or whatever.
-
-
-
-
-
-Here's the relevant bit of my ~/.Xdefaults file:
-
-
-
-
-emacs*Background: !DarkSlateGray
-emacs*Foreground: Wheat
-emacs*pointerColor: Orchid
-emacs*cursorColor: Orchid
-emacs*bitmapIcon: on
-emacs*font: fixed
-emacs.geometry: 80x25
-
-
-
-
-
-
-See your X manual page for more details about X resources.
-
-
-
-
-
-Chris Gray (
-cgray4@po-box.mcgill.ca) also notes:
-
-
-
-
-In Debian, the ~/.Xdefaults doesn't seem to be used.
-However, Debian people can put what you have given in
-/etc/X11/Xresources/emacs and they can have the pretty colors
-that they had when they were using !RedHat.
-
-
-
-
-----
-
-!! 5. Popular Packages
-
-
-In addition to the many different modes available for Emacs, there
-are also many add-on __packages__. I call them packages because
-they're more than just new modes. They often include extra utilities
-or are so large that calling them modes just doesn't seem to do them
-justice. In still other cases, they are software which extends or
-integrates other Emacs modes and packages. The distinction isn't
-entirely clear, but that's okay.
-
-
-
-
-!!5.1 VM (Mail)
-
-
-
-To quote the VM FAQ:
-
-
-
-
-VM (View Mail) is an Emacs subsystem that allows mail to be read and
-disposed of within Emacs. Commands exist to do the normal things
-expected of a mail user agent, such as generating replies, saving
-messages to folders, deleting messages and so on. There are other more
-advanced commands that do tasks like bursting and creating digests,
-message forwarding, and organizing message presentation according to
-various criteria.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-When I first began using Emacs, I tried VM out for a while. I found
-it to be a great replacement for Pine, Elm, or most any other mail
-program. But I didn't want to use separate programs to read mail and
-news. VM is actively developed and well supported today.
-
-
-
-
-
-It is available here:
-http://www.wonderworks.com/vm/.
-
-
-
-
-!!5.2 Gnus (Mail and News)
-
-
-
-To quote the GNUS Manual:
-
-
-
-
-Gnus is a message-reading laboratory. It will let you look at just
-about anything as if it were a newsgroup. You can read mail with it,
-you can browse directories with it, you can ftp with it---you can even
-read news with it!
-
-
-
-
-
-Gnus tries to empower people who read news the same way Emacs empowers
-people who edit text. Gnus sets no limits to what the user should be
-allowed to do. Users are encouraged to extend Gnus to make it behave
-like they want it to behave. A program should not control people;
-people should be empowered to do what they want by using (or abusing)
-the program.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-GNUS is what I currently use for mail and news (as hinted
-above). GNUS is also actively developed and well supported today.
-
-
-
-
-
-It is available here:
-http://www.gnus.org/.
-
-
-
-
-!!5.3 BBDB (A rolodex)
-
-
-
-BBDB is an Insidious Big Brother Database, a rolodex-like program
-for Emacs that works with most of the popular Emacs Mail packages (VM
-and GNUS included).
-
-
-
-
-
-It is available here:
-http://pweb.netcom.com/~simmonmt/bbdb/index.html.
-
-
-
-
-!!5.4 AucTeX (another TeX mode)
-
-
-
-AucTeX is another mode for editing TeX files.
-
-
-
-
-
-To quote the AucTeX web site:
-
-
-
-
-AUC TeX is an extensible package that supports writing and formatting
-TeX files for most variants of GNU Emacs. Many different macro
-packages are supported, including AMS TeX, LaTeX, and !TeXinfo.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-It is available here:
-http://sunsite.auc.dk/auctex/.
-
-
-
-----
-
-!! 6. Other Resources
-
-
-This section covers books, web sites, newsgroups, mailing lists,
-and other places you can find more information about Emacs.
-
-
-
-
-!!6.1 Books
-
-
-
-There are a a few really good books available for learning
-Emacs. In addition to these, you'll find that many Linux and Unix
-books also contain a chapter or two about Emacs (and vi).
-
-
-
-
-!Learning GNU Emacs
-
-
-Authors: Debra Cameron, Bill Rosenblatt, Eric S. Raymond
-
-
-
-
-
-Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates -
-http://www.ora.com/
-
-
-
-
-__Commentary:__ This is probably the best book to start
-with. After you've read the HOWTO and looked through the FAQ this book
-serves as a comprehensive and very approachable tutorial.
-
-
-
-
-!Writing GNU Emacs Extensions
-
-
-Author: Bob Glickstein
-
-
-
-
-
-Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates -
-http://www.ora.com/
-
-
-
-
-__Commentary:__ After you've used Emacs for a while and have
-decided that you'd like to try writing your own mode or maybe try out
-some advanced customization, this is the book for you. While it
-doesn't attempt to teach Lisp, it does contain a brief introduction to
-the language.
-
-
-
-
-!Programming in Emacs Lisp: An Introduction
-
-
-Author: Robert J. Chassell
-
-
-
-
-
-From the README file:
-
-
-
-
-This is an elementary introduction to programming in Emacs Lisp for
-people who are not programmers, and who are not necessarily interested
-in programming, but who do want to customize or extend their computing
-environment.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-You can retrieve the manual in its entirety via anonymous FTP from
-the GNU FTP server:
-ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/emacs/.
-
-
-
-
-
-__Commentary:__ This a good introductory manual for Emacs
-Lisp--even if you're not a heavy-duty programmer.
-
-
-
-
-!The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual
-
-
-Author: Richard Stallman
-
-
-
-
-
-Publisher: The Free Software Foundation -
-http://www.fsf.org/
-
-
-
-
-You can retrieve the manual in its entirety via anonymous FTP from
-the GNU FTP server:
-ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/gnu/emacs/.
-
-
-
-
-
-__Commentary:__ This is the definitive guide to the Emacs Lisp
-programming language.
-
-
-
-
-!!6.2 Web Sites
-
-
-!EMACSulation
-
-
-EMACSulation is a column written by Eric Marsden that appears in
-the on-line magazine Linux Gazette located at
-http://www.linuxgazette.com/. The most recent column as of
-this writing is located at
-http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue39/marsden.html. Scan to the
-bottom of the article for links to previous ones.
-
-
-
-
-!!6.3 Newsgroups
-
-
-
-Search you local news feed for newsgroups which contain the string
-``emacs'' and you'll probably find many. Those which my server carries
-are:
-
-
-
-
-
-*comp.emacs
-*
-
-*comp.emacs.sources
-*
-
-*gnu.emacs
-*
-
-*gnu.emacs.bug
-*
-
-*gnu.emacs.help
-*
-
-*gnu.emacs.sources
-*
-
-
-
-
-
-!!6.4 Mailing Lists
-
-
-
-There is a mailing list for GNU Emacs which is hosted by the Free
-Software Foundation. See the web site
-http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs for more
-information.
-
-
-
-
-
-The only mailing list devoted to Emacs that I know of right now is
-the NT-Emacs list. It is a list for folks who are using the Micro$oft
-Windows version of Emacs. See the NT-Emacs FAQ
-http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html for
-more information.
-
-
-
-
-!!6.5 The Emacs Lisp Archive
-
-
-
-From the Emacs Lisp Archive README:
-
-
-
-
-The Emacs Lisp archives on ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu contain
-various pieces and packages of Emacs Lisp code. Emacs Lisp is the
-language used to extend the GNU Emacs editor published by the Free
-Software Foundation. Although much Emacs Lisp code is included in the
-GNU Emacs distribution, many people have written packages to interface
-with other systems, to better support editing the programming language
-they use, to add new features, or to change Emacs' default behavior.
-Most of the contents of this archive have been written by individuals
-and distributed publicly over the Internet through the info-emacs or
-info-gnu-emacs mailing lists or the comp.emacs, gnu.emacs, or
-gnu.emacs.sources newsgroups.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-The archives are available via anonymous FTP from
-ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/emacs-lisp/.
-
-
-
-
-
-__NOTE:__ As far as I can tell, the Emacs Lisp Archive is
-slowly becoming out of date. I see very few new (or updated) packages
-appearing there, though I know they exist. They ''do'' get posted
-to the comp.emacs.sources newsgroup. (Feel free to correct me
-if this is wrong.)
-
-
-
-----
-
-!! 7. Credits
-
-
-The following people have contributed to the success of this
-document.
-
-
-
-
-
-*Craig Lyons
-Craig.Lyons@compaq.com
-
-*
-
-*Robert Vollmert
-rvollmer@gmx.net
-
-*
-
-*Larry Brasfield
-larrybr@seanet.com
-
-*
-
-*Etienne Grossmann
-etienne@anonimo.isr.ist.utl.pt
-
-*
-
-*Thomas Weinell
-kf6mli@amsat.org
-
-*
-
-*Adam C. Finnefrock
-adam@bigbro.biophys.cornell.edu
-
-*
-
-*Chris Gray
-cgray4@po-box.mcgill.ca
-
-*
-
-*Robert J. Chassell
-bob@rattlesnake.com
-
-*
-
-*Isaac To
-kkto@csis.hku.hk
-
-*
-
-*Matteo Valsasna
-valsasna@elet.polimi.it
-
-*
-
-*Tijs van Bakel
-smoke@casema
.net
-
-*
-
-
-
-
-----
+Describe
[HowToEmacsBeginnerHOWTO
] here.
