jbw@bigbird.bu.edu (Joe Wells) (04/13/91)
This is a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) about GNU Emacs with
answers. This list is designed to cut down on the noise in the
gnu.emacs.help newsgroup (which is also the help-gnu-emacs mailing list)
that results from people repeatedly asking many of the same questions. It
is crossposted to comp.emacs because of the large numbers of news readers
who don't receive the gnu.* newsgroups.
New questions:
What is the LPF and why should I join it?
Why does Emacs never see C-s and C-q through my network connection?
Can I make my "Compose" key behave like a "Meta" key?
How do I turn on the arrow keys for VT style terminals?
Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?
How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my Shell buffer?
Does GNU Emacs have a vulnerability to Trojan horses?
How do I turn on Auto-Fill mode by default?
How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?
How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?
How do I change load-path?
Feel free to contribute text for the answers that I haven't written yet,
to suggest new questions, to suggest changes in the wording, to suggest
deletions, etc. Please include either "FAQ" or "frequently asked
questions" in the subject of messages you send to me to help keep me from
accidentally filing your message in the wrong mail folder.
However, please don't send questions to me just because you don't want to
disturb a lot of people and you think I'd know the answer. The main
reason I have assembled the FAQ is because I don't have time to answer
questions individually. Please send only questions that are about the FAQ
or something else I have written.
I don't mind people asking me for copies of the FAQ, but in practice such
requests tend to get ignored for months at a time ...
--
Enjoy,
Joe Wells <jbw@cs.bu.edu>
-------------------------------------------------
GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (part 1 of 2)
Fri Apr 12 23:34:43 1991
If you are viewing this file in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".
To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work, then type ESC to end the search.
Notation Used in the Answers (READ THIS SECTION FIRST!)
You may skip this section if you are reasonably familiar with GNU Emacs.
Some of these are not actually frequently asked questions, but knowing
them is important for understanding the answers to the rest of the
questions.
1: What do things like this mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, etc.?
C-a means while holding down the "Control" key press the "a" key. The
ASCII code this sends will generally be the value that would be sent by
pressing just "a" minus 96 or 64. Either way it will be a number from 0
to 31.
M-a means while holding down the "Meta" key press the "a" key. The
ASCII code this sends is the sum of the ASCII code that would be sent by
pressing just "a" and 128.
M-C-a means while holding down both the "Control" key and the "Meta" key
press the "a" key.
C-M-a is a synonym for M-C-a.
RET means press the "Return" key. RET is the same as C-m. This sends
ASCII code 13.
LFD means press the "Linefeed" key. LFD is also the same as C-j. This
sends ASCII code 10. Under Unix, ASCII code 10 is more often called
"Newline".
DEL means press the "Delete" key. DEL is the same as C-?. This sends
ASCII code 127.
ESC means press the "Escape" key. ESC is the same as C-[. This sends
ASCII code 27.
SPC means press the "Space" key. This send ASCII code 32.
TAB means press the "Tab" key. TAB is the same as C-i. This send ASCII
code 9.
To read more about this online, type "C-h i m emacs RET m characters
RET", and also "C-h i m emacs RET m keys RET".
2: What do you mean when you write things like this: type "ESC a"?
I will enclose key sequences that are longer than one key inside double
quotes. These notations refer to single keys (some with modifiers):
C-x, M-x, M-C-x
RET, LFD, DEL, ESC, SPC, TAB
I separate these from other keys within double quotes by spaces. Any
real spaces that I write inside double quotes can be ignored, only SPC
means press the space key. All other characters within double quotes
represent single keys (some shifted).
3: What if I don't have a Meta key?
Instead of typing M-a, you can type "ESC a" instead. In fact, Emacs
converts M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway.
4: What if I don't have an Escape key?
Type C-[ instead. This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape
key would.
5: What does "M-x command" mean?
"M-x command" means type M-x, then type the name of the command, then
type RET.
M-x is simply the default key sequence that invokes the command
"execute-extended-command". This command allows you to run any Emacs
command if you can remember the command's name. If you can't remember
the command's name, you can type TAB and SPC for completion, and ? for a
list of possibilities. An Emacs "command" is any "interactive" Emacs
function.
NOTE: Your system administrator may have bound other key sequences to
invoke execute-extended-command. A function key labeled "Do" is a good
candidate for this.
To run non-interactive Emacs functions, use M-ESC instead and type a
Lisp form.
6: What do things like this mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h,
lisp/default.el?
These are the names of files that are part of the GNU Emacs
distribution. The GNU Emacs distribution is so big that it is divided
into several subdirectories; the important subdirectories are named
"etc", "lisp", and "src".
If you use GNU Emacs, but don't know where it is kept on your system,
start Emacs, then type "C-h v exec-directory RET". The directory name
that is displayed by this will be the full pathname of the "etc"
directory of your installed GNU Emacs distribution.
Some of these files are available individually via FTP or e-mail, see
question 16.
7: What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, BTW, and GPL?
FSF == Free Software Foundation
LPF == League for Programming Freedom
OSF == Open Software Foundation
GNU == GNU's Not Unix
RMS == Richard Matthew Stallman
FTP == File Transfer Protocol
BTW == By the way
GPL == GNU General Public Licence
NOTE: Avoid confusing the FSF, the LPF, and the OSF. The LPF only
opposes look-and-feel copyrights and software patents. The FSF aims to
make high quality free software available for everyone. The OSF is a
commercial organization which wants to provide an alternative,
standardized version of Unix not controlled by AT&T.
WARNING: The word "free" in the title of the Free Software Foundation
refers to "freedom", not "zero dollars". You can charge any price for
GPL-covered software that you want to. However, in practice, the
freedom enforced by the GPL leads to low or nonexistent prices, because
you can always get the software for less money from someone else,
because everyone has the right to resell or give away GPL-covered
software.
Sources of Information and Help
8: I'm just starting GNU Emacs; how do I do basic editing?
Type "C-h t" to invoke the self-paced tutorial. Typing just C-h is
how to enter the help system.
WARNING: your system administrator may have changed C-h to act like DEL.
You can use M-x help-for-help instead to invoke help. To discover what
key (if any) invokes help on your system, type "M-x where-is RET
help-for-help RET". This will print a comma-separated list of key
sequences in the echo area. Ignore the last character in each key
sequence listed. Each of the resulting key sequences invokes help.
NOTE: Emacs's help facility works best if help is invoked by a single
key. The variable help-char should hold the value of this character.
9: How do I find out how to do something in GNU Emacs?
There are several methods for finding out how to do things in Emacs.
You should become familiar with the online documentation for Emacs. The
complete text of the Emacs manual is available online in a hypertext
format via the "Info" manual reader. Type "C-h i" to invoke Info.
You can order a hardcopy of the manual from the FSF. See question 12.
You can list all of the commands whose names contain a certain word
(actually which match a regular expression) using the "command-apropos"
command. Type "C-h a" to invoke this command.
You can list all of the functions and variables whose names contain a
certain word using the "apropos" command. M-x apropos invokes this
command.
You may find that command-apropos and apropos are extremely slow on your
system. This will be fixed in Emacs 19. If you can't wait that long,
there is a "fast-apropos.el" file available that contains the fix. This
file also contains a "super-apropos" command that will list all the
functions and variables whose documentation strings contain a certain
word.
There are many other commands in Emacs for getting help and information.
To get a list of these commands, type "C-h C-h C-h".
10: Where can I get GNU Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?
Look in the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for information on nearby
archive sites. If you don't already have GNU Emacs, see question
16 for how to get these two files.
The latest version is always available via anonymous FTP at MIT
(prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs-18.57.tar.Z).
11: Where can I get help in installing GNU Emacs?
Look in the file etc/SERVICE for names of companies and individuals who
will sell you this type of service. An up-to-date version of the
SERVICE file is available on prep.ai.mit.edu. See question 16
for how to retrieve this file.
12: How do I get a printed copy of the GNU Emacs manual?
You can order a printed copy of the GNU Emacs manual from the FSF for
$20. For 6 or more manuals the price is $13 each.
The full TeX source for the manual also comes in the "man" directory of
the Emacs distribution, if you're daring enough to try to print out this
300 page manual yourself. If you order it from the FSF, the price may
be tax-deductible as a business expense.)
If you absolutely have to print your own copy, and you don't have TeX,
you can get a PostScript version via anonymous FTP
(ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/docs/emacs-18.57.PS.Z, size: 466K, also
cs.ubc.ca:/src/gnu/manuals_ps/emacs-18.57.ps.Z, which site requests that
you please CONFINE ANY MAJOR FTPING TO LATE EVENINGS OR EARLY MORNINGS
OUR TIME (pacific time zone, GMT-8)).
If you don't have TeX you can convert the TeXinfo sources into
{t,n,ps}roff format with the "texi2roff" program, which is available via
anonymous FTP (tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/texi2roff/texi2roff.shar.Z)
Carl Witty <cwitty@cs.stanford.edu> writes:
The Emacs manual is also available online in the Info system, which is
available by typing "C-h i". In this form, it has hypertext links and
is very easy to browse or search; many people prefer it to the printed
manual.
13: Has someone written an GNU Emacs Lisp package that does XXX?
Probably. A listing of Emacs Lisp packages, called the Lisp Code
Directory, is being maintained by Dave Brennan <brennan@dg-rtp.dg.com>.
You can search through this list to find if someone has written
something that fits your needs.
This list is file "LCD-datafile.Z" in the Emacs Lisp Archive. (See
question 14.) The files "lispdir.el.Z" and "lispdir.doc.Z"
in the archive contain information to help you use the list.
14: Where can I get GNU Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs?
First, check the Lisp Code Directory to find the name of the package you
are looking for. (See question 13). Then check local archives and
the Emacs Lisp Archive to find a copy of the relevant files. Then, if
you still haven't found it, you can send e-mail to the author asking for
a copy.
You can access the Emacs Lisp Archive via anonymous FTP
(tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/). Fetch the file
"README.Z" first.
NOTE: Any files with names ending in ".Z" are compressed, and you should
use "binary" mode in FTP to retrieve them. You should also use binary
mode whenever you retrieve any files with names ending in ".elc".
Submissions for the archive should be sent to Dave Sill <de5@ornl.gov>.
If you have ftp access, the submission can be deposited in the directory
/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/incoming on tut.cis.ohio-state.edu.
Whenever possible submissions should contain an LCD-datafile entry since
this helps reduce administrative overhead for the maintainers. Before
submitting anything, first read the file "guidelines.Z", which is
available in the archive.
15: Where can I get documentation on GNU Emacs Lisp?
Obtain the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for Emacs 18 under Unix. It
is available from the FSF for $50. The latest revision available for
FTP is edition 1.03 dated 28 January 1991.
Within Emacs, you can type "C-h f" to get the documentation for a
function, "C-h v" for a variable.
Also, as a popular USENET saying goes, "Use the Force, Read the Source".
You can also get the Texinfo source for the manual, if you are daring
enough to try to print this 550 page manual out yourself. This is
available in the Emacs Lisp Archive and also via anonymous FTP
(prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/elisp.tar.Z).
A set of pregenerated Info files comes with the Texinfo source for the
Emacs Lisp manual, so you don't have to format it yourself for online
use. (You can create the Info files from the Texinfo source.) See
question 21 for details on how to install these files online.
16: What informational files are available for GNU Emacs?
This isn't a frequently asked question, but it should be! A variety of
informational files about GNU Emacs and relevant aspects of the GNU
project are available for you to read.
The following files are available in the "etc" directory of the GNU
Emacs distribution, and also the latest versions are available
individually via anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/etc/):
APPLE -- Why the FSF doen't support GNU Emacs on Apple computers
DISTRIB -- GNU Emacs Availability Information,
including the popular "Free Software Foundation Order Form"
FTP -- How to get GNU Software by Internet FTP or by UUCP
GNU -- The GNU Manifesto
INTERVIEW -- Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain
UNIX-compatible software system
with BYTE editors
MACHINES -- Status of GNU Emacs on Various Machines and Systems
MAILINGLISTS -- GNU Project Electronic Mailing Lists
SERVICE -- GNU Service Directory
SUN-SUPPORT -- includes the popular "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs"
These files are available in the "etc" directory of the GNU Emacs
distribution:
DIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and Twenex Emacs
CCADIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and CCA Emacs
GOSDIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and Gosling (Unipress??) Emacs
COPYING -- GNU Emacs General Public License
NEWS -- GNU Emacs News, a history of user-visible changes
LPF -- Why you should join the League for Programming Freedom
FAQ -- GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions (You're reading it)
OPTIONS -- a complete explanation of startup option handling
These files are available via anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/):
tasks -- GNU Task List
standards.text -- GNU Coding Standards
In addition, all of the above files are available directly from the FSF
via e-mail. Of course, please try to get them from a local source
first.
These additional files are available from the FSF via e-mail:
* GNU's Bulletin, June, 1990 -- this file includes:
GNU'S Who
What Is the Free Software Foundation?
What Is Copyleft?
GNUs Flashes
Possible New Terms for GNU Libraries by Richard Stallman
"League for Programming Freedom" by Michael Bloom and Richard Stallman
Free Software Support
GNU Project Status Report
GNU Wish List
GNU Documentation
GNU Software Available Now
Contents of the Emacs Release Tape
Contents of the Pre-Release Tape
Contents of the X11 Tapes
VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes
How to Get GNU Software
Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
Thank GNUs
FSF Order Form
* Legal issues about contributing code to GNU
* GNU Project Status Report
17: What is the current address of the FSF?
Snail mail address:
Free Software Foundation
675 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Phone number:
(617) 876-3296
E-mail addresses:
gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu {probably read by Len Tower}
gnulists@prep
18: What is the current address of the LPF?
Snail mail address:
League for Programming Freedom
1 Kendall Square, Number 143
Post Office Box 9171
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Phone number:
(617) 243-4061 { or 243-4091, I'm not sure ... }
E-mail address:
league@prep.ai.mit.edu
19: Where can I get the up-to-date GNU stuff?
The most up-to-date official GNU stuff is normally kept on
prep.ai.mit.edu and is available for anonymous FTP. See the files
etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for more information. (To get copies of these
files, see question 16.)
20: Where can I get the latest VM, Supercite, GNUS, Calc, Calendar, Ispell,
or Patch?
* VM:
Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
Mailing lists: info-vm-request@uunet.uu.net
info-vm@uunet.uu.net
bug-vm-request@uunet.uu.net
bug-vm@uunet.uu.net
Anonymous FTP:
Latest released version: 4.41
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/vm-4.41.tar.Z
ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/vm/vm-4.41.tar.Z
Beta test version: 5.31
ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/vm/{vm-5.31,timer}.tar.Z
* Supercite:
Author: Barry Warsaw <warsaw@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov>
Mailing lists: supercite@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov
supercite-request@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov
Anonymous FTP:
Latest version: 2.1
durer.cme.nist.gov:/pub/gnu/elisp/supercite-2.1.shar.0#
(where # is replaced by 1 or 2)
E-mail:
To: library@cme.nist.gov
Subject: help
NOTE: Superyank is an old version of Supercite.
* GNUS:
Author: Masanobu Umeda <umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp>
Anonymous FTP:
Latest version: 3.13
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:
/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/gnus-3.13.tar.Z
* Calc:
Author: Dave Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu>
Anonymous FTP:
Latest released version: 1.07
csvax.cs.caltech.edu:/pub/calc-1.07.tar.Z
Beta test version: 1.08
csvax.cs.caltech.edu:/pub/calc-1.08beta1.tar.Z
* Calendar/Diary
Author: Ed Reingold <reingold@cs.uiuc.edu>
Latest version: 4
E-mail:
To: reingold@cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: send-emacs-cal
body: your best internet e-mail address
* Ispell
Latest version: 2.0.02
Anonymous FTP:
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/ispell/*
* Patch
Author: Larry Wall <lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
Latest version: 2.0 patchlevel 12u3
This is the version that supports the new "unified" diff format.
Anonymous FTP:
prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/patch-2.0.12u3.tar.Z
21: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?
First create Info files from the Texinfo files with the "makeinfo"
program. The texinfo-format-buffer command is currently out of date.
makeinfo is available as part of the latest Texinfo package
(prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/texinfo-2.04.tar.Z). It also comes with
Emacs, but several include files are missing.
For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which
comes with Emacs. This manual also comes installed in Info format, so
you can read it online.
Neither texinfo-format-buffer nor the makeinfo program install the
resulting Info files in Emacs's Info tree. To install Info files:
1. Move the files to the "info" directory in the installed Emacs
distribution. See question 6 if you don't know where that
is.
2. Edit the file info/dir in the installed Emacs distribution, and add a
line for the top level node in the Info package that you are
installing.
If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary
privileges, you have two options:
1. Info files don't actually need to be installed. You can feed a file
name to the Info-goto-node command (invoked by pressing "g" in Info
mode) by typing the name of the file in parentheses. This goes to
the node named "Top" in that file. For example, to view a Info file
named "XXX" in your home directory, you can type this:
C-h i g (~/XXX) RET
2. You can create your own Info directory. You can tell Emacs where the
Info directory is by setting the value of the variable Info-directory
to its pathname. For example, to use a private Info directory which
is a subdirectory of your home directory named "Info", you could do
this:
(setq Info-directory (expand-file-name "~/Info"))
You will need a top-level Info file named "dir" in this directory.
You can include the system-wide Info directory in your private Info
directory with symbolic links or by copying it.
22: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?
RMS writes:
The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the spirit,
which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work pertaining
to Emacs should also be free software. "Free" means that all users have
the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs. To make sure
everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you distribute
any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the recipients the
same freedom that you enjoyed.
If you still want to find out about the legal meaning of the copyleft,
please ask yourself if this means you are not paying attention to the
spirit.
23: What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help/gnu.emacs.bug/comp.emacs
etc.?
The file etc/MAILINGLISTS discusses the purpose of each GNU
mailing-list. (See question 16 on how to get a copy.) For
those which are gatewayed with newsgroups, it lists both the newsgroup
name and the mailing list address.
comp.emacs is for discussion of Emacs programs in general. This
includes GNU Emacs along with various other implementations like JOVE,
MicroEmacs, Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, etc.
Many people post GNU Emacs questions to comp.emacs because they don't
receive any of the gnu.* newsgroups. Arguments have been made both for
and against posting GNU-Emacs-specific material to comp.emacs. You have
to decide for yourself.
24: How do I unsubscribe to this mailing list?
If you are receiving a GNU mailing list named "XXX", you might be able
to unsubscribe to it by sending a request to the address
"XXX-request@prep.ai.mit.edu". However, this will not work if you are
not listed on the main mailing list, but instead recieve the mail from a
distribution point. In that case, you will have to track down at which
distribution point you are listed. Inspecting the "Received:" headers
on the mail messages may help, along with liberal use of the "EXPN" and
"VRFY" sendmail commands through "telnet <site-address> smtp". Ask your
postmaster for help.
25: What is the LPF and why should I join it?
The LPF opposes the expanding danger of software patents and
look-and-feel copyrights. Write to league@prep.ai.mit.edu for more
information. You can get papers describing the LPF's views via
anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/lpf/*) or via anonymous UUCP
(osu-cis!~/lpf/*).
GNU Emacs, all its Variants, and other Editors
26: Where does the name "Emacs" come from?
EMACS originally was an acronym for Editor MACroS. The first Emacs was
a set of macros written by Richard Stallman and Guy Steele for the
editor TECO (Text Editor and COrrector (originally Tape Editor and
COrrector)) on a PDP-10. (Amusing fact: many people have told me that
TECO code looks a lot like line noise. See alt.lang.teco if you are
interested.)
27: What is the latest version of GNU Emacs?
GNU Emacs 18.57.
28: When will GNU Emacs 19 be available?
Good question, I don't know. For that matter, neither do the
developers. It will undoubtedly be available sometime in the 1990s.
29: What will be different about GNU Emacs 19?
From the latest "GNU's Bulletin":
Version 19 approaches release with a host of new features: before and
after change hooks; X selection processing (including CLIPBOARD
selections); scrollbars; support for European character sets; floating
point numbers; per-buffer mouse commands; interfacing with the X
resource manager; mouse-tracking; Lisp-level binding of function keys;
and multiple X windows (`screens' to Emacs).
Thanks go to Alan Carroll and the people who worked on Epoch for
generating initial feedback to a multi-windowed Emacs. Emacs 19
supports two styles of multiple windows, one with a separate screen for
the minibuffer, and another with a minibuffer attached to each screen.
More features of Version 19 are buffer allocation, which uses a new
mechanism capable of returning storage to the system when a buffer is
killed, and a new input system---all input now arrives in the form of
Lisp objects.
Other features being considered for Version 19 include:
* Associating property lists with regions of text in a buffer.
* Multiple font, color, and pixmaps defined by those properties.
* Different visibility conditions for the regions, and for the various
windows showing one buffer.
* Incremental syntax analysis for various programming languages.
* Hooks to be run if point or mouse moves outside a certain range.
* Source-level debugging for Emacs Lisp.
* Incrementally saving undo history in a file, so that recover-file also
reinstalls buffer's undo history.
* Static menu bars, and better pop-up menus.
* A more sophisticated emacsclient/server model, which would provide
network transparent Emacs widget functionality.
Also, Emacs 19 will have a Emacs Lisp source code debugger.
30: Is there an Emacs that has better mouse and X window support?
Emacs 18 has some limited X Window System support, but there are
problems. Emacs 19 will have amazing mouse and window support. Right
now, there is a modified version of Emacs 18.55 called "Epoch" which has
greatly improved mouse and window support. The latest version of Epoch
is available via anonymous FTP
(cs.uiuc.edu:/pub/epoch-files/epoch/epoch-3.2b, b stands for beta).
NOTE: Epoch only works with the X Window System; it does not work on
ordinary terminals.
31: How do I get Emacs for my PC?
GNU Emacs won't run on a PC directly under MS-DOS. There have been
reports of people running GNU Emacs under a special program under MS-DOS
on 286 or 386 machines, but I don't know the details.
You can try a variety of similar programs such as MG, MicroEmacs,
Freemacs, etc.
Russ Nelson <nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, the author, describes
Freemacs:
* Freemacs is free, and it was designed from the start to be
programmable.
* Freemacs is the only IBM-PC editor that tries to be like GNU Emacs.
* Freemacs can only edit files less than 64K in length.
* Freemacs doesn't have undo.
Carl Witty <cwitty@cs.stanford.edu> describes Freemacs:
Better is Freemacs, which follows the tradition of ITS and GNU Emacs
by having an full, turing-complete extension language which is
incompatible with everything else. In fact, it's even closer to ITS
Emacs than GNU Emacs is, because Mint (Freemacs' extension language)
is absolutely illegible without weeks of study, much like TECO.
The latest version of Freemacs is 16a {???}.
You can get Freemacs several ways:
1. Anonymous FTP:
simtel20.army.mil:PD:<MSDOS.FREEMACS>
grape.ecs.clarkson.edu:/pub/msdos/freemacs/
2. E-mail:
address: archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
body: help
3. Snail mail:
address: Russell Nelson, 11 Grant St., Potsdam, NY 13676
Send $15 copying fee, and specify preferred floppy disk format:
5.25", 360K, or 3.50", 720K
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MicroEmacs is programmable in a BASIC-like language. The author is
Daniel Lawrence <dan@midas.mgmt.purdue.edu, nwd@j.cc.purdue.edu,
dan@mdbs.uucp>. Many of the keybindings are different from GNU Emacs.
The latest version is 3.10 and it is available via anonymous FTP
(durer.cme.nist.gov).
Another Emacs for small machines is JOVE (Jonathan's Own Version of
Emacs). The latest official version is 4.14. There appears to be a
newer version. People rumored to be working on JOVE include Mark Moraes
at cs.toronto.edu and Bill Marsh <bmarsh@cod.nosc.mil>. It is available
via anonymous FTP (cs.rochester.edu:/pub/jove.tar.4.14.Z).
Yet another Emacs is "mg", which used to stand for MicroGNUEmacs, but
now just stands for "mg". It is also available via anonymous FTP
(snow.white.toronto.edu).
32: Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
The latest version for the ST is available via anonymous FTP
(cs.uni-sb.de:/pub/atari/emacs/).
33: Where can I get Emacs with NeWS support?
Chris Maio's NeWS support package for GNU Emacs is available via
anonymous FTP (columbia.edu/pub/ps-emacs.tar.Z,
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/ps-emacs.tar.Z).
Binding Keys to Commands
34: Why does my key binding fail?
Most likely, it failed because "ESC [" was already defined. Evaluate
this form first:
(define-key esc-map "[" nil)
35: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
.emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
This is because you're trying to do something in your .emacs file that
needs to be postponed until after the terminal/window-system setup code
is loaded. This is a result of the order in which things are done
during the startup of Emacs.
In order to postpone the execution of Emacs Lisp code until after the
terminal/window-system setup, set the value of the variable
term-setup-hook or window-setup-hook to be a function which does what
you want.
See etc/OPTIONS for a complete explanation of what Emacs does every time
it is started.
Here is a simple example of how to set term-setup-hook:
(setq term-setup-hook
(function
(lambda ()
(if (string-match "^vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x:
(define-key CSI-map "29~" 'execute-extended-command)))))
36: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
This depends on whether you are running Emacs inside a terminal emulator
window, or whether you are allowing Emacs to create its own X window.
You can tell which you are doing by noticing whether Emacs creates a new
window when you start it. The following description only applies when
Emacs has its own X window.
WARNING: I am about to describe a gross, disgusting hack to you.
If compiled on a Sun, Emacs recognizes these X "keysyms" that are
normally on a Sun keyboard:
F1 through F9
L1 through L10 (same as F11 through F20)
R1 through R15 (same as F21 through F35)
Break (the "Alternate" key is given this keysym)
Up, Down, Right, Left (the arrow keys, R??, R??, R??, and R??)
When Emacs sees one of the arrow keys, it behaves as though a control
key had been pressed instead, like this:
Up becomes C-p
Down becomes C-n
Right becomes C-f
Left becomes C-b
The rest of the keys work like Sun function keys. Each function key
will generate a key sequence that looks like "ESC [ ### z", where ### is
replaced by a number. The key sequences are identical to those
generated by Sun's keyboard under SunView. Any function key not listed
above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
If not compiled on a Sun, the function keys will appear to Emacs in a
way remarkably similar to the keys of a DEC LK201 keyboard (used on
VT220 series terminals). The arrow keys work the same as above. These
X keysyms will be recognized:
F1 through F20
Help (treated same as F15)
Menu (treated same as F16, is the LK201 "Do" key)
Find
Insert (LK201 "Insert Here" key)
Delete (LK201 "Remove" key)
Select
Prior (LK201 "Prev Screen" key)
Next (LK201 "Next Screen" key)
Up, Down, Right, Left (LK201 arrow keys)
Each function key will generate a key sequence that looks like "ESC [ ##
~", where ## is replaced by a number. The key sequences are identical
to those generated by a LK201 keyboard. Any function key not listed
above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
For the complete list of the numbers which are generated by the function
keys, look in the file src/x11term.c.
If you are running Emacs on a Sun machine, even if your X display is
running on a non-Sun machine (eg. X terminal), you get the setup
described above for Suns. The determining factor is what type of
machine Emacs is running on, not what type of machine your X display is.
You can use "xmodmap" to change your X keysym assignments to get keys
listed above, but that may screw up other programs.
If you have function keys not listed above and you don't want to use
xmodmap to change their names, you might want to make a modification to
your Emacs. Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> explains:
There are a number of tricks that can be helpful. The most elegant
solution, however, is to use the function "x-rebind-key". This function
is commented out in the source for good reasons --- it's buggy.
It is rather easy to replace this function with the function
epoch:rebind-key from the Epoch distribution.
After implementing this, all keyboard keys can be configured to send
user definable sequences, e.g.
(x-rebind-key "KP_F1" 0 "\033OP")
This will have the keypad key PF1 send the sequence \eOP, just like an
ordinary VTxxx terminal.
[This is what I do in my Emacs. -- jbw]
37: How do I tell what characters my function keys emit?
Use this function by Randal L. Schwartz <merlyn@iwarp.intel.com>:
(defun see-chars ()
"Displays characters typed, terminated by a 3-second timeout."
(interactive)
(let ((chars "")
(inhibit-quit t))
(message "Enter characters, terminated by 3-second timeout.")
(while (not (sit-for 3))
(setq chars (concat chars (list (read-char)))
quit-flag nil)) ; quit-flag maybe set by C-g
(message "Characters entered: %s" (key-description chars))))
38: Why does Emacs spontaneously go into "I-search:" mode?
Your terminal (or something between your terminal and the computer) is
sending C-s and C-q for flow control, and Emacs is receiving these
characters and interpreting them as commands. (The C-s character
normally invokes the isearch-forward command.)
For a more detailed discussion, read the file PROBLEMS in the Emacs
distribution.
39: What do I do if my terminal is sending C-s and C-q for flow control and
I can't disable it?
Use this piece of Emacs Lisp:
(set-input-mode nil t)
40: How do I make Emacs use C-s and C-q for flow control instead of for
commands?
Same answer as previous question.
41: Why does Emacs never see C-s and C-q through my network connection?
Eirik Fuller <eirik@theory.tn.cornell.edu> writes:
Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow control
characters to the remote system to which they connect. On such systems,
Emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow control on the local
system.
One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host (the
one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the stty command,
before starting the rlogin process. On many systems, "stty start u stop
u" will do this.
Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and issue
the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
42: How do I use commands bound to C-s and C-q (or any key) if these keys
are filtered out?
I suggest swapping C-s with C-\ and C-q with C-^:
(swap-keys ?\C-s ?\C-\\)
(swap-keys ?\C-q ?\C-^)
See question 43 for the implementation of swap-keys.
43: How do I "swap" two keys?
When Emacs receives a character, you can make Emacs behave as though it
received another character by setting the value of
keyboard-translate-table. The following Emacs Lisp will do this for
you, allowing you to "swap" keys. After arranging for this Lisp to be
evaluated by Emacs, you can evaluate "(swap-keys ?A ?B)" to swap A and
B.
WARNING: the value of C-g (7) is still hard coded in one place in the
minibuffer code. Thus, swapping C-g with another key may cause
minor problems.
(defun swap-keys (key1 key2)
"Swap keys KEY1 and KEY2 using map-key."
(map-key key1 key2)
(map-key key2 key1))
(defun map-key (from to)
"Make key FROM behave as though key TO was typed instead."
(setq keyboard-translate-table
(concat keyboard-translate-table
(let* ((i (length keyboard-translate-table))
(j from)
(k i)
(str (make-string (max 0 (- j (1- i))) ?X)))
(while (<= k j)
(aset str (- k i) k)
(setq k (1+ k)))
str)))
(aset keyboard-translate-table from to)
(let ((i (1- (length keyboard-translate-table))))
(while (and (>= i 0) (eq (aref keyboard-translate-table i) i))
(setq i (1- i)))
(setq keyboard-translate-table
(if (eq i -1) nil (substring keyboard-translate-table 0 (1+ i))))))
44: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?
The Backspace key (on every keyboard I've used) sends ASCII code 8. C-h
sends the same code. In Emacs by default C-h invokes "help-command".
The easiest solution to this problem is to use C-h (and Backspace) for
help and DEL (the Delete key) for deleting the previous character.
For some people this solution may be problematic:
1. They normally use Backspace outside of Emacs for deleting the
previous character typed. This can be solved by making DEL be the
command for deleting the previous character outside of Emacs. This
command will do this on many Unix systems:
stty erase '^?'
2. The person may prefer using the Backspace key for deleting the
previous character because it is more conveniently located on their
keyboard or because they don't even have a separate Delete key. In
this case, the best solution is to swap C-h and DEL:
(swap-keys ?\C-h ?\C-?)
See question 43 for the implementation of swap-keys.
45: How do I type DEL on PC terminal emulators?
Someone whose name I forgot wrote:
Most PCs have deficient keyboards that don't have both Backspace and
Delete keys. Whether C-h (backspace) or DEL is generated by the
"Backspace" key varies from one terminal emulator to another. If you're
lucky, you can reconfigure the keyboard so that it generates DEL. If
not, you will have to hunt to figure out what keystroke will do it ---
possibilities include various shifted and controlled versions of
"Backspace", the "Del" key on the numeric keypad (which might depend on
"Shift" or "NumLock"), or perhaps C-? (Control-?).
If this is too hard, you may want to swap the delete key with some other
key. See question 44.
46: Can I make my "Compose" key behave like a "Meta" key?
In general, no. However, the LK201 keyboard does send a code for
Compose key up and key down, so if you're on an X workstation you might
have luck using the "xmodmap" program.
47: How do I turn on the arrow keys for VT style terminals?
Put this in your .emacs:
(setq term-setup-hook
(function
(lambda ()
(if (string-match "\\`vt[123][024]0" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
(enable-arrow-keys))))))
We put this in our lisp/default.el file, so users don't have to worry
about it:
(or term-setup-hook
(setq term-setup-hook
(function
(lambda ()
(if (string-match "\\`vt[123][024]0" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
(enable-arrow-keys))))))
---Continued---jbw@bigbird.bu.edu (Joe Wells) (04/13/91)
GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (part 2 of 2) Fri Apr 12 23:34:43 1991 Building/Installing/Porting Emacs and Machine/OS-Specific Bugs: 48: Why do I get an "f68881_used undefined" error, when I build Emacs on my Sun 3? Barry A. Warsaw <warsaw@cme.nist.gov> writes: Some of the code that is being linked on the "ld" line of emacs' build command has been compiled with the -f68881 option. Most common reason is that you're linking with X libraries which were built with -f68881 option set. You need to either remove all dependencies to the 68881 (may mean a recompile of the X libraries with -fswitch or -fsoft option), or you need to link emacs with the 68881 startup file /usr/lib/Mcrt1.o. Make this change to src/ymakefile: change: #define START_FILES crt0.o to: #define START_FILES crt0.o /usr/lib/Mcrt1.o The order of these start files is critical. 49: How do I get Emacs running on VMS under DECwindows? Hal R. Brand <BRAND@addvax.llnl.gov> is said to have a VMS save set with a ready-to-run VMS version of Emacs for X Windows. It is available via anonymous FTP (addvax.llnl.gov). Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> writes: Getting Emacs to run on VMS with DECwindows requires a number of changes to the sources. Fortunately this has been done already. Joshua Marantz <josh@viewlogic.com> did most of the work for Emacs 18.52, and the mods were ported to 18.55 by Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl>. Also included is the handling of DEC's LK201 keyboard. You need to apply the changes to a fresh Emacs 18.55 distribution on a Unix system, and then you can copy the sources to VMS to perform the compile/link/build. The set of changes have been posted a number of times three times the last 12 months, so they should be widely available. 50: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)? Try compiling Emacs with the XBACKWARDS macro defined. There is a bug in some implementations of XGetDefault, which do not correspond to the documentation or the header files. 51: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs? RMS writes: If you try to build Emacs and it does not run, the first thing to do is look in the file called PROBLEMS to see if a solution is given there. If none is given, then please send a report by mail to bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu. Please do not send it to help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu. Sending to help-gnu-emacs (which has the effect of posting on gnu.emacs.help) is undesirable because it takes the time of an unnecessarily large group of people, most of whom are just users and have no idea how to fix these problem. bug-gnu-emacs reaches a much smaller group of people who are more likely to know what to do and have expressed a wish to receive more messages about Emacs than the others. Weird/Confusing Problems: 52: Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 Megs? Most installed versions of GNU Emacs will use 24 bit signed integers (and 24 bit pointers!) internally. This limits the file size that Emacs can handle to 8388608 bytes. Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@lucid.com> writes: Putting the following two lines in src/config.h before compiling Emacs allows for 26 bit integers and pointers: #define VALBITS 26 #define GCTYPEBITS 5 See question 53 for an explanation. 53: Why does Emacs use 24 bit integers and pointers? David Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu> writes: Emacs is largely written in a dialect of Lisp; Lisp is a freely-typed language in the sense that you can put any value of any type into any variable, or return it from a function, and so on. So each value must carry a "tag" along with it identifying what kind of thing it is, e.g., integer, pointer to a list, pointer to an editing buffer, and so on. Emacs uses standard 32-bit integers for data objects, taking the top 8 bits for the tag and the bottom 24 bits for the value. So integers (and pointers) are somewhat restricted compared to true C integers and pointers. Emacs uses 8-bit tags because that's a little faster on byte-oriented machines, but there are only really enough tags to require 6 bits. See question 52 to find how to recompile Emacs with 6-bit tags and 26-bit integers and pointers if space is at a premium for you. 54: Why does Emacs start up using the wrong directory? Most likely, you have an environment variable named PWD that is set to a value other than the name of your current directory. This is most likely caused by using two different shell programs. "ksh" and (some versions of) "csh" set and maintain the value of the PWD environment variable, but "sh" doesn't. If you start sh from ksh, change your current directory inside sh, and then start Emacs from inside sh, PWD will have the wrong value but Emacs will use this value. See the etc/OPTIONS file for more details. Perhaps an easier solution is not to use two shells. The "chsh" program can often be used to change one's default login shell. 55: How do I edit a file with a "$" in its name? When entering a filename in the minibuffer, Emacs will attempt to expand a "$" followed by a word as an environment variable. To suppress this behavior, type "$$" instead. 56: Why does Shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory? Emacs has no way of knowing when the shell actually changes its directory. This is an intrinsic limitation of Unix. So it tries to guess by recognizing "cd" commands. If you type "cd" followed by a directory name with a variable reference ("cd $HOME/bin") or with a shell metacharacter ("cd ../lib*"), Emacs will fail to correctly guess the shell's new current directory. A number of fixes and enhancements to Shell mode for this problem have been written, check the Emacs Lisp Archive (question 14). 57: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail? First, you must separate multiple addresses with commas. Second, Emacs normally only reads the ".mailrc" file once per session, when you start to compose your first mail message. If you edit .mailrc, you can type "M-ESC (build-mail-aliases) RET" to make Emacs reread .mailrc. 58: Why doesn't setting default-directory always work? There is a separate value of default-directory for each Emacs buffer. The value in the current buffer is the one that is used. 59: Why doesn't my change to load-path work? If you added file names with tildes (~) in them to your load-path, you'll need to do something like this: (setq load-path (mapcar 'expand-file-name load-path)) 60: Why does the cursor always go to the wrong column when I move up or down one line? You have inadvertently typed "C-x C-n" (set-goal-column) which sets the "goal-column" to the column where the cursor was. To undo this type "C-u C-x C-n". If you make this mistake frequently, you might want to unbind this command by doing one of these two: (define-key ctl-x-map "\C-n" nil) (put 'set-goal-column 'disabled t) 61: Why does Emacs hang with message "Unknown XMenu" with X11R4? Many different X errors can produce this message. Here is the solution to one problem: X11 Release 4 now enforces some conditions in the X protocol that were previously allowed to pass unnoticed. You need to put the X11R4 server into X11R3 bug compatibility mode for Emacs's Xmenu code to work. You can do this with the command "xset bc". 62: Why doesn't display-time show the load average in the mode line anymore? In GNU Emacs 18.56, a change was made in the display-time code. Formerly, in version 18.55, Emacs used a program named "loadst" to notify Emacs of the change in time every minute. loadst also sent Emacs the system load average if it was installed with sufficient privilege to get that information (or was on a system where no such privilege was needed). Emacs then displayed this information in the mode line. In version 18.56, this code was changed to use a program named "wakeup". wakeup doesn't send Emacs any information, it's only purpose is to send Emacs *something* every minute, thus invoking the filter function in Emacs once a minute. The filter function in Emacs does all the work of finding the time, date, and load average. However, getting the load average requires the privilege to read kernel memory on most systems. Since giving Emacs this privilege would destroy any security a system might have, for almost everyone this is not an option. In addition, Emacs does not have the code built into it to get this information on the systems which have special system calls for this purpose, even though loadst had code for this. The solution I use is to get the files lisp/display-time.el and etc/loadst.c from version 18.55 and use those with 18.57. (I have heard a rumor that loadst disappeared because of the legal action Unipress threatened against IBM.) WARNING: Do not install Emacs setgid kmem unless you wish to destroy any security your system might have!!!!!!!!!! If you are using Emacs 18.55 or earlier, or the solution I describe above, read further: The most likely cause of the problem is that "loadst" can't read the special file /dev/kmem. To properly install loadst, it should be either setuid to the owner of /dev/kmem, or is should be setgid to the group to which /dev/kmem belongs. In either case, /dev/kmem should be readable by its owner or its group, respectively. Another possibility is that your version of Unix doesn't have the load average data available in /dev/kmem. Your version of Unix might have a special system call to retrieve this information (eg., inq_stats under UMAX), and loadst might not have been enhanced to cope with this. 63: Why doesn't GNUS work anymore via NNTP? There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before blocking waiting for more input which never comes. NNTP version 1.5.11 claims to fix this. You can work around the bug inside Emacs like this: (setq nntp-maximum-request 1) I also have a patch for NNTP 1.5.10 that is based on the timeout code that was in 1.5.9. However, please try to upgrade to 1.5.11 first. 64: Why does ispell sometimes ignore the local dictionary? You need to update the version of ispell to 2.0.02. A patch is available via anonymous FTP (tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/ispell/patch2.Z). You also need to change a line in ispell.el from: (defconst ispell-version "2.0.01") ;; Check against output of "ispell -v". to: (defconst ispell-version "2.0.02") ;; Check against output of "ispell -v". 65: How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my Shell buffer? If you are using a recent version of tcsh, the problem won't occur. With an older version of tcsh, put this in your ".cshrc" (or ".tcshrc") file: if ($?tcsh) if ($?EMACS) unset edit Or put this in your .emacs_tcsh file: unset edit {Someone should send me the solution for csh.} 66: Does GNU Emacs have a vulnerability to Trojan horses? Yes. Your site should put this in lisp/site-init.el before building Emacs: (setq inhibit-local-variables t) If Emacs has already been built, the expression should be put in lisp/default.el instead. The security hole that would otherwise be left open is described in the "File Variables" section of the manual (and Info tree). Configuring Emacs for yourself: 67: How do I set up a .emacs file properly? See the section of the manual on the .emacs file, inside the section on customization. To reach this section of the online Info manual, type this: C-h i m emacs RET g init SPC file RET 68: How do you debug a .emacs file? First start Emacs with the "-q" command line option. Then, in the *scratch* buffer, type the following: (setq debug-on-error t) C-j (load-file "~/.emacs") C-j (C-j stands for Control-J, ie., hold the control key and press J.) If you have an error in your .emacs file, this will invoke the debugger when the error occurs. If you don't know how to use the debugger do (setq stack-trace-on-error t) instead. WARNING: this will not discover errors caused by trying to do something that requires the terminal/window-system initialization code to have been loaded. See question 35. 69: How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX? Put this in your .emacs file: (condition-case () (read-abbrev-file nil t) (file-error nil)) (setq XXX-mode-hook (function (lambda () (setq abbrev-mode t)))) 70: How do I turn on Auto-Fill mode by default? To turn on Auto-Fill mode just once for one buffer, you type "M-x auto-fill-mode". To turn it on for every buffer in, for example, Text mode, do this: (setq text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill) If you want Auto-Fill mode on in all major modes, do this: (setq-default auto-fill-hook 'do-auto-fill) 71: How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files? If you want to use XXX mode for all files which end with the extension ".YYY", this will do it for you: (setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode) auto-mode-alist)) Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to edit in XXX mode: -*-XXX-*- 72: What are the valid X resource settings (ie., stuff in .Xdefaults file)? See the Emacs man page, or the etc/OPTIONS file. 73: How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal? Martin R. Frank <martin@cc.gatech.edu> writes: Tell Emacs to use the 'visible bell' instead of the audible bell, and set the visible bell to nothing. Put this in your TERMCAP environment variable: ... :vb=: ... And evaluate this: (setq visible-bell t) 74: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows? Under Epoch you can do: (setq epoch::bell-volume 20) Under normal GNU Emacs you must modify the XTfeep function in src/x11term.c, and change the number 50 to -50: XTfeep () { BLOCK_INPUT_DECLARE (); #ifdef XDEBUG fprintf (stderr, "XTfeep\n"); #endif BLOCK_INPUT (); XBell (XXdisplay,50); /* change this 50 to -50 */ UNBLOCK_INPUT (); } Then "xset b 0" will turn off Emacs's beeping. 75: How do I make Emacs send 8-bit characters to my terminal? Johan Widen <jw@sics.se> writes: A patch for emacs-18.55 is available by ftp and mail-server from sics.se. Anonymous FTP: site: sics.se [192.16.123.90] file: archive/emacs-18.55-8bit-diff E-mail: To: mail-server@sics.se body: send emacs-18.55-8bit-diff 76: How do I change load-path? In general, you should only *add* to the load-path. You can add directory /XXX/YYY to the load path like this: (setq load-path (append load-path '("/XXX/YYY/"))) To do this relative to your home directory: (setq load-path (append load-path (list (expand-file-name "~/YYY/")))) Emacs Lisp programming: 77: What dialect of Lisp is Emacs Lisp? It's the dialect of Lisp called Emacs Lisp. (No joke!) People also call it elisp or e-lisp. (NOTE: The term "Elisp" is trademarked by someone else.) 78: How close is Emacs Lisp to Common Lisp? Pretty far. GNU Emacs Lisp is case-sensitive, uses dynamic scoping, doesn't have packages, doesn't have multiple return values, doesn't have reader macros, etc. For people used to Common Lisp, some of the functions in Common Lisp that are not in Emacs Lisp by default are provided in the file lisp/cl.el. There is a Texinfo manual describing these functions in man/cl.texinfo. 79: How do I execute a piece of Emacs Lisp code? There are a number of ways to execute (called "evaluate") an Emacs Lisp "form": * If you want it evaluated every time you run Emacs, put it in a file named ".emacs" in your home directory. * You can type the form in the "*scratch*" buffer, and then type C-j after it. The result of evaluating the form will be inserted in the buffer. * In in Emacs-Lisp mode, typing M-C-x evaluates a top-level form before or around point. * Typing "C-x C-e" in any buffer evaluates the Lisp form immediately before point and prints its value in the echo area. * Typing M-ESC or M-x eval-expression allows you to type a Lisp form in the minibuffer which will be evaluated. * You can use M-x load-file to have Emacs evaluate all the Lisp forms in a file. (To do this from Lisp use the function "load" instead.) 80: How do I make a set of operations fully local to a region? Use narrow-to-region inside of save-restriction. 81: How can I highlight a region? There are ways to get highlighting in GNU Emacs 18.57, but they all require patching the C code of Emacs and rebuilding. They are also slow and the highlighting disappears if you scroll or redraw the screen. One patch is by Kenichi Handa <handa@etl.go.jp>. You can highlight regions in a variety of ways in Epoch. GNU Emacs 19 will have everything you need, but won't be out soon. 82: How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length? Example: (setq default-tab-width 10). 83: What is the difference between (interactive "P") and (interactive "p")? The value that is a result of "P" can be a list, a symbol, or an integer; the value that is a result of "p" is always an integer: Prefix keys typed result of: "P" "p" nothing nil 1 "M-1" 1 1 "C-u 1" 1 1 "M--" '- -1 "C-u -" '- -1 "C-u" (4) 4 "C-u C-u" (16) 16 Carrying Out Common Tasks: 84: How do I insert ">"'s in the beginning of every line in a buffer? Type "M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET > RET". ("replace-regexp" can be shortened to "repl TAB r".) To do this only in the region, type "C-x n M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET > RET C-x w". (You're going to remember that, right?) 85: How do I insert "_^H" characters before each character in a paragraph to get an underlined paragraph? M-x underline-region. 86: How do I repeat a command as many times as possible? Make a keyboard macro that invokes the command and then type "M-0 C-x e". WARNING: any messages your command prints in the echo area will be suppressed. 87: How do I search for an unprintable (8-bit) character that appears in a buffer as \237? C-s C-q 2 3 7 (This assumes the value of search-quote-char is 17 (C-q).) 88: How do I control Emacs's case sensitivitiy when searching/replacing? For searching, the value of the variable case-fold-search determines whether they are case sensitive: (setq case-fold-search nil) ; make searches case sensitive (setq case-fold-search t) ; make searches case insensitive Similarly, for replacing the variable case-replace determines whether replacements preserve case. 89: How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the indentation of the previous line? M-x indented-text-mode. (This is a major mode.) If you have Auto-Fill mode on (minor mode), you can tell Emacs to prefix every line with a certain character sequence, the "fill prefix". Type the prefix at the beginning of a line, position point after it, and then type "C-x ." (set-fill-prefix) to set the fill prefix. Thereafter, auto-filling will automatically put the fill prefix at the beginning of new lines, and M-q (fill-paragraph) will maintain any fill prefix when refilling the paragraph. 90: How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" when I type instead of always inserting? M-x overwrite-mode (minor mode). WARNING: delete-backward-char (usually the delete key) doesn't work properly in Overwrite mode. It deletes the character to the left, rather than replacing it with a space. 91: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at? If you're looking at a right parenthesis (or brace or bracket) you can delete it and reinsert it. Emacs will blink the cursor on the matching parenthesis. M-C-f (forward-sexp) and M-C-b (backward-sexp) will skip over balanced parentheses, so you can see which parentheses match. (You can train it to skip over balanced brackets and braces at the same time by modifying the syntax table.) Here is some Emacs Lisp that will make the % key show the matching parenthese, like in vi. In addition, if the cursor isn't over a parenthese, it simply inserts a % like normal. (By an unknown contributor.) (global-set-key "%" 'match-paren) (defun match-paren (arg) "Go to the matching parenthesis if on parenthesis otherwise insert %." (interactive "p") (cond ((looking-at "[([{]") (forward-sexp 1) (backward-char)) ((looking-at "[])}]") (forward-char) (backward-sexp 1)) (t (self-insert-command (or arg 1))))) 92: How do I make Emacs behave like this: when I go up or down, the cursor should stay in the same column even if the line is too short? M-x picture-mode. (This is a minor mode, in theory anyway ...) 93: How do I read news under Emacs? There are at least three news reading packages that operate inside Emacs. "rnews" comes with Emacs. "GNUS" and "Gnews" come separately. {I've never used rnews; could someone write a description? BTW, rnews will be replaced with GNUS in Emacs 19.} rnews does not work with NNTP. Both GNUS and Gnews handle reading news over NNTP. I think both can also read from a local news spool. GNUS also supports reading mail stored in MH folders or articles saved by GNUS. People have complained that GNUS uses a lot of CPU time (it does). Some people have complained that Gnews is slower than GNUS. GNUS is written (mostly) by Masanobu Umeda. His latest e-mail address is umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp. The latest version is GNUS 3.13. There is a newsgroup for discussion of GNUS called gnu.emacs.gnus. This newsgroup is gatewayed with the mailing list info-gnus-english to subscribe send mail to info-gnus-english-request@cis.ohio-state.edu. There is also a mailing list called info-gnus, which includes discussion in Japanese. Gnews was written by Matthew Wiener <e-mail address?>. {Could someone tell me the # of the latest version, and how long it has been since anyone has heard from Matthew?}. There is a newsgroup for Gnews called gnu.emacs.gnews. 94: In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef commands are handled by the compiler? M-x hide-ifdef-mode. (This is a minor mode.) You may have to (load "hideif") first. If you want to do this regularly, put this in your .emacs file: (autoload 'hide-ifdef-mode "hideif" nil t) {Yes, I know, this should be in lisp/loaddefs.el already.} 95: Is there an equivalent to the "." (dot) command of vi? ("." is the redo command in vi. It redoes the last insertion/deletion.) No, not really. You can type "C-x ESC" (repeat-complex-command) to reinvoke commands that used the minibuffer to get arguments. In repeat-complex-command you can type M-p and M-n to scan through all the different complex commands you've typed. To repeat something on each line I recommend using keyboard macros. 96: How do I use emacstool under SunView? The file etc/SUN-SUPPORT includes the document "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs". Also read the man page for emacstool (etc/emacstool.1). 97: How do I get Emacs to display the current line number on the mode line? There is no "correct" way to constantly display the current line number on the mode line in Emacs 18. Emacs is not a line-oriented editor, and really has no idea what "lines" of the buffer are displayed in the window. It would require a lot of work at the C code level to make Emacs keep track of this. Emacs 19 will probably be able to do this, but probably not with great efficiency. To find out what line of the buffer you are on right now, do "M-x what-line". Typing "C-x l" will also tell you what line you are on, provided the buffer isn't separated into "pages" with C-l characters. In that case, it will only tell you what line of the current "page" you are on. WARNING: "C-x l" gives the wrong value when point is at the beginning of a line. People have written various kludges to display the current line number on the mode line. Look in the Lisp Code Directory. (See question 13.) 98: How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself? You need to modify C source and recompile. Either that or get Epoch instead. For the interested I have a patch to allow Emacs to iconify itself. 99: How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs? This is documented in the Emacs manual. To read the manual section online, type "C-h i m emacs RET m regexps RET". WARNING: Unlike in Unix grep, sed, etc., a complement character set ([^...]) can match a Newline, unless Newline is mentioned as one of the characters not to match.
jbw@bigbird.bu.edu (Joe Wells) (04/13/91)
Here is the differences between this version of the FAQ list and the last
version. Question numbers were stripped from both versions before doing
the comparison because the questions were renumbered. (Actually, I don't
keep numbers in the master copy that I edit.)
--
Enjoy,
Joe Wells <jbw@bu.edu>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (differences)
Fri Apr 12 23:34:43 1991
--- FAQ-5.sed Fri Apr 12 23:18:48 1991
+++ FAQ-6.sed Fri Apr 12 23:39:28 1991
@@ -115,5 +115,5 @@
OSF == Open Software Foundation
GNU == GNU's Not Unix
- RMS == Richard M. Stallman
+ RMS == Richard Matthew Stallman
FTP == File Transfer Protocol
BTW == By the way
@@ -126,4 +126,11 @@
standardized version of Unix not controlled by AT&T.
+ WARNING: The word "free" in the title of the Free Software Foundation
+ refers to "freedom", not "zero dollars". You can charge any price for
+ GPL-covered software that you want to. However, in practice, the
+ freedom enforced by the GPL leads to low or nonexistent prices, because
+ you can always get the software for less money from someone else,
+ because everyone has the right to resell or give away GPL-covered
+ software.
@@ -165,5 +173,5 @@
You may find that command-apropos and apropos are extremely slow on your
system. This will be fixed in Emacs 19. If you can't wait that long,
- I can send you the "fast-apropos.el" file that contains the fix. This
+ there is a "fast-apropos.el" file available that contains the fix. This
file also contains a "super-apropos" command that will list all the
functions and variables whose documentation strings contain a certain
@@ -194,12 +202,15 @@
$20. For 6 or more manuals the price is $13 each.
- The full TeX source for the manual also comes with Emacs, if you're
- daring enough to try to print out this 300 page manual yourself. If you
- order it from the FSF, the price may be tax-deductible as a business
- expense.)
+ The full TeX source for the manual also comes in the "man" directory of
+ the Emacs distribution, if you're daring enough to try to print out this
+ 300 page manual yourself. If you order it from the FSF, the price may
+ be tax-deductible as a business expense.)
If you absolutely have to print your own copy, and you don't have TeX,
you can get a PostScript version via anonymous FTP
- (ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/docs/emacs-18.57.PS.Z, size: 466K).
+ (ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/docs/emacs-18.57.PS.Z, size: 466K, also
+ cs.ubc.ca:/src/gnu/manuals_ps/emacs-18.57.ps.Z, which site requests that
+ you please CONFINE ANY MAJOR FTPING TO LATE EVENINGS OR EARLY MORNINGS
+ OUR TIME (pacific time zone, GMT-8)).
If you don't have TeX you can convert the TeXinfo sources into
@@ -374,7 +385,8 @@
files, see question 16.)
-Q: Where can I get the latest VM, Supercite, GNUS, Calc, Calendar, or Patch?
+Q: Where can I get the latest VM, Supercite, GNUS, Calc, Calendar, Ispell,
+ or Patch?
- 1. VM:
+ * VM:
Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
@@ -387,17 +399,15 @@
Anonymous FTP:
- Last released version: 4.41
+ Latest released version: 4.41
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/vm-4.41.tar.Z
ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/vm/vm-4.41.tar.Z
- Beta test version: 5.22
- ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/vm/{vm-5.22,timer}.tar.Z
+ Beta test version: 5.31
+ ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/vm/{vm-5.31,timer}.tar.Z
- 2. Supercite:
+ * Supercite:
Author: Barry Warsaw <warsaw@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov>
- Latest version: 2.1
-
Mailing lists: supercite@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov
supercite-request@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov
@@ -404,30 +414,37 @@
Anonymous FTP:
- site: durer.cme.nist.gov
- files:/pub/gnu/elisp/supercite-2.1.shar.0# (where # is replaced by 1 or 2)
+ Latest version: 2.1
+ durer.cme.nist.gov:/pub/gnu/elisp/supercite-2.1.shar.0#
+ (where # is replaced by 1 or 2)
- NOTE: Superyank is an old version of Supercite.
+ E-mail:
+ To: library@cme.nist.gov
+ Subject: help
- 3. GNUS:
+ NOTE: Superyank is an old version of Supercite.
- Author: Masanobu Umeda
+ * GNUS:
- Latest version: 3.13
+ Author: Masanobu Umeda <umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp>
Anonymous FTP:
- tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/gnus-3.13.tar.Z
+ Latest version: 3.13
+ tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:
+ /pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/gnus-3.13.tar.Z
- 4. Calc:
+ * Calc:
Author: Dave Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu>
- Latest version: 1.06
-
Anonymous FTP:
- site: csvax.cs.caltech.edu [131.215.131.131]
- or any comp.sources.misc archive
+
+ Latest released version: 1.07
+ csvax.cs.caltech.edu:/pub/calc-1.07.tar.Z
- 5. Calendar/Diary
+ Beta test version: 1.08
+ csvax.cs.caltech.edu:/pub/calc-1.08beta1.tar.Z
+ * Calendar/Diary
+
Author: Ed Reingold <reingold@cs.uiuc.edu>
@@ -435,27 +452,33 @@
E-mail:
+ To: reingold@cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: send-emacs-cal
body: your best internet e-mail address
- 6. Patch
-
- Author: Larry Wall <lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
+ * Ispell
- Latest version: 2.0 patchlevel 12
+ Latest version: 2.0.02
Anonymous FTP:
- site: any comp.sources.unix archive
+ tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/ispell/*
+
+ * Patch
+
+ Author: Larry Wall <lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
+
+ Latest version: 2.0 patchlevel 12u3
- or, for Europeans:
+ This is the version that supports the new "unified" diff format.
- site: archive.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.5]
- file: /pub/UNIX/patch-2.0.tar.Z
+ Anonymous FTP:
+ prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/patch-2.0.12u3.tar.Z
Q: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?
- First create Info files from the Texinfo files with M-x
- texinfo-format-buffer. There is also a program called "makeinfo" that
- provides better error checking and runs faster. Currently, it comes
- with the Emacs Lisp manual (which comes on the GNU Emacs tape).
+ First create Info files from the Texinfo files with the "makeinfo"
+ program. The texinfo-format-buffer command is currently out of date.
+ makeinfo is available as part of the latest Texinfo package
+ (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/texinfo-2.04.tar.Z). It also comes with
+ Emacs, but several include files are missing.
For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which
@@ -475,5 +498,5 @@
If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary
- priveleges, you have two options:
+ privileges, you have two options:
1. Info files don't actually need to be installed. You can feed a file
@@ -542,7 +565,11 @@
postmaster for help.
- {Sending mail to gnulists@prep.ai.mit.edu might also work in addition to
- the "-request" address, I'm not quite sure about that though.}
+Q: What is the LPF and why should I join it?
+ The LPF opposes the expanding danger of software patents and
+ look-and-feel copyrights. Write to league@prep.ai.mit.edu for more
+ information. You can get papers describing the LPF's views via
+ anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/lpf/*) or via anonymous UUCP
+ (osu-cis!~/lpf/*).
@@ -635,5 +663,5 @@
* Freemacs doesn't have undo.
- Carl Witty <cwitty@cs.stanford.edu> writes about Freemacs:
+ Carl Witty <cwitty@cs.stanford.edu> describes Freemacs:
Better is Freemacs, which follows the tradition of ITS and GNU Emacs
@@ -643,14 +671,14 @@
is absolutely illegible without weeks of study, much like TECO.
+ The latest version of Freemacs is 16a {???}.
+
You can get Freemacs several ways:
1. Anonymous FTP:
- site: simtel20.army.mil, directory: PD:<MSDOS.FREEMACS>
- site: grape.ecs.clarkson.edu [128.153.13.196], directory: /e/freemacs
+ simtel20.army.mil:PD:<MSDOS.FREEMACS>
+ grape.ecs.clarkson.edu:/pub/msdos/freemacs/
2. E-mail:
- address: archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu, or
- archive-server%sun.soe@omnigate (BITNET), or
- {smart-host}!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!archive-server (UUCP)
+ address: archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
body: help
@@ -658,13 +686,22 @@
address: Russell Nelson, 11 Grant St., Potsdam, NY 13676
Send $15 copying fee, and specify preferred floppy disk format:
- 5.25", 1.2 Meg, or 5.25", 360K, or 3.50", 720K
+ 5.25", 360K, or 3.50", 720K
- I don't know much about MicroEmacs. All I know is that the latest
- version is 3.10 and it is available via anonymous FTP
+ There is a mailing list for Freemacs. To subscribe, send e-mail:
+
+ address: listserv@clvm.bitnet
+ body: SUBSCRIBE FREEMACS Firstname Lastname
+
+ MicroEmacs is programmable in a BASIC-like language. The author is
+ Daniel Lawrence <dan@midas.mgmt.purdue.edu, nwd@j.cc.purdue.edu,
+ dan@mdbs.uucp>. Many of the keybindings are different from GNU Emacs.
+ The latest version is 3.10 and it is available via anonymous FTP
(durer.cme.nist.gov).
Another Emacs for small machines is JOVE (Jonathan's Own Version of
- Emacs). The latest version is 4.14. It is available via anonymous FTP
- (cs.rochester.edu:/pub/jove.tar.4.14.Z).
+ Emacs). The latest official version is 4.14. There appears to be a
+ newer version. People rumored to be working on JOVE include Mark Moraes
+ at cs.toronto.edu and Bill Marsh <bmarsh@cod.nosc.mil>. It is available
+ via anonymous FTP (cs.rochester.edu:/pub/jove.tar.4.14.Z).
Yet another Emacs is "mg", which used to stand for MicroGNUEmacs, but
@@ -721,12 +758,55 @@
Q: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
- If compiled on a Sun, Emacs recognizes the function keys that are
- normally on a Sun keyboard, and you can bind them the same way you
- normally bind Sun keys. Each function key will generate a key sequence
- that looks like "ESC [ ### z", where ### is replaced by a number.
+ This depends on whether you are running Emacs inside a terminal emulator
+ window, or whether you are allowing Emacs to create its own X window.
+ You can tell which you are doing by noticing whether Emacs creates a new
+ window when you start it. The following description only applies when
+ Emacs has its own X window.
+
+ WARNING: I am about to describe a gross, disgusting hack to you.
+
+ If compiled on a Sun, Emacs recognizes these X "keysyms" that are
+ normally on a Sun keyboard:
+
+ F1 through F9
+ L1 through L10 (same as F11 through F20)
+ R1 through R15 (same as F21 through F35)
+ Break (the "Alternate" key is given this keysym)
+ Up, Down, Right, Left (the arrow keys, R??, R??, R??, and R??)
+
+ When Emacs sees one of the arrow keys, it behaves as though a control
+ key had been pressed instead, like this:
+
+ Up becomes C-p
+ Down becomes C-n
+ Right becomes C-f
+ Left becomes C-b
+
+ The rest of the keys work like Sun function keys. Each function key
+ will generate a key sequence that looks like "ESC [ ### z", where ### is
+ replaced by a number. The key sequences are identical to those
+ generated by Sun's keyboard under SunView. Any function key not listed
+ above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
If not compiled on a Sun, the function keys will appear to Emacs in a
- way remarkably similar to the keys of a VT220 terminal. Each function
- key will generate a key sequence that looks like "ESC [ ### ~".
+ way remarkably similar to the keys of a DEC LK201 keyboard (used on
+ VT220 series terminals). The arrow keys work the same as above. These
+ X keysyms will be recognized:
+
+ F1 through F20
+ Help (treated same as F15)
+ Menu (treated same as F16, is the LK201 "Do" key)
+ Find
+ Insert (LK201 "Insert Here" key)
+ Delete (LK201 "Remove" key)
+ Select
+ Prior (LK201 "Prev Screen" key)
+ Next (LK201 "Next Screen" key)
+ Up, Down, Right, Left (LK201 arrow keys)
+
+ Each function key will generate a key sequence that looks like "ESC [ ##
+ ~", where ## is replaced by a number. The key sequences are identical
+ to those generated by a LK201 keyboard. Any function key not listed
+ above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
For the complete list of the numbers which are generated by the function
@@ -733,6 +813,14 @@
keys, look in the file src/x11term.c.
- However, this may be inadequate for you if you have function keys Emacs
- doesn't know about. Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> explains:
+ If you are running Emacs on a Sun machine, even if your X display is
+ running on a non-Sun machine (eg. X terminal), you get the setup
+ described above for Suns. The determining factor is what type of
+ machine Emacs is running on, not what type of machine your X display is.
+ You can use "xmodmap" to change your X keysym assignments to get keys
+ listed above, but that may screw up other programs.
+
+ If you have function keys not listed above and you don't want to use
+ xmodmap to change their names, you might want to make a modification to
+ your Emacs. Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> explains:
There are a number of tricks that can be helpful. The most elegant
@@ -751,6 +839,5 @@
ordinary VTxxx terminal.
- Another method is to handle the keys in the C source. Although this may
- be slightly more efficient, it is much less flexible.
+ [This is what I do in my Emacs. -- jbw]
Q: How do I tell what characters my function keys emit?
@@ -769,8 +856,4 @@
(message "Characters entered: %s" (key-description chars))))
-
-
-Problems with Key Bindings and Input
-
Q: Why does Emacs spontaneously go into "I-search:" mode?
@@ -795,4 +878,22 @@
Same answer as previous question.
+Q: Why does Emacs never see C-s and C-q through my network connection?
+
+ Eirik Fuller <eirik@theory.tn.cornell.edu> writes:
+
+ Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow control
+ characters to the remote system to which they connect. On such systems,
+ Emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow control on the local
+ system.
+
+ One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host (the
+ one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the stty command,
+ before starting the rlogin process. On many systems, "stty start u stop
+ u" will do this.
+
+ Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
+ around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and issue
+ the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
+
Q: How do I use commands bound to C-s and C-q (or any key) if these keys
are filtered out?
@@ -803,5 +904,5 @@
(swap-keys ?\C-q ?\C-^)
- See question 41 for the implementation of swap-keys.
+ See question 43 for the implementation of swap-keys.
Q: How do I "swap" two keys?
@@ -820,48 +921,25 @@
(defun swap-keys (key1 key2)
"Swap keys KEY1 and KEY2 using map-key."
- (map-key key1 key2 t)
+ (map-key key1 key2)
(map-key key2 key1))
- (defvar map-keys-alist nil
- "Association list of key mappings currently in effect.
- If (FROM . TO) is an element, that means key FROM is currently mapped to TO.")
-
- (defun map-key (from to &optional no-update)
- "Make key FROM behave as though key TO was typed instead.
- If optional argument NO-UPDATE is non-nil, the key-mapping does not take
- effect until a subsequent map-key or unmap-key."
- (let ((alist-entry (assq from map-keys-alist)))
- (if alist-entry
- (setcdr alist-entry to)
- (setq map-keys-alist (cons (cons from to) map-keys-alist))))
- (or no-update (map-keys-update)))
-
- (defun unmap-key (key)
- "Undo any mapping of key KEY."
- (setq map-keys-alist (delq (assq key map-keys-alist) map-keys-alist))
- (map-keys-update))
-
- ;; Makes keyboard-translate-table reflect the key mappings in
- ;; map-keys-alist.
-
- (defun map-keys-update ()
- (if (null map-keys-alist)
- ;; Emacs runs fasted if keyboard-translate-table is nil
- (setq keyboard-translate-table nil)
- (let ((max-key-mapped
- ;; Find the mapped key with largest value
- (apply 'max
- (mapcar
- (function
- (lambda (x)
- (car x)))
- map-keys-alist)))
- (i 0))
- ;; keyboard-translate-table doesn't have to be any longer than
- ;; necessary. This speeds up Emacs.
- (setq keyboard-translate-table (make-string (1+ max-key-mapped) 0))
- (while (<= i max-key-mapped)
- (aset keyboard-translate-table i (or (cdr (assq i map-keys-alist)) i))
- (setq i (1+ i))))))
+ (defun map-key (from to)
+ "Make key FROM behave as though key TO was typed instead."
+ (setq keyboard-translate-table
+ (concat keyboard-translate-table
+ (let* ((i (length keyboard-translate-table))
+ (j from)
+ (k i)
+ (str (make-string (max 0 (- j (1- i))) ?X)))
+ (while (<= k j)
+ (aset str (- k i) k)
+ (setq k (1+ k)))
+ str)))
+ (aset keyboard-translate-table from to)
+ (let ((i (1- (length keyboard-translate-table))))
+ (while (and (>= i 0) (eq (aref keyboard-translate-table i) i))
+ (setq i (1- i)))
+ (setq keyboard-translate-table
+ (if (eq i -1) nil (substring keyboard-translate-table 0 (1+ i))))))
Q: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?
@@ -879,5 +957,5 @@
command will do this on many Unix systems:
- stty erase ^?
+ stty erase '^?'
2. The person may prefer using the Backspace key for deleting the
@@ -888,5 +966,5 @@
(swap-keys ?\C-h ?\C-?)
- See question 41 for the implementation of swap-keys.
+ See question 43 for the implementation of swap-keys.
Q: How do I type DEL on PC terminal emulators?
@@ -904,5 +982,31 @@
If this is too hard, you may want to swap the delete key with some other
- key. See question 42.
+ key. See question 44.
+
+Q: Can I make my "Compose" key behave like a "Meta" key?
+
+ In general, no. However, the LK201 keyboard does send a code for
+ Compose key up and key down, so if you're on an X workstation you might
+ have luck using the "xmodmap" program.
+
+Q: How do I turn on the arrow keys for VT style terminals?
+
+ Put this in your .emacs:
+
+ (setq term-setup-hook
+ (function
+ (lambda ()
+ (if (string-match "\\`vt[123][024]0" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
+ (enable-arrow-keys))))))
+
+ We put this in our lisp/default.el file, so users don't have to worry
+ about it:
+
+ (or term-setup-hook
+ (setq term-setup-hook
+ (function
+ (lambda ()
+ (if (string-match "\\`vt[123][024]0" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
+ (enable-arrow-keys))))))
@@ -948,4 +1052,10 @@
last 12 months, so they should be widely available.
+Q: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?
+
+ Try compiling Emacs with the XBACKWARDS macro defined. There is a bug
+ in some implementations of XGetDefault, which do not correspond to the
+ documentation or the header files.
+
Q: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?
@@ -984,5 +1094,5 @@
#define GCTYPEBITS 5
- See question 48 for an explanation.
+ See question 53 for an explanation.
Q: Why does Emacs use 24 bit integers and pointers?
@@ -1002,5 +1112,5 @@
Emacs uses 8-bit tags because that's a little faster on byte-oriented
machines, but there are only really enough tags to require 6 bits. See
- question 47 to find how to recompile Emacs with 6-bit tags and
+ question 52 to find how to recompile Emacs with 6-bit tags and
26-bit integers and pointers if space is at a premium for you.
@@ -1016,4 +1126,7 @@
etc/OPTIONS file for more details.
+ Perhaps an easier solution is not to use two shells. The "chsh" program
+ can often be used to change one's default login shell.
+
Q: How do I edit a file with a "$" in its name?
@@ -1022,10 +1135,14 @@
behavior, type "$$" instead.
-Q: Why does Shell Mode lose track of the shell's current directory?
+Q: Why does Shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory?
Emacs has no way of knowing when the shell actually changes its
- directory. So it tries to guess by recognizing cd commands. A number
- of fixes and enhancements to Shell Mode have been written, check the
- Emacs Lisp Archive (question 14).
+ directory. This is an intrinsic limitation of Unix. So it tries to
+ guess by recognizing "cd" commands. If you type "cd" followed by a
+ directory name with a variable reference ("cd $HOME/bin") or with a
+ shell metacharacter ("cd ../lib*"), Emacs will fail to correctly guess
+ the shell's new current directory. A number of fixes and enhancements
+ to Shell mode for this problem have been written, check the Emacs Lisp
+ Archive (question 14).
Q: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
@@ -1078,6 +1195,6 @@
Formerly, in version 18.55, Emacs used a program named "loadst" to
notify Emacs of the change in time every minute. loadst also sent Emacs
- the system load average if it was installed with sufficient privelege to
- get that information (or was on a system where no such privelege was
+ the system load average if it was installed with sufficient privilege to
+ get that information (or was on a system where no such privilege was
needed). Emacs then displayed this information in the mode line.
@@ -1087,6 +1204,6 @@
Emacs once a minute. The filter function in Emacs does all the work of
finding the time, date, and load average. However, getting the load
- average requires the privelege to read kernel memory on most systems.
- Since giving Emacs this privelege would destroy any security a system
+ average requires the privilege to read kernel memory on most systems.
+ Since giving Emacs this privilege would destroy any security a system
might have, for almost everyone this is not an option. In addition,
Emacs does not have the code built into it to get this information on
@@ -1095,5 +1212,7 @@
The solution I use is to get the files lisp/display-time.el and
- etc/loadst.c from version 18.55 and use those with 18.57.
+ etc/loadst.c from version 18.55 and use those with 18.57. (I have heard
+ a rumor that loadst disappeared because of the legal action Unipress
+ threatened against IBM.)
WARNING: Do not install Emacs setgid kmem unless you wish to destroy
@@ -1124,5 +1243,4 @@
(setq nntp-maximum-request 1)
- (setq nntp-buggy-select t)
I also have a patch for NNTP 1.5.10 that is based on the timeout code
@@ -1143,6 +1261,33 @@
(defconst ispell-version "2.0.02") ;; Check against output of "ispell -v".
+Q: How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my Shell buffer?
+
+ If you are using a recent version of tcsh, the problem won't occur.
+ With an older version of tcsh, put this in your ".cshrc" (or ".tcshrc")
+ file:
+
+ if ($?tcsh) if ($?EMACS) unset edit
+
+ Or put this in your .emacs_tcsh file:
+
+ unset edit
+
+ {Someone should send me the solution for csh.}
+
+Q: Does GNU Emacs have a vulnerability to Trojan horses?
+ Yes. Your site should put this in lisp/site-init.el before building
+ Emacs:
+ (setq inhibit-local-variables t)
+
+ If Emacs has already been built, the expression should be put in
+ lisp/default.el instead.
+
+ The security hole that would otherwise be left open is described in the
+ "File Variables" section of the manual (and Info tree).
+
+
+
Configuring Emacs for yourself:
@@ -1171,5 +1316,5 @@
WARNING: this will not discover errors caused by trying to do something
that requires the terminal/window-system initialization code to have
- been loaded. See question 34.
+ been loaded. See question 35.
Q: How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX?
@@ -1186,4 +1331,28 @@
(setq abbrev-mode t))))
+Q: How do I turn on Auto-Fill mode by default?
+
+ To turn on Auto-Fill mode just once for one buffer, you type "M-x
+ auto-fill-mode". To turn it on for every buffer in, for example, Text
+ mode, do this:
+
+ (setq text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)
+
+ If you want Auto-Fill mode on in all major modes, do this:
+
+ (setq-default auto-fill-hook 'do-auto-fill)
+
+Q: How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?
+
+ If you want to use XXX mode for all files which end with the extension
+ ".YYY", this will do it for you:
+
+ (setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode) auto-mode-alist))
+
+ Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to
+ edit in XXX mode:
+
+ -*-XXX-*-
+
Q: What are the valid X resource settings (ie., stuff in .Xdefaults file)?
@@ -1190,4 +1359,19 @@
See the Emacs man page, or the etc/OPTIONS file.
+Q: How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?
+
+ Martin R. Frank <martin@cc.gatech.edu> writes:
+
+ Tell Emacs to use the 'visible bell' instead of the audible bell, and
+ set the visible bell to nothing.
+
+ Put this in your TERMCAP environment variable:
+
+ ... :vb=: ...
+
+ And evaluate this:
+
+ (setq visible-bell t)
+
Q: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?
@@ -1197,5 +1381,5 @@
Under normal GNU Emacs you must modify the XTfeep function in
- src/x11term.c, and change the number 50 to some other number:
+ src/x11term.c, and change the number 50 to -50:
XTfeep ()
@@ -1206,8 +1390,10 @@
#endif
BLOCK_INPUT ();
- XBell (XXdisplay,50); /* change this 50 */
+ XBell (XXdisplay,50); /* change this 50 to -50 */
UNBLOCK_INPUT ();
}
+ Then "xset b 0" will turn off Emacs's beeping.
+
Q: How do I make Emacs send 8-bit characters to my terminal?
@@ -1225,6 +1411,17 @@
body: send emacs-18.55-8bit-diff
+Q: How do I change load-path?
+
+ In general, you should only *add* to the load-path. You can add
+ directory /XXX/YYY to the load path like this:
+
+ (setq load-path (append load-path '("/XXX/YYY/")))
+ To do this relative to your home directory:
+ (setq load-path (append load-path (list (expand-file-name "~/YYY/"))))
+
+
+
Emacs Lisp programming:
@@ -1346,5 +1543,5 @@
M-x indented-text-mode. (This is a major mode.)
- If you have auto-fill mode on (minor mode), you can tell Emacs to prefix
+ If you have Auto-Fill mode on (minor mode), you can tell Emacs to prefix
every line with a certain character sequence, the "fill prefix". Type
the prefix at the beginning of a line, position point after it, and then
@@ -1360,5 +1557,5 @@
WARNING: delete-backward-char (usually the delete key) doesn't work
- properly in overwrite mode. It deletes the character to the left,
+ properly in Overwrite mode. It deletes the character to the left,
rather than replacing it with a space.
@@ -1402,15 +1599,19 @@
will be replaced with GNUS in Emacs 19.}
+ rnews does not work with NNTP.
+
Both GNUS and Gnews handle reading news over NNTP. I think both can
also read from a local news spool. GNUS also supports reading mail
- stored in MH folders or articles saved by GNUS.
-
- GNUS is written (mostly) by Masanobu Umeda. His {?} latest e-mail
- address was umerin@tc.nagasaki.go.jp, but I don't think he has an e-mail
- address right now. The latest version is GNUS 3.13. There is a
- newsgroup for discussion of GNUS called gnu.emacs.gnus. This newsgroup
- is gatewayed with the mailing list info-gnus-english to subscribe send
- mail to info-gnus-english-request@cis.ohio-state.edu. There is also a
- mailing list called info-gnus, which includes discussion in Japanese.
+ stored in MH folders or articles saved by GNUS. People have complained
+ that GNUS uses a lot of CPU time (it does). Some people have complained
+ that Gnews is slower than GNUS.
+
+ GNUS is written (mostly) by Masanobu Umeda. His latest e-mail address
+ is umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp. The latest version is GNUS 3.13. There is
+ a newsgroup for discussion of GNUS called gnu.emacs.gnus. This
+ newsgroup is gatewayed with the mailing list info-gnus-english to
+ subscribe send mail to info-gnus-english-request@cis.ohio-state.edu.
+ There is also a mailing list called info-gnus, which includes discussion
+ in Japanese.
Gnews was written by Matthew Wiener <e-mail address?>. {Could someonejbw@bigbird.bu.edu (Joe Wells) (05/13/91)
[To find what has changed, view the "differences" posting.]
Here is a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) about GNU Emacs with
answers. The FAQ is posted to reduce the noise level in the
"gnu.emacs.help" newsgroup (also the "help-gnu-emacs" mailing list)
resulting from question repetition. It is crossposted to "comp.emacs"
because so many news readers do not receive the "gnu.*" newsgroups.
Please suggest new questions or answers, wording changes, deletions, etc.
Please include either "FAQ" or "frequently asked questions" in the subject
of messages you send to me about the FAQ.
Please do not send questions to me just because you do not want to disturb
a lot of people and you think I would know the answer. I have assembled
the FAQ mainly because I do not have time to answer questions
individually. I do not mind people asking me for copies of the FAQ, but
in practice such requests tend to get ignored for months at a time. :-(
And finally, enjoy!
--
Joe Wells <jbw@cs.bu.edu>
PS. I would love to see someone write a comprehensive description of the
keybinding situation which covers *all* of the different situations. This
seems to be the issue comsuming the most bandwidth.
-------------------------------------------------
GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (part 1 of 2)
Sun May 12 23:47:35 1991
If you are viewing this file in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x
$" to get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look
at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $".
To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a
C-r if that doesn't work, then type ESC to end the search.
Notation Used in the Answers (READ THIS SECTION FIRST!)
You may skip this section if you are reasonably familiar with GNU Emacs.
Some of these are not actually frequently asked questions, but knowing
them is important for understanding the answers to the rest of the
questions.
1: What do things like this mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, etc.?
C-a means while holding down the "Control" key press the "a" key. The
ASCII code this sends will generally be the value that would be sent by
pressing just "a" minus 96 or 64. Either way it will be a number from 0
to 31.
M-a means while holding down the "Meta" key press the "a" key. The
ASCII code this sends is the sum of the ASCII code that would be sent by
pressing just "a" and 128.
M-C-a means while holding down both the "Control" key and the "Meta" key
press the "a" key. C-M-a is a synonym for M-C-a.
* RET means press the "Return" key. RET is the same as C-m. This sends
ASCII code 13.
* LFD means press the "Linefeed" key. LFD is also the same as C-j. This
sends ASCII code 10. Under Unix, ASCII code 10 is more often called
"Newline".
* DEL means press the "Delete" key. DEL is the same as C-?. This sends
ASCII code 127.
* ESC means press the "Escape" key. ESC is the same as C-[. This sends
ASCII code 27.
* SPC means press the "Space" key. This send ASCII code 32.
* TAB means press the "Tab" key. TAB is the same as C-i. This send ASCII
code 9.
To read more about this online, type "C-h i m emacs RET m characters
RET", and also "C-h i m emacs RET m keys RET".
2: What do you mean when you write things like this: type "ESC a"?
I will enclose key sequences that are longer than one key inside double
quotes. These notations refer to single keys (some with modifiers):
C-x, M-x, M-C-x
RET, LFD, DEL, ESC, SPC, TAB
I separate these from other keys within double quotes by spaces. Any
real spaces that I write inside double quotes can be ignored, only SPC
means press the space key. All other characters within double quotes
represent single keys (some shifted).
3: What if I don't have a Meta key?
Instead of typing M-a, you can type "ESC a" instead. In fact, Emacs
converts M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway.
4: What if I don't have an Escape key?
Type C-[ instead. This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape
key would.
5: What does "M-x command" mean?
"M-x command" means type M-x, then type the name of the command, then
type RET.
M-x is simply the default key sequence that invokes the command
"execute-extended-command". This command allows you to run any Emacs
command if you can remember the command's name. If you can't remember
the command's name, you can type TAB and SPC for completion, and ? for a
list of possibilities. An Emacs "command" is any "interactive" Emacs
function.
NOTE: Your system administrator may have bound other key sequences to
invoke execute-extended-command. A function key labeled "Do" is a good
candidate for this.
To run non-interactive Emacs functions, use M-ESC instead and type a
Lisp form that invokes the function (see question 82).
6: What do things like this mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h,
lisp/default.el?
These are the names of files that are part of the GNU Emacs
distribution. The GNU Emacs distribution is divided into several
subdirectories; the important subdirectories are named "etc", "lisp",
and "src".
If you use GNU Emacs, but don't know where it is kept on your system,
start Emacs, then type "C-h v exec-directory RET". The directory name
that is displayed by this will be the full pathname of the "etc"
directory of your installed GNU Emacs distribution.
Some of these files are available individually via FTP or e-mail, see
question 17.
7: What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, BTW, and GPL?
FSF == Free Software Foundation
LPF == League for Programming Freedom
OSF == Open Software Foundation
GNU == GNU's Not Unix
RMS == Richard Matthew Stallman
FTP == File Transfer Protocol
BTW == By the way
GPL == GNU General Public Licence
NOTE: Avoid confusing the FSF, the LPF, and the OSF. The LPF opposes
look-and-feel copyrights and software patents. The FSF aims to make
high quality free software available for everyone. The OSF is a
commercial organization which wants to provide an alternative,
standardized version of Unix not controlled by AT&T.
WARNING: The word "free" in the title of the Free Software Foundation
refers to "freedom", not "zero dollars". Anyone can charge any price
for GPL-covered software that they want to. However, in practice, the
freedom enforced by the GPL leads to low or nonexistent prices, because
you can always get the software for less money from someone else,
because everyone has the right to resell or give away GPL-covered
software.
Sources of Information and Help
8: I'm just starting GNU Emacs; how do I do basic editing?
Type "C-h t" to invoke the self-paced tutorial. Typing just C-h is
how to enter the help system.
WARNING: your system administrator may have changed C-h to act like DEL.
You can use M-x help-for-help instead to invoke help. To discover what
key (if any) invokes help on your system, type "M-x where-is RET
help-for-help RET". This will print a comma-separated list of key
sequences in the echo area. Ignore the last character in each key
sequence listed. Each of the resulting key sequences invokes help.
NOTE: Emacs's help facility works best if help is invoked by a single
key. The variable help-char should hold the value of this character.
9: How do I find out how to do something in GNU Emacs?
There are several methods for finding out how to do things in Emacs.
You should become familiar with the online documentation for Emacs. The
complete text of the Emacs manual is available online in a hypertext
format via the "Info" manual reader. Type "C-h i" to invoke Info.
You can order a hardcopy of the manual from the FSF. See question 12.
You can get a printed reference card listing commands and keys to invoke
them. You can order one from the FSF for $1 (or 10 for $5), or you can
print your own from the etc/refcard.tex file in the Emacs distribution.
You can list all of the commands whose names contain a certain word
(actually which match a regular expression) using the "command-apropos"
command. Type "C-h a" to invoke this command.
You can list all of the functions and variables whose names contain a
certain word using the "apropos" command. M-x apropos invokes this
command.
There are many other commands in Emacs for getting help and information.
To get a list of these commands, type "C-h C-h C-h".
NOTE: You may find that command-apropos and apropos are extremely slow
on your system. This will be fixed in Emacs 19. If you can't wait that
long, there is a "fast-apropos.el" file available that contains the fix.
This file also contains a "super-apropos" command that will list all the
functions and variables whose documentation strings contain a certain
word.
10: Where can I get GNU Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?
Look in the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for information on nearby
archive sites. If you don't already have GNU Emacs, see question
17 for how to get these two files.
The latest version is always available via anonymous FTP at MIT
(prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs-18.57.tar.Z).
11: Where can I get help in installing GNU Emacs?
Look in the file etc/SERVICE for names of companies and individuals who
will sell you this type of service. An up-to-date version of the
SERVICE file is available on prep.ai.mit.edu. See question 17
for how to retrieve this file.
12: How do I get a printed copy of the GNU Emacs manual?
You can order a printed copy of the GNU Emacs manual from the FSF for
$20. For 6 or more manuals the price is $13 each.
The full TeX source for the manual also comes in the "man" directory of
the Emacs distribution, if you're daring enough to try to print out this
300 page manual yourself. If you order it from the FSF, the price may
be tax-deductible as a business expense.)
If you absolutely have to print your own copy, and you don't have TeX,
you can get a PostScript version via anonymous FTP
(ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/docs/emacs-18.57.PS.Z, size: 466K, also
cs.ubc.ca:/src/gnu/manuals_ps/emacs-18.57.ps.Z, which site requests that
you please CONFINE ANY MAJOR FTPING TO LATE EVENINGS OR EARLY MORNINGS
OUR TIME (pacific time zone, GMT-8)).
If you don't have TeX you can convert the Texinfo sources into
{t,n,ps}roff format with the "texi2roff" program, which is available via
anonymous FTP (tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/texi2roff/texi2roff.shar.Z)
Carl Witty <cwitty@cs.stanford.edu> writes:
The Emacs manual is also available online in the Info system, which is
available by typing "C-h i". In this form, it has hypertext links and
is very easy to browse or search; many people prefer it to the printed
manual.
13: Has someone written an GNU Emacs Lisp package that does XXX?
Probably. A listing of Emacs Lisp packages, called the Lisp Code
Directory, is being maintained by Dave Brennan <brennan@dg-rtp.dg.com>.
You can search through this list to find if someone has written
something that fits your needs.
This list is file "LCD-datafile.Z" in the Emacs Lisp Archive. (See
question 14.) The files "lispdir.el.Z" and "lispdir.doc.Z"
in the archive contain information to help you use the list.
14: Where can I get GNU Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs?
First, check the Lisp Code Directory to find the name of the package you
are looking for. (See question 13). Then check local archives and
the Emacs Lisp Archive to find a copy of the relevant files. Then, if
you still haven't found it, you can send e-mail to the author asking for
a copy.
You can access the Emacs Lisp Archive via anonymous FTP
(tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/). Fetch the file
"README.Z" first.
NOTE: Any files with names ending in ".Z" are compressed, and you should
use "binary" mode in FTP to retrieve them. You should also use binary
mode whenever you retrieve any files with names ending in ".elc".
15: How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
Submissions for the archive should be sent to Dave Sill <de5@ornl.gov>.
If you have ftp access, the submission can be deposited in the directory
/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/incoming on tut.cis.ohio-state.edu.
Whenever possible submissions should contain an LCD-datafile entry since
this helps reduce administrative overhead for the maintainers. Before
submitting anything, first read the file "guidelines.Z", which is
available in the archive.
The format of an LCD-datafile entry is this:
Name|Author|Contact|Description|Date|Version|Archive
Here is an example:
1char|Bard Bloom|bard@theory.lcs.mit.edu|Help fixing typos.|90-07-13||~/misc/1char.el.Z
16: Where can I get documentation on GNU Emacs Lisp?
Obtain the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for Emacs 18 under Unix. It
is available from the FSF for $50 (or 5 for $200). The latest revision
available for FTP is edition 1.03 dated 28 January 1991.
Within Emacs, you can type "C-h f" to get the documentation for a
function, "C-h v" for a variable.
Also, as a popular USENET saying goes, "Use the Force, Read the Source".
You can also get the Texinfo source for the manual, if you are daring
enough to try to print this 550 page manual out yourself. This is
available in the Emacs Lisp Archive and also via anonymous FTP
(prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/elisp.tar.Z).
A set of pregenerated Info files comes with the Texinfo source for the
Emacs Lisp manual, so you don't have to format it yourself for online
use. (You can create the Info files from the Texinfo source.) See
question 22 for details on how to install these files online.
17: What informational files are available for GNU Emacs?
This isn't a frequently asked question, but it should be! A variety of
informational files about GNU Emacs and relevant aspects of the GNU
project are available for you to read.
The following files are available in the "etc" directory of the GNU
Emacs distribution, and also the latest versions are available
individually via anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/etc/):
APPLE -- Why the FSF doen't support GNU Emacs on Apple computers
DISTRIB -- GNU Emacs Availability Information,
including the popular "Free Software Foundation Order Form"
FTP -- How to get GNU Software by Internet FTP or by UUCP
GNU -- The GNU Manifesto
INTERVIEW -- Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain
UNIX-compatible software system
with BYTE editors
MACHINES -- Status of GNU Emacs on Various Machines and Systems
MAILINGLISTS -- GNU Project Electronic Mailing Lists
SERVICE -- GNU Service Directory
SUN-SUPPORT -- includes the popular "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs"
These files are available in the "etc" directory of the GNU Emacs
distribution:
DIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and Twenex Emacs
CCADIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and CCA Emacs
GOSDIFF -- Differences between GNU Emacs and Gosling (Unipress??) Emacs
COPYING -- GNU Emacs General Public License
NEWS -- GNU Emacs News, a history of user-visible changes
LPF -- Why you should join the League for Programming Freedom
FAQ -- GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions (You're reading it)
OPTIONS -- a complete explanation of startup option handling
These files are available via anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/):
tasks -- GNU Task List
standards.text -- GNU Coding Standards
In addition, all of the above files are available directly from the FSF
via e-mail. Of course, please try to get them from a local source
first.
These additional files are available from the FSF via e-mail:
* GNU's Bulletin, January, 1991 -- this file includes:
GNU'S Who
What Is the Free Software Foundation?
What Is Copyleft?
GNUs Flashes
Free Software Support
"Protect Your Freedom to Write Programs" by Richard Stallman
GNU Project Status Report
"Help Keep Government Software Free" by Richard Stallman
GNU Documentation
GNU Wish List
GNU Software Available Now
Contents of the Emacs Tape
Contents of the Compiler Tape
Contents of the X11 Tapes
VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes
How to Get GNU Software
Free Software for MS-DOS
GNUish MS-DOS project
Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
GNU in Japan
Thank GNUs
FSF Order Form
* Legal issues about contributing code to GNU
* GNU Project Status Report
18: What is the current address of the FSF?
Snail mail address:
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
675 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Phone number:
(617) 876-3296
E-mail addresses:
gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu {probably read by Len Tower}
gnulists@prep
19: What is the current address of the LPF?
Snail mail address:
League for Programming Freedom
1 Kendall Square, Number 143
Post Office Box 9171
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Phone number:
(617) 243-4061 { or 243-4091, I'm not sure ... }
E-mail address:
league@prep.ai.mit.edu
20: Where can I get the up-to-date GNU stuff?
The most up-to-date official GNU stuff is normally kept on
prep.ai.mit.edu and is available for anonymous FTP. See the files
etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for more information. (To get copies of these
files, see question 17.)
21: Where can I get the latest VM, Supercite, GNUS, Calc, Calendar, Ispell,
or Patch?
* VM:
Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@uunet.uu.net>
Mailing lists: info-vm-request@uunet.uu.net
info-vm@uunet.uu.net
bug-vm-request@uunet.uu.net
bug-vm@uunet.uu.net
Anonymous FTP:
Latest released version: 4.41
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/vm-4.41.tar.Z
ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/vm/vm-4.41.tar.Z
Beta test version: 5.31
ab20.larc.nasa.gov:/pub/vm/{vm-5.31,timer}.tar.Z
* Supercite:
Author: Barry Warsaw <warsaw@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov>
Mailing lists: supercite@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov
supercite-request@warsaw.nlm.nih.gov
Anonymous FTP:
Latest version: 2.1
durer.cme.nist.gov:/pub/gnu/elisp/supercite-2.1.shar.0{1,2}
E-mail:
To: library@cme.nist.gov
Subject: help
NOTE: Superyank is an old version of Supercite.
* GNUS:
Author: Masanobu Umeda <umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp>
Anonymous FTP:
Latest version: 3.13
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:
/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages/gnus-3.13.tar.Z
* Calc:
Author: Dave Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu>
Anonymous FTP:
Latest released version: 1.07
csvax.cs.caltech.edu:/pub/calc-1.07.tar.Z
Beta test version: 1.08
csvax.cs.caltech.edu:/pub/calc-1.08beta1.tar.Z
* Calendar/Diary
Author: Ed Reingold <reingold@cs.uiuc.edu>
Latest version: 4
E-mail:
To: reingold@cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: send-emacs-cal
body: your best internet e-mail address
* Ispell
Latest version: 2.0.02
Anonymous FTP:
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/ispell/*
* Patch
Author: Larry Wall <lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
Latest version: 2.0 patchlevel 12u3
This is the version that supports the new "unified" diff format.
Anonymous FTP:
prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/patch-2.0.12u3.tar.Z
22: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?
First create Info files from the Texinfo files with the "makeinfo"
program. The texinfo-format-buffer command is currently obsolete.
makeinfo is available as part of the latest Texinfo package
(prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/texinfo-2.05.tar.Z). It also comes with
Emacs, but several include files are missing.
For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which
comes with Emacs. This manual also comes installed in Info format, so
you can read it online.
Neither texinfo-format-buffer nor the makeinfo program install the
resulting Info files in Emacs's Info tree. To install Info files:
1. Move the files to the "info" directory in the installed Emacs
distribution. See question 6 if you don't know where that
is.
2. Edit the file info/dir in the installed Emacs distribution, and add a
line for the top level node in the Info package that you are
installing.
If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary
privileges, you have two options:
1. Info files don't actually need to be installed. You can feed a file
name to the Info-goto-node command (invoked by pressing "g" in Info
mode) by typing the name of the file in parentheses. This goes to
the node named "Top" in that file. For example, to view a Info file
named "XXX" in your home directory, you can type this:
C-h i g (~/XXX) RET
2. You can create your own Info directory. You can tell Emacs where the
Info directory is by setting the value of the variable Info-directory
to its pathname. For example, to use a private Info directory which
is a subdirectory of your home directory named "Info", you could do
this:
(setq Info-directory (expand-file-name "~/Info"))
You will need a top-level Info file named "dir" in this directory.
You can include the system-wide Info directory in your private Info
directory with symbolic links or by copying it.
23: Can I view Info files without using GNU Emacs?
Yes, the "info" and "xinfo" programs do this. You can get "info" as
part of the latest Texinfo package (see question 22). "xinfo" is
available separately (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/xinfo-1.01.01.tar.Z).
24: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?
RMS writes:
The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the spirit,
which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work pertaining
to Emacs should also be free software. "Free" means that all users have
the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs. To make sure
everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you distribute
any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the recipients the
same freedom that you enjoyed.
If you still want to find out about the legal meaning of the copyleft,
please ask yourself if this means you are not paying attention to the
spirit.
25: What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help/gnu.emacs.bug/comp.emacs
etc.?
The file etc/MAILINGLISTS discusses the purpose of each GNU
mailing-list. (See question 17 on how to get a copy.) For
those which are gatewayed with newsgroups, it lists both the newsgroup
name and the mailing list address.
comp.emacs is for discussion of Emacs programs in general. This
includes GNU Emacs along with various other implementations like JOVE,
MicroEmacs, Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, etc.
Many people post GNU Emacs questions to comp.emacs because they don't
receive any of the gnu.* newsgroups. Arguments have been made both for
and against posting GNU-Emacs-specific material to comp.emacs. You have
to decide for yourself.
26: How do I unsubscribe to this mailing list?
If you are receiving a GNU mailing list named "XXX", you might be able
to unsubscribe to it by sending a request to the address
"XXX-request@prep.ai.mit.edu". However, this will not work if you are
not listed on the main mailing list, but instead recieve the mail from a
distribution point. In that case, you will have to track down at which
distribution point you are listed. Inspecting the "Received:" headers
on the mail messages may help, along with liberal use of the "EXPN" and
"VRFY" sendmail commands through "telnet <site-address> smtp". Ask your
postmaster for help.
27: What is the LPF and why should I join it?
The LPF opposes the expanding danger of software patents and
look-and-feel copyrights. Write to league@prep.ai.mit.edu for more
information. You can get papers describing the LPF's views via
anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/lpf/*) or via anonymous UUCP
(osu-cis!~/lpf/*).
GNU Emacs, all its Variants, and other Editors
28: Where does the name "Emacs" come from?
EMACS originally was an acronym for Editor MACroS. The first Emacs was
a set of macros written by Richard Stallman and Guy Steele for the
editor TECO (Text Editor and COrrector (originally Tape Editor and
COrrector)) on a PDP-10. (Amusing fact: many people have told me that
TECO code looks a lot like line noise. See alt.lang.teco if you are
interested.)
29: What is the latest version of GNU Emacs?
GNU Emacs 18.57.
30: When will GNU Emacs 19 be available?
Good question, I don't know. For that matter, neither do the
developers. It will undoubtedly be available sometime in the 1990s.
31: What will be different about GNU Emacs 19?
From the latest "GNU's Bulletin":
Version 19 approaches release, counting among its new features: before
and after change hooks, source-level Lisp debugging, X selection
processing, including clipboard selections, scrollbars, support for
European character sets, floating point numbers, per-buffer mouse
commands, interfacing with the X resource manager, mouse-tracking,
Lisp-level binding of function keys, and multiple X windows (`screens'
to Emacs).
Thanks go to Alan Carroll and the people who worked on Epoch for
generating initial feedback to a multi-windowed Emacs. Emacs 19
supports two styles of multiple windows, one with a separate screen for
the minibuffer, and another with a minibuffer attached to each screen.
A couple of other features of Emacs 19 are buffer allocation, which uses
a new mechanism capable of returning storage to the system when a buffer
is killed, and a new input system---all input now arrives in the form of
Lisp objects.
Other features being considered for later releases of Emacs 19 include:
associating property lists with regions of text in a buffer; multiple
font, color, and pixmaps defined by those properties; different
visibility conditions for the regions, and for various windows showing
one buffer; hooks to be run if point or mouse moves outside a certain
range; incrementally saving undo history in a file; static menu bars;
and better pop-up menus.
Mention of these two items disappeared from the latest GNU's bulletin:
* Incremental syntax analysis for various programming languages (Leif).
* A more sophisticated emacsclient/server model, which would provide
network transparent Emacs widget functionality.
32: Is there an Emacs that has better mouse and X window support?
Emacs 18 has some limited X Window System support, but there are
problems. Emacs 19 will have amazing mouse and window support. Right
now, there is a modified version of Emacs 18.55 called "Epoch" which has
greatly improved mouse and window support. The latest version of Epoch
is available via anonymous FTP
(cs.uiuc.edu:/pub/epoch-files/epoch/epoch-3.2b, b stands for beta).
NOTE: Epoch only works with the X Window System; it does not work on
ordinary terminals.
33: How do I get Emacs for my PC?
GNU Emacs won't run on a PC directly under MS-DOS. There have been
reports of people running GNU Emacs under a special program under MS-DOS
on 286 or 386 machines, but I don't know the details.
You can try a variety of similar programs such as MG, MicroEmacs,
Freemacs, etc.
Russ Nelson <nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>, the author, describes
Freemacs:
* Freemacs is free, and it was designed from the start to be
programmable.
* Freemacs is the only IBM-PC editor that tries to be like GNU Emacs.
* Freemacs can only edit files less than 64K in length.
* Freemacs doesn't have undo.
Carl Witty <cwitty@cs.stanford.edu> describes Freemacs:
Better is Freemacs, which follows the tradition of ITS and GNU Emacs
by having an full, turing-complete extension language which is
incompatible with everything else. In fact, it's even closer to ITS
Emacs than GNU Emacs is, because Mint (Freemacs' extension language)
is absolutely illegible without weeks of study, much like TECO.
The latest version of Freemacs is 16a {???}.
You can get Freemacs several ways:
1. Anonymous FTP:
simtel20.army.mil:PD:<MSDOS.FREEMACS>
grape.ecs.clarkson.edu:/pub/msdos/freemacs/
2. E-mail:
address: archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
body: help
3. Snail mail:
address: Russell Nelson, 11 Grant St., Potsdam, NY 13676
Send $15 copying fee, and specify preferred floppy disk format:
5.25", 360K, or 3.50", 720K
There is a mailing list for Freemacs. {Is it operational yet?} To
subscribe, send e-mail:
address: listserv@clvm.bitnet
body: SUBSCRIBE FREEMACS Firstname Lastname
MicroEmacs is programmable in a BASIC-like language. The author is
Daniel Lawrence <dan@midas.mgmt.purdue.edu, nwd@j.cc.purdue.edu,
dan@mdbs.uucp>. Many of the keybindings are different from GNU Emacs.
The latest version is 3.10 and it is available via anonymous FTP
(durer.cme.nist.gov).
Another Emacs for small machines is JOVE (Jonathan's Own Version of
Emacs). The latest official version is 4.14. There appears to be a
newer version. People rumored to be working on JOVE include Mark Moraes
at cs.toronto.edu and Bill Marsh <bmarsh@cod.nosc.mil>. It is available
via anonymous FTP (cs.rochester.edu:/pub/jove.tar.4.14.Z).
Yet another Emacs is "mg", which used to stand for MicroGNUEmacs, but
now just stands for "mg". It is also available via anonymous FTP
(snow.white.toronto.edu).
34: Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
The latest version for the ST is available via anonymous FTP
(cs.uni-sb.de:/pub/atari/emacs/).
35: Where can I get Emacs with NeWS support?
Chris Maio's NeWS support package for GNU Emacs is available via
anonymous FTP (columbia.edu/pub/ps-emacs.tar.Z,
tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/ps-emacs.tar.Z).
Binding Keys to Commands
36: Why does my key binding fail?
Most likely, it failed because "ESC [" was already defined. Evaluate
this form first:
(define-key esc-map "[" nil)
37: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
.emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
This is because you're trying to do something in your .emacs file that
needs to be postponed until after the terminal/window-system setup code
is loaded. This is a result of the order in which things are done
during the startup of Emacs.
In order to postpone the execution of Emacs Lisp code until after the
terminal/window-system setup, set the value of the variable
term-setup-hook or window-setup-hook to be a function which does what
you want.
See etc/OPTIONS for a complete explanation of what Emacs does every time
it is started.
Here is a simple example of how to set term-setup-hook:
(setq term-setup-hook
(function
(lambda ()
(if (string-match "^vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x:
(define-key CSI-map "29~" 'execute-extended-command)))))
38: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
This depends on whether you are running Emacs inside a terminal emulator
window, or whether you are allowing Emacs to create its own X window.
You can tell which you are doing by noticing whether Emacs creates a new
window when you start it. The following description only applies when
Emacs has its own X window.
WARNING: I am about to describe a gross, disgusting hack to you.
If compiled on a Sun, Emacs recognizes these X "keysyms" that are
normally on a Sun keyboard:
F1 through F9
L1 through L10 (same as F11 through F20)
R1 through R15 (same as F21 through F35)
Break (the "Alternate" key is given this keysym)
Up, Down, Right, Left (the arrow keys, R??, R??, R??, and R??)
When Emacs sees one of the arrow keys, it behaves as though a control
key had been pressed instead, like this:
Up becomes C-p
Down becomes C-n
Right becomes C-f
Left becomes C-b
The rest of the keys work like Sun function keys. Each function key
will generate a key sequence that looks like "ESC [ ### z", where ### is
replaced by a number. The key sequences are identical to those
generated by Sun's keyboard under SunView. Any function key not listed
above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
If not compiled on a Sun, the function keys will appear to Emacs in a
way remarkably similar to the keys of a DEC LK201 keyboard (used on some
VT series terminals). The arrow keys work the same as above. These X
keysyms will be recognized:
F1 through F20
Help (treated same as F15)
Menu (treated same as F16, is the LK201 "Do" key)
Find
Insert (LK201 "Insert Here" key)
Select
Up, Down, Right, Left (LK201 arrow keys)
These keysyms are supposed to be recognized, but they are not due to a
bug:
Prior (LK201 "Prev Screen" key)
Next (LK201 "Next Screen" key)
And finally, the "Delete" keysym generates the DEL character (C-?)
instead of the key sequence given by the LK201 "Remove" key.
Each function key will generate a key sequence that looks like "ESC [ ##
~", where ## is replaced by a number. The key sequences are identical
to those generated by a LK201 keyboard. Any function key not listed
above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
For the complete list of the numbers which are generated by the function
keys, look in the file src/x11term.c.
If you are running Emacs on a Sun machine, even if your X display is
running on a non-Sun machine (eg. X terminal), you get the setup
described above for Suns. The determining factor is what type of
machine Emacs is running on, not what type of machine your X display is.
You can use "xmodmap" to change your X keysym assignments to get keys
listed above, but that may screw up other programs.
If you have function keys not listed above and you don't want to use
xmodmap to change their names, you might want to make a modification to
your Emacs. Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> explains:
There are a number of tricks that can be helpful. The most elegant
solution, however, is to use the function "x-rebind-key". This function
is commented out in the source for good reasons --- it's buggy.
It is rather easy to replace this function with the function
epoch:rebind-key from the Epoch distribution.
After implementing this, all keyboard keys can be configured to send
user definable sequences, e.g.
(x-rebind-key "KP_F1" 0 "\033OP")
This will have the keypad key PF1 send the sequence \eOP, just like an
ordinary VTxxx terminal.
[This is what I do in my Emacs. -- jbw]
39: How do I tell what characters my function keys emit?
Use this function by Randal L. Schwartz <merlyn@iwarp.intel.com>:
(defun see-chars ()
"Displays characters typed, terminated by a 3-second timeout."
(interactive)
(let ((chars "")
(inhibit-quit t))
(message "Enter characters, terminated by 3-second timeout.")
(while (not (sit-for 3))
(setq chars (concat chars (list (read-char)))
quit-flag nil)) ; quit-flag maybe set by C-g
(message "Characters entered: %s" (key-description chars))))
40: Why does Emacs spontaneously go into "I-search:" mode?
Your terminal (or something between your terminal and the computer) is
sending C-s and C-q for flow control, and Emacs is receiving these
characters and interpreting them as commands. (The C-s character
normally invokes the isearch-forward command.)
For a more detailed discussion, read the file PROBLEMS in the Emacs
distribution.
41: What do I do if my terminal is sending C-s and C-q for flow control and
I can't disable it?
Use this piece of Emacs Lisp:
(set-input-mode nil t)
42: How do I make Emacs use C-s and C-q for flow control instead of for
commands?
Same answer as previous question.
43: Why does Emacs never see C-s and C-q through my network connection?
Eirik Fuller <eirik@theory.tn.cornell.edu> writes:
Some versions of rlogin (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow control
characters to the remote system to which they connect. On such systems,
Emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow control on the local
system.
One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host (the
one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the stty command,
before starting the rlogin process. On many systems, "stty start u stop
u" will do this.
Sometimes "rlogin -8" will avoid this problem.
Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and issue
the stty command to disable flow control from that shell.
44: How do I use commands bound to C-s and C-q (or any key) if these keys
are filtered out?
I suggest swapping C-s with C-\ and C-q with C-^:
(swap-keys ?\C-s ?\C-\\)
(swap-keys ?\C-q ?\C-^)
See question 45 for the implementation of swap-keys.
45: How do I "swap" two keys?
When Emacs receives a character, you can make Emacs behave as though it
received another character by setting the value of
keyboard-translate-table. The following Emacs Lisp will do this for
you, allowing you to "swap" keys. After arranging for this Lisp to be
evaluated by Emacs, you can evaluate "(swap-keys ?A ?B)" to swap A and
B.
WARNING: the value of C-g (7) is still hard coded in one place in the
minibuffer code. Thus, swapping C-g with another key may cause
minor problems.
(defun swap-keys (key1 key2)
"Swap keys KEY1 and KEY2 using map-key."
(map-key key1 key2)
(map-key key2 key1))
(defun map-key (from to)
"Make key FROM behave as though key TO was typed instead."
(setq keyboard-translate-table
(concat keyboard-translate-table
(let* ((i (length keyboard-translate-table))
(j from)
(k i)
(str (make-string (max 0 (- j (1- i))) ?X)))
(while (<= k j)
(aset str (- k i) k)
(setq k (1+ k)))
str)))
(aset keyboard-translate-table from to)
(let ((i (1- (length keyboard-translate-table))))
(while (and (>= i 0) (eq (aref keyboard-translate-table i) i))
(setq i (1- i)))
(setq keyboard-translate-table
(if (eq i -1) nil (substring keyboard-translate-table 0 (1+ i))))))
46: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?
The Backspace key (on every keyboard I've used) sends ASCII code 8. C-h
sends the same code. In Emacs by default C-h invokes "help-command".
The easiest solution to this problem is to use C-h (and Backspace) for
help and DEL (the Delete key) for deleting the previous character.
For some people this solution may be problematic:
1. They normally use Backspace outside of Emacs for deleting the
previous character typed. This can be solved by making DEL be the
command for deleting the previous character outside of Emacs. This
command will do this on many Unix systems:
stty erase '^?'
2. The person may prefer using the Backspace key for deleting the
previous character because it is more conveniently located on their
keyboard or because they don't even have a separate Delete key. In
this case, the best solution is to swap C-h and DEL:
(swap-keys ?\C-h ?\C-?)
See question 45 for the implementation of swap-keys.
47: How do I type DEL on PC terminal emulators?
Someone whose name I forgot wrote:
Most PCs have deficient keyboards that don't have both Backspace and
Delete keys. Whether C-h (backspace) or DEL is generated by the
"Backspace" key varies from one terminal emulator to another. If you're
lucky, you can reconfigure the keyboard so that it generates DEL. If
not, you will have to hunt to figure out what keystroke will do it ---
possibilities include various shifted and controlled versions of
"Backspace", the "Del" key on the numeric keypad (which might depend on
"Shift" or "NumLock"), or perhaps C-? (Control-?).
If this is too hard, you may want to swap the delete key with some other
key. See question 46.
48: Can I make my "Compose" key behave like a "Meta" key?
In general, no. However, the LK201 keyboard does send a code for
Compose key up and key down, so if you're on an X workstation you might
have luck using the "xmodmap" program.
49: How do I turn on the arrow keys for VT style terminals?
Put this in your .emacs:
(setq term-setup-hook
(function
(lambda ()
(if (fboundp 'enable-arrow-keys) (enable-arrow-keys)))))
We put this in our lisp/default.el file, so users don't have to worry
about it:
(or term-setup-hook
(setq term-setup-hook
(function
(lambda ()
(and (fboundp 'enable-arrow-keys)
(eq 'backward-paragraph (lookup-key esc-map "["))
(enable-arrow-keys))))))
---Continued---jbw@bigbird.bu.edu (Joe Wells) (05/13/91)
GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (part 2 of 2) Sun May 12 23:47:35 1991 Building/Installing/Porting Emacs and Machine/OS-Specific Bugs: 50: Why do I get an "f68881_used undefined" error, when I build Emacs on my Sun 3? Barry A. Warsaw <warsaw@cme.nist.gov> writes: Some of the code that is being linked on the "ld" line of emacs' build command has been compiled with the -f68881 option. Most common reason is that you're linking with X libraries which were built with -f68881 option set. You need to either remove all dependencies to the 68881 (may mean a recompile of the X libraries with -fswitch or -fsoft option), or you need to link emacs with the 68881 startup file /usr/lib/Mcrt1.o. Make this change to src/ymakefile: change: #define START_FILES crt0.o to: #define START_FILES crt0.o /usr/lib/Mcrt1.o The order of these start files is critical. 51: How do I get Emacs running on VMS under DECwindows? Hal R. Brand <BRAND@addvax.llnl.gov> is said to have a VMS save set with a ready-to-run VMS version of Emacs for X Windows. It is available via anonymous FTP (addvax.llnl.gov). Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl> writes: Getting Emacs to run on VMS with DECwindows requires a number of changes to the sources. Fortunately this has been done already. Joshua Marantz <josh@viewlogic.com> did most of the work for Emacs 18.52, and the mods were ported to 18.55 by Johan Vromans <jv@mh.nl>. Also included is the handling of DEC's LK201 keyboard. You need to apply the changes to a fresh Emacs 18.55 distribution on a Unix system, and then you can copy the sources to VMS to perform the compile/link/build. The set of changes have been posted a number of times three times the last 12 months, so they should be widely available. 52: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)? Try compiling Emacs with the XBACKWARDS macro defined. There is a bug in some implementations of XGetDefault, which do not correspond to the documentation or the header files. 53: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs? RMS writes: If you try to build Emacs and it does not run, the first thing to do is look in the file called PROBLEMS to see if a solution is given there. If none is given, then please send a report by mail to bug-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu. Please do not send it to help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu. Sending to help-gnu-emacs (which has the effect of posting on gnu.emacs.help) is undesirable because it takes the time of an unnecessarily large group of people, most of whom are just users and have no idea how to fix these problem. bug-gnu-emacs reaches a much smaller group of people who are more likely to know what to do and have expressed a wish to receive more messages about Emacs than the others. Weird/Confusing Problems: 54: Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 Megs? Most installed versions of GNU Emacs will use 24 bit signed integers (and 24 bit pointers!) internally. This limits the file size that Emacs can handle to 8388608 bytes. Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@lucid.com> writes: Putting the following two lines in src/config.h before compiling Emacs allows for 26 bit integers and pointers: #define VALBITS 26 #define GCTYPEBITS 5 See question 55 for an explanation. 55: Why does Emacs use 24 bit integers and pointers? David Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu> writes: Emacs is largely written in a dialect of Lisp; Lisp is a freely-typed language in the sense that you can put any value of any type into any variable, or return it from a function, and so on. So each value must carry a "tag" along with it identifying what kind of thing it is, e.g., integer, pointer to a list, pointer to an editing buffer, and so on. Emacs uses standard 32-bit integers for data objects, taking the top 8 bits for the tag and the bottom 24 bits for the value. So integers (and pointers) are somewhat restricted compared to true C integers and pointers. Emacs uses 8-bit tags because that's a little faster on byte-oriented machines, but there are only really enough tags to require 6 bits. See question 54 to find how to recompile Emacs with 6-bit tags and 26-bit integers and pointers if space is at a premium for you. 56: Why does Emacs start up using the wrong directory? Most likely, you have an environment variable named PWD that is set to a value other than the name of your current directory. This is most likely caused by using two different shell programs. "ksh" and (some versions of) "csh" set and maintain the value of the PWD environment variable, but "sh" doesn't. If you start sh from ksh, change your current directory inside sh, and then start Emacs from inside sh, PWD will have the wrong value but Emacs will use this value. See the etc/OPTIONS file for more details. Perhaps an easier solution is not to use two shells. The "chsh" program can often be used to change one's default login shell. 57: How do I edit a file with a "$" in its name? When entering a filename in the minibuffer, Emacs will attempt to expand a "$" followed by a word as an environment variable. To suppress this behavior, type "$$" instead. 58: Why does Shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory? Emacs has no way of knowing when the shell actually changes its directory. This is an intrinsic limitation of Unix. So it tries to guess by recognizing "cd" commands. If you type "cd" followed by a directory name with a variable reference ("cd $HOME/bin") or with a shell metacharacter ("cd ../lib*"), Emacs will fail to correctly guess the shell's new current directory. A number of fixes and enhancements to Shell mode for this problem have been written, check the Emacs Lisp Archive (question 14). 59: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail? First, you must separate multiple addresses with commas. Second, Emacs normally only reads the ".mailrc" file once per session, when you start to compose your first mail message. If you edit .mailrc, you can type "M-ESC (build-mail-aliases) RET" to make Emacs reread .mailrc. 60: Why doesn't setting default-directory always work? There is a separate value of default-directory for each Emacs buffer. The value in the current buffer is the one that is used. 61: Why doesn't my change to load-path work? If you added file names with tildes (~) in them to your load-path, you'll need to do something like this: (setq load-path (mapcar 'expand-file-name load-path)) 62: Why does the cursor always go to the wrong column when I move up or down one line? You have inadvertently typed "C-x C-n" (set-goal-column) which sets the "goal-column" to the column where the cursor was. To undo this type "C-u C-x C-n". If you make this mistake frequently, you might want to unbind this command by doing one of these two: (define-key ctl-x-map "\C-n" nil) (put 'set-goal-column 'disabled t) 63: Why does Emacs hang with message "Unknown XMenu" with X11R4? Many different X errors can produce this message. Here is the solution to one problem: X11 Release 4 now enforces some conditions in the X protocol that were previously allowed to pass unnoticed. You need to put the X11R4 server into X11R3 bug compatibility mode for Emacs's Xmenu code to work. You can do this with the command "xset bc". 64: Why doesn't display-time show the load average in the mode line anymore? In GNU Emacs 18.56, a change was made in the display-time code. Formerly, in version 18.55, Emacs used a program named "loadst" to notify Emacs of the change in time every minute. loadst also sent Emacs the system load average if it was installed with sufficient privilege to get that information (or was on a system where no such privilege was needed). Emacs then displayed this information in the mode line. In version 18.56, this code was changed to use a program named "wakeup". wakeup doesn't send Emacs any information, it's only purpose is to send Emacs *something* every minute, thus invoking the filter function in Emacs once a minute. The filter function in Emacs does all the work of finding the time, date, and load average. However, getting the load average requires the privilege to read kernel memory on most systems. Since giving Emacs this privilege would destroy any security a system might have, for almost everyone this is not an option. In addition, Emacs does not have the code built into it to get this information on the systems which have special system calls for this purpose, even though loadst had code for this. The solution I use is to get the files lisp/display-time.el and etc/loadst.c from version 18.55 and use those with 18.57. (I have heard a rumor that loadst disappeared because of the legal action Unipress threatened against IBM.) WARNING: Do not install Emacs setgid kmem unless you wish to destroy any security your system might have!!!!!!!!!! If you are using Emacs 18.55 or earlier, or the solution I describe above, read further: The most likely cause of the problem is that "loadst" can't read the special file /dev/kmem. To properly install loadst, it should be either setuid to the owner of /dev/kmem, or is should be setgid to the group to which /dev/kmem belongs. In either case, /dev/kmem should be readable by its owner or its group, respectively. Another possibility is that your version of Unix doesn't have the load average data available in /dev/kmem. Your version of Unix might have a special system call to retrieve this information (eg., inq_stats under UMAX), and loadst might not have been enhanced to cope with this. 65: Why doesn't GNUS work anymore via NNTP? There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before blocking waiting for more input which never comes. NNTP version 1.5.11 claims to fix this. You can work around the bug inside Emacs like this: (setq nntp-maximum-request 1) I also have a patch for NNTP 1.5.10 that is based on the timeout code that was in 1.5.9. However, please try to upgrade to 1.5.11 first. 66: Why does ispell sometimes ignore the local dictionary? You need to update the version of ispell to 2.0.02. A patch is available via anonymous FTP (tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/ispell/patch2.Z). You also need to change a line in ispell.el from: (defconst ispell-version "2.0.01") ;; Check against output of "ispell -v". to: (defconst ispell-version "2.0.02") ;; Check against output of "ispell -v". 67: How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my Shell buffer? For tcsh, put this in your ".cshrc" (or ".tcshrc") file: if ($?EMACS) then if ($?tcsh) unset edit stty nl endif Or put this in your .emacs_tcsh file: unset edit stty nl Alternatively, use csh in your Shell buffers instead of tcsh. One way is: (setq explicit-shell-file-name "/bin/csh") and another is to do this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file: setenv ESHELL /bin/csh 68: Does GNU Emacs have a vulnerability to Trojan horses? Yes. Your site should put this in lisp/site-init.el before building Emacs: (setq inhibit-local-variables t) If Emacs has already been built, the expression should be put in lisp/default.el instead. The security hole that would otherwise be left open is described in the "File Variables" section of the manual (and Info tree). 69: How do I recover my mail files after RMAIL munges their format? You may have noticed that RMAIL has a disturbing way of eating your "mbox" file and producing instead an RMAIL file in an entirely different format. To remedy this, Ken Manheimer <klm@cme.nist.gov> wrote a package called "rmail-to-vm" that does a very nice job of recovering mail files, even entire directories of mail files. WARNING: The last version I used didn't correctly handle the number of spaces after the day of the month in the date portion of the "From " line message separator. So you may have to add an extra space by hand after days with only one digit in them, or else Mail will think several messages are just one. Configuring Emacs for yourself: 70: How do I set up a .emacs file properly? See the section of the manual on the .emacs file, inside the section on customization. To reach this section of the online Info manual, type this: C-h i m emacs RET g init SPC file RET WARNING: In general, new Emacs users should not have .emacs files, because it causes confusing non-standard behavior. Then they send questions to help-gnu-emacs asking why Emacs isn't behaving as documented. :-) 71: How do you debug a .emacs file? First start Emacs with the "-q" command line option. Then, in the *scratch* buffer, type the following: (setq debug-on-error t) C-j (load-file "~/.emacs") C-j (C-j stands for Control-J, ie., hold the control key and press J.) If you have an error in your .emacs file, this will invoke the debugger when the error occurs. If you don't know how to use the debugger do (setq stack-trace-on-error t) instead. WARNING: this will not discover errors caused by trying to do something that requires the terminal/window-system initialization code to have been loaded. See question 37. 72: How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX? Put this in your .emacs file: (condition-case () (read-abbrev-file nil t) (file-error nil)) (setq XXX-mode-hook (function (lambda () (setq abbrev-mode t)))) 73: How do I turn on Auto-Fill mode by default? To turn on Auto-Fill mode just once for one buffer, you type "M-x auto-fill-mode". To turn it on for every buffer in, for example, Text mode, do this: (setq text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill) If you want Auto-Fill mode on in all major modes, do this: (setq-default auto-fill-hook 'do-auto-fill) 74: How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files? If you want to use XXX mode for all files which end with the extension ".YYY", this will do it for you: (setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode) auto-mode-alist)) Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to edit in XXX mode: -*-XXX-*- 75: What are the valid X resource settings (ie., stuff in .Xdefaults file)? See the Emacs man page, or the etc/OPTIONS file. 76: How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal? Martin R. Frank <martin@cc.gatech.edu> writes: Tell Emacs to use the 'visible bell' instead of the audible bell, and set the visible bell to nothing. Put this in your TERMCAP environment variable: ... :vb=: ... And evaluate this: (setq visible-bell t) 77: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows? Under Epoch you can do: (setq epoch::bell-volume 20) Under normal GNU Emacs you must modify the XTfeep function in src/x11term.c, and change the number 50 to -50: XTfeep () { BLOCK_INPUT_DECLARE (); #ifdef XDEBUG fprintf (stderr, "XTfeep\n"); #endif BLOCK_INPUT (); XBell (XXdisplay,50); /* change this 50 to -50 */ UNBLOCK_INPUT (); } Then "xset b 0" will turn off Emacs's beeping. After "xset b BASE": XBell (disp, VAL) beeps with volume BASE - (BASE*VAL)/100 + VAL, XBell (disp, -VAL) beeps with volume BASE - (BASE*VAL)/100. 78: How do I make Emacs send 8-bit characters to my terminal? Johan Widen <jw@sics.se> writes: A patch for emacs-18.55 is available by ftp and mail-server from sics.se. Anonymous FTP: site: sics.se [192.16.123.90] file: archive/emacs-18.55-8bit-diff E-mail: To: mail-server@sics.se body: send emacs-18.55-8bit-diff 79: How do I change load-path? In general, you should only *add* to the load-path. You can add directory /XXX/YYY to the load path like this: (setq load-path (append load-path '("/XXX/YYY/"))) To do this relative to your home directory: (setq load-path (append load-path (list (expand-file-name "~/YYY/")))) Emacs Lisp programming: 80: What dialect of Lisp is Emacs Lisp? It's the dialect of Lisp called Emacs Lisp. (No joke!) People also call it elisp or e-lisp. (NOTE: The term "Elisp" is trademarked by someone else.) 81: How close is Emacs Lisp to Common Lisp? Pretty far. GNU Emacs Lisp is case-sensitive, uses dynamic scoping, doesn't have packages, doesn't have multiple return values, doesn't have reader macros, etc. For people used to Common Lisp, some of the functions in Common Lisp that are not in Emacs Lisp by default are provided in the file lisp/cl.el. There is a Texinfo manual describing these functions in man/cl.texinfo. 82: How do I execute a piece of Emacs Lisp code? There are a number of ways to execute (called "evaluate") an Emacs Lisp "form": * If you want it evaluated every time you run Emacs, put it in a file named ".emacs" in your home directory. * You can type the form in the "*scratch*" buffer, and then type C-j after it. The result of evaluating the form will be inserted in the buffer. * In in Emacs-Lisp mode, typing M-C-x evaluates a top-level form before or around point. * Typing "C-x C-e" in any buffer evaluates the Lisp form immediately before point and prints its value in the echo area. * Typing M-ESC or M-x eval-expression allows you to type a Lisp form in the minibuffer which will be evaluated. * You can use M-x load-file to have Emacs evaluate all the Lisp forms in a file. (To do this from Lisp use the function "load" instead.) 83: How do I make a set of operations fully local to a region? Use narrow-to-region inside of save-restriction. 84: How can I highlight a region? There are ways to get highlighting in GNU Emacs 18.57, but they all require patching the C code of Emacs and rebuilding. They are also slow and the highlighting disappears if you scroll or redraw the screen. One patch is by Kenichi Handa <handa@etl.go.jp>. You can highlight regions in a variety of ways in Epoch. GNU Emacs 19 will have everything you need, but won't be out soon. 85: How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length? Example: (setq default-tab-width 10). 86: What is the difference between (interactive "P") and (interactive "p")? The value that is a result of "P" can be a list, a symbol, or an integer; the value that is a result of "p" is always an integer: Prefix keys typed result of: "P" "p" nothing nil 1 "M-1" 1 1 "C-u 1" 1 1 "M--" '- -1 "C-u -" '- -1 "C-u" (4) 4 "C-u C-u" (16) 16 Carrying Out Common Tasks: 87: How do I insert ">"'s in the beginning of every line in a buffer? Type "M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET > RET". ("replace-regexp" can be shortened to "repl TAB r".) To do this only in the region, type "C-x n M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET > RET C-x w". (You're going to remember that, right?) 88: How do I insert "_^H" characters before each character in a paragraph to get an underlined paragraph? M-x underline-region. 89: How do I repeat a command as many times as possible? Make a keyboard macro that invokes the command and then type "M-0 C-x e". WARNING: any messages your command prints in the echo area will be suppressed. 90: How do I search for or delete unprintable (8-bit or control) characters? To search for a single character that appears in the buffer as, for example, \237, you can type "C-s C-q 2 3 7". (This assumes the value of search-quote-char is 17 (C-q).) Searching for ALL unprintable characters is best done with a "regexp" search. The easiest regexp to use for the unprintable chars is the complement of the regexp for the printable chars. Regexp for the printable chars: [\t\n\r\f -~] Regexp for the unprintable chars: [^\t\n\r\f -~] To type some of these special characters (\t, \n, \r, \f) as an interactive argument to isearch-forward-regexp or re-search-forward, you need to use C-q. So, to search for unprintable characters using re-search-forward: M-x re-search-forward RET [^ TAB C-q C-j C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET Using isearch-forward-regexp: M-C-s [^ TAB RET C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] To delete all unprintable characters, simply use a replace-regexp: M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q C-j C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET RET Notes: * With isearch, you can type RET to get a quoted C-j. (Not a quoted C-m.) * You don't need to quote TAB with either isearch or typing something in the minibuffer. Here are the Emacs Lisp forms of the above regexps: ;; regexp matching all printable characters: "[\t\n\r\f -~]" ;; regexp matching all unprintable characters: "[^\t\n\r\f -~]" ;; alternative regexps for all unprintable characters: "[\C-@-\C-h\C-k\C-n-\C-_\C-?-\377]" "[\000-\010\013\016-\037\177-\377]" (To use "[\000-\010\013\016-\037\177-\377]" interactively, type: [ C-q 000 - C-q 010 C-q 013 C-q 016 - C-q 037 C-q 177 - C-q 377 ] ) 91: How do I control Emacs's case sensitivitiy when searching/replacing? For searching, the value of the variable case-fold-search determines whether they are case sensitive: (setq case-fold-search nil) ; make searches case sensitive (setq case-fold-search t) ; make searches case insensitive Similarly, for replacing the variable case-replace determines whether replacements preserve case. 92: How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the indentation of the previous line? M-x indented-text-mode. (This is a major mode.) If you have Auto-Fill mode on (minor mode), you can tell Emacs to prefix every line with a certain character sequence, the "fill prefix". Type the prefix at the beginning of a line, position point after it, and then type "C-x ." (set-fill-prefix) to set the fill prefix. Thereafter, auto-filling will automatically put the fill prefix at the beginning of new lines, and M-q (fill-paragraph) will maintain any fill prefix when refilling the paragraph. 93: How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" when I type instead of always inserting? M-x overwrite-mode (minor mode). 94: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at? If you're looking at a right parenthesis (or brace or bracket) you can delete it and reinsert it. Emacs will blink the cursor on the matching parenthesis. M-C-f (forward-sexp) and M-C-b (backward-sexp) will skip over balanced parentheses, so you can see which parentheses match. (You can train it to skip over balanced brackets and braces at the same time by modifying the syntax table.) Here is some Emacs Lisp that will make the % key show the matching parenthese, like in vi. In addition, if the cursor isn't over a parenthese, it simply inserts a % like normal. (By an unknown contributor.) (global-set-key "%" 'match-paren) (defun match-paren (arg) "Go to the matching parenthesis if on parenthesis otherwise insert %." (interactive "p") (cond ((looking-at "\\s\(") (forward-list 1) (backward-char 1)) ((looking-at "\\s\)") (forward-char 1) (backward-list 1)) (t (self-insert-command (or arg 1))))) 95: How do I make Emacs behave like this: when I go up or down, the cursor should stay in the same column even if the line is too short? M-x picture-mode. (This is a minor mode, in theory anyway ...) 96: How do I read news under Emacs? There are at least three news reading packages that operate inside Emacs. "rnews" comes with Emacs. "GNUS" and "Gnews" come separately. {I've never used rnews; could someone write a description? BTW, rnews will be replaced with GNUS in Emacs 19.} rnews does not work with NNTP. Both GNUS and Gnews handle reading news over NNTP. I think both can also read from a local news spool. GNUS also supports reading mail stored in MH folders or articles saved by GNUS. People have complained that GNUS uses a lot of CPU time (it does). Some people have complained that Gnews is slower than GNUS. GNUS is written (mostly) by Masanobu Umeda. His latest e-mail address is umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp. The latest version is GNUS 3.13. There is a newsgroup for discussion of GNUS called gnu.emacs.gnus. This newsgroup is gatewayed with the mailing list info-gnus-english to subscribe send mail to info-gnus-english-request@cis.ohio-state.edu. There is also a mailing list called info-gnus, which includes discussion in Japanese. Gnews was written by Matthew Wiener <e-mail address?>. {Could someone tell me the # of the latest version, and how long it has been since anyone has heard from Matthew?}. There is a newsgroup for Gnews called gnu.emacs.gnews. 97: In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef commands are handled by the compiler? M-x hide-ifdef-mode. (This is a minor mode.) You may have to (load "hideif") first. If you want to do this regularly, put this in your .emacs file: (autoload 'hide-ifdef-mode "hideif" nil t) {Yes, I know, this should be in lisp/loaddefs.el already.} 98: Is there an equivalent to the "." (dot) command of vi? ("." is the redo command in vi. It redoes the last insertion/deletion.) No, not really. You can type "C-x ESC" (repeat-complex-command) to reinvoke commands that used the minibuffer to get arguments. In repeat-complex-command you can type M-p and M-n to scan through all the different complex commands you've typed. To repeat something on each line I recommend using keyboard macros. 99: How do I use emacstool under SunView? The file etc/SUN-SUPPORT includes the document "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs". Also read the man page for emacstool (etc/emacstool.1). 100: How do I make Emacs show the current line (column) number on the mode line? There is no "correct" way to constantly display the current line (or column) number on the mode line in Emacs 18. Emacs is not a line-oriented editor, and really has no idea what "lines" of the buffer are displayed in the window. It would require a lot of work at the C code level to make Emacs keep track of this. Emacs 19 will probably be able to do this, but probably not with great efficiency. To find out what line of the buffer you are on right now, do "M-x what-line". Typing "C-x l" will also tell you what line you are on, provided the buffer isn't separated into "pages" with C-l characters. In that case, it will only tell you what line of the current "page" you are on. WARNING: "C-x l" gives the wrong value when point is at the beginning of a line. People have written various kludges to display the current line number on the mode line. Look in the Lisp Code Directory. (See question 13.) 101: How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself? You need to modify C source and recompile. Either that or get Epoch instead. For the interested I have a patch to allow Emacs to iconify itself. 102: How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs? This is documented in the Emacs manual. To read the manual section online, type "C-h i m emacs RET m regexps RET". WARNING: Unlike in Unix grep, sed, etc., a complement character set ([^...]) can match a Newline, unless Newline is mentioned as one of the characters not to match.
jbw@bigbird.bu.edu (Joe Wells) (05/13/91)
Here is the differences between this version of the FAQ list and the last
version. Question numbers were stripped from both versions before doing
the comparison because the questions were renumbered. (Actually, I don't
keep numbers in the master copy that I edit.)
--
Enjoy,
Joe Wells <jbw@cs.bu.edu>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (differences)
Sun May 12 23:47:35 1991
--- FAQ-6.sed Mon May 13 03:55:35 1991
+++ FAQ-7.sed Mon May 13 03:55:32 1991
@@ -26,24 +26,17 @@
M-C-a means while holding down both the "Control" key and the "Meta" key
- press the "a" key.
+ press the "a" key. C-M-a is a synonym for M-C-a.
- C-M-a is a synonym for M-C-a.
-
- RET means press the "Return" key. RET is the same as C-m. This sends
+ * RET means press the "Return" key. RET is the same as C-m. This sends
ASCII code 13.
-
- LFD means press the "Linefeed" key. LFD is also the same as C-j. This
+ * LFD means press the "Linefeed" key. LFD is also the same as C-j. This
sends ASCII code 10. Under Unix, ASCII code 10 is more often called
"Newline".
-
- DEL means press the "Delete" key. DEL is the same as C-?. This sends
+ * DEL means press the "Delete" key. DEL is the same as C-?. This sends
ASCII code 127.
-
- ESC means press the "Escape" key. ESC is the same as C-[. This sends
+ * ESC means press the "Escape" key. ESC is the same as C-[. This sends
ASCII code 27.
-
- SPC means press the "Space" key. This send ASCII code 32.
-
- TAB means press the "Tab" key. TAB is the same as C-i. This send ASCII
+ * SPC means press the "Space" key. This send ASCII code 32.
+ * TAB means press the "Tab" key. TAB is the same as C-i. This send ASCII
code 9.
@@ -91,5 +84,5 @@
To run non-interactive Emacs functions, use M-ESC instead and type a
- Lisp form.
+ Lisp form that invokes the function (see question #).
Q: What do things like this mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h,
@@ -97,7 +90,7 @@
These are the names of files that are part of the GNU Emacs
- distribution. The GNU Emacs distribution is so big that it is divided
- into several subdirectories; the important subdirectories are named
- "etc", "lisp", and "src".
+ distribution. The GNU Emacs distribution is divided into several
+ subdirectories; the important subdirectories are named "etc", "lisp",
+ and "src".
If you use GNU Emacs, but don't know where it is kept on your system,
@@ -120,7 +113,7 @@
GPL == GNU General Public Licence
- NOTE: Avoid confusing the FSF, the LPF, and the OSF. The LPF only
- opposes look-and-feel copyrights and software patents. The FSF aims to
- make high quality free software available for everyone. The OSF is a
+ NOTE: Avoid confusing the FSF, the LPF, and the OSF. The LPF opposes
+ look-and-feel copyrights and software patents. The FSF aims to make
+ high quality free software available for everyone. The OSF is a
commercial organization which wants to provide an alternative,
standardized version of Unix not controlled by AT&T.
@@ -127,6 +120,6 @@
WARNING: The word "free" in the title of the Free Software Foundation
- refers to "freedom", not "zero dollars". You can charge any price for
- GPL-covered software that you want to. However, in practice, the
+ refers to "freedom", not "zero dollars". Anyone can charge any price
+ for GPL-covered software that they want to. However, in practice, the
freedom enforced by the GPL leads to low or nonexistent prices, because
you can always get the software for less money from someone else,
@@ -163,4 +156,8 @@
You can order a hardcopy of the manual from the FSF. See question #.
+ You can get a printed reference card listing commands and keys to invoke
+ them. You can order one from the FSF for $1 (or 10 for $5), or you can
+ print your own from the etc/refcard.tex file in the Emacs distribution.
+
You can list all of the commands whose names contain a certain word
(actually which match a regular expression) using the "command-apropos"
@@ -171,14 +168,14 @@
command.
- You may find that command-apropos and apropos are extremely slow on your
- system. This will be fixed in Emacs 19. If you can't wait that long,
- there is a "fast-apropos.el" file available that contains the fix. This
- file also contains a "super-apropos" command that will list all the
- functions and variables whose documentation strings contain a certain
- word.
-
There are many other commands in Emacs for getting help and information.
To get a list of these commands, type "C-h C-h C-h".
+ NOTE: You may find that command-apropos and apropos are extremely slow
+ on your system. This will be fixed in Emacs 19. If you can't wait that
+ long, there is a "fast-apropos.el" file available that contains the fix.
+ This file also contains a "super-apropos" command that will list all the
+ functions and variables whose documentation strings contain a certain
+ word.
+
Q: Where can I get GNU Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?
@@ -185,5 +182,5 @@
Look in the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for information on nearby
archive sites. If you don't already have GNU Emacs, see question
- 16 for how to get these two files.
+ 17 for how to get these two files.
The latest version is always available via anonymous FTP at MIT
@@ -214,5 +211,5 @@
OUR TIME (pacific time zone, GMT-8)).
- If you don't have TeX you can convert the TeXinfo sources into
+ If you don't have TeX you can convert the Texinfo sources into
{t,n,ps}roff format with the "texi2roff" program, which is available via
anonymous FTP (tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/texi2roff/texi2roff.shar.Z)
@@ -252,4 +249,6 @@
mode whenever you retrieve any files with names ending in ".elc".
+Q: How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
+
Submissions for the archive should be sent to Dave Sill <de5@ornl.gov>.
If you have ftp access, the submission can be deposited in the directory
@@ -260,9 +259,17 @@
available in the archive.
+ The format of an LCD-datafile entry is this:
+
+ Name|Author|Contact|Description|Date|Version|Archive
+
+ Here is an example:
+
+ 1char|Bard Bloom|bard@theory.lcs.mit.edu|Help fixing typos.|90-07-13||~/misc/1char.el.Z
+
Q: Where can I get documentation on GNU Emacs Lisp?
Obtain the GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for Emacs 18 under Unix. It
- is available from the FSF for $50. The latest revision available for
- FTP is edition 1.03 dated 28 January 1991.
+ is available from the FSF for $50 (or 5 for $200). The latest revision
+ available for FTP is edition 1.03 dated 28 January 1991.
Within Emacs, you can type "C-h f" to get the documentation for a
@@ -327,5 +334,5 @@
These additional files are available from the FSF via e-mail:
- * GNU's Bulletin, June, 1990 -- this file includes:
+ * GNU's Bulletin, January, 1991 -- this file includes:
GNU'S Who
What Is the Free Software Foundation?
@@ -332,17 +339,20 @@
What Is Copyleft?
GNUs Flashes
- Possible New Terms for GNU Libraries by Richard Stallman
- "League for Programming Freedom" by Michael Bloom and Richard Stallman
Free Software Support
+ "Protect Your Freedom to Write Programs" by Richard Stallman
GNU Project Status Report
- GNU Wish List
+ "Help Keep Government Software Free" by Richard Stallman
GNU Documentation
+ GNU Wish List
GNU Software Available Now
- Contents of the Emacs Release Tape
- Contents of the Pre-Release Tape
+ Contents of the Emacs Tape
+ Contents of the Compiler Tape
Contents of the X11 Tapes
VMS Emacs and Compiler Tapes
How to Get GNU Software
+ Free Software for MS-DOS
+ GNUish MS-DOS project
Freemacs, an Extensible Editor for MS-DOS
+ GNU in Japan
Thank GNUs
FSF Order Form
@@ -353,5 +363,5 @@
Snail mail address:
- Free Software Foundation
+ Free Software Foundation, Inc.
675 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
@@ -390,5 +400,5 @@
* VM:
- Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
+ Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@uunet.uu.net>
Mailing lists: info-vm-request@uunet.uu.net
@@ -415,6 +425,5 @@
Anonymous FTP:
Latest version: 2.1
- durer.cme.nist.gov:/pub/gnu/elisp/supercite-2.1.shar.0#
- (where # is replaced by 1 or 2)
+ durer.cme.nist.gov:/pub/gnu/elisp/supercite-2.1.shar.0{1,2}
E-mail:
@@ -477,7 +486,7 @@
First create Info files from the Texinfo files with the "makeinfo"
- program. The texinfo-format-buffer command is currently out of date.
+ program. The texinfo-format-buffer command is currently obsolete.
makeinfo is available as part of the latest Texinfo package
- (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/texinfo-2.04.tar.Z). It also comes with
+ (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/texinfo-2.05.tar.Z). It also comes with
Emacs, but several include files are missing.
@@ -520,4 +529,10 @@
directory with symbolic links or by copying it.
+Q: Can I view Info files without using GNU Emacs?
+
+ Yes, the "info" and "xinfo" programs do this. You can get "info" as
+ part of the latest Texinfo package (see question #). "xinfo" is
+ available separately (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/xinfo-1.01.01.tar.Z).
+
Q: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?
@@ -570,5 +585,5 @@
look-and-feel copyrights. Write to league@prep.ai.mit.edu for more
information. You can get papers describing the LPF's views via
- anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/lpf/*) or via anonymous UUCP
+ anonymous FTP (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/lpf/*) or via anonymous UUCP
(osu-cis!~/lpf/*).
@@ -599,10 +614,11 @@
From the latest "GNU's Bulletin":
- Version 19 approaches release with a host of new features: before and
- after change hooks; X selection processing (including CLIPBOARD
- selections); scrollbars; support for European character sets; floating
- point numbers; per-buffer mouse commands; interfacing with the X
- resource manager; mouse-tracking; Lisp-level binding of function keys;
- and multiple X windows (`screens' to Emacs).
+ Version 19 approaches release, counting among its new features: before
+ and after change hooks, source-level Lisp debugging, X selection
+ processing, including clipboard selections, scrollbars, support for
+ European character sets, floating point numbers, per-buffer mouse
+ commands, interfacing with the X resource manager, mouse-tracking,
+ Lisp-level binding of function keys, and multiple X windows (`screens'
+ to Emacs).
Thanks go to Alan Carroll and the people who worked on Epoch for
@@ -611,26 +627,23 @@
the minibuffer, and another with a minibuffer attached to each screen.
- More features of Version 19 are buffer allocation, which uses a new
- mechanism capable of returning storage to the system when a buffer is
- killed, and a new input system---all input now arrives in the form of
+ A couple of other features of Emacs 19 are buffer allocation, which uses
+ a new mechanism capable of returning storage to the system when a buffer
+ is killed, and a new input system---all input now arrives in the form of
Lisp objects.
- Other features being considered for Version 19 include:
+ Other features being considered for later releases of Emacs 19 include:
+ associating property lists with regions of text in a buffer; multiple
+ font, color, and pixmaps defined by those properties; different
+ visibility conditions for the regions, and for various windows showing
+ one buffer; hooks to be run if point or mouse moves outside a certain
+ range; incrementally saving undo history in a file; static menu bars;
+ and better pop-up menus.
+
+ Mention of these two items disappeared from the latest GNU's bulletin:
- * Associating property lists with regions of text in a buffer.
- * Multiple font, color, and pixmaps defined by those properties.
- * Different visibility conditions for the regions, and for the various
- windows showing one buffer.
- * Incremental syntax analysis for various programming languages.
- * Hooks to be run if point or mouse moves outside a certain range.
- * Source-level debugging for Emacs Lisp.
- * Incrementally saving undo history in a file, so that recover-file also
- reinstalls buffer's undo history.
- * Static menu bars, and better pop-up menus.
+ * Incremental syntax analysis for various programming languages (Leif).
* A more sophisticated emacsclient/server model, which would provide
network transparent Emacs widget functionality.
- Also, Emacs 19 will have a Emacs Lisp source code debugger.
-
Q: Is there an Emacs that has better mouse and X window support?
@@ -688,5 +701,6 @@
5.25", 360K, or 3.50", 720K
- There is a mailing list for Freemacs. To subscribe, send e-mail:
+ There is a mailing list for Freemacs. {Is it operational yet?} To
+ subscribe, send e-mail:
address: listserv@clvm.bitnet
@@ -790,7 +804,7 @@
If not compiled on a Sun, the function keys will appear to Emacs in a
- way remarkably similar to the keys of a DEC LK201 keyboard (used on
- VT220 series terminals). The arrow keys work the same as above. These
- X keysyms will be recognized:
+ way remarkably similar to the keys of a DEC LK201 keyboard (used on some
+ VT series terminals). The arrow keys work the same as above. These X
+ keysyms will be recognized:
F1 through F20
@@ -799,9 +813,15 @@
Find
Insert (LK201 "Insert Here" key)
- Delete (LK201 "Remove" key)
Select
+ Up, Down, Right, Left (LK201 arrow keys)
+
+ These keysyms are supposed to be recognized, but they are not due to a
+ bug:
+
Prior (LK201 "Prev Screen" key)
Next (LK201 "Next Screen" key)
- Up, Down, Right, Left (LK201 arrow keys)
+
+ And finally, the "Delete" keysym generates the DEL character (C-?)
+ instead of the key sequence given by the LK201 "Remove" key.
Each function key will generate a key sequence that looks like "ESC [ ##
@@ -892,4 +912,6 @@
u" will do this.
+ Sometimes "rlogin -8" will avoid this problem.
+
Some versions of tcsh will prevent even this from working. One way
around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, and issue
@@ -997,6 +1019,5 @@
(function
(lambda ()
- (if (string-match "\\`vt[123][024]0" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
- (enable-arrow-keys))))))
+ (if (fboundp 'enable-arrow-keys) (enable-arrow-keys)))))
We put this in our lisp/default.el file, so users don't have to worry
@@ -1007,5 +1028,6 @@
(function
(lambda ()
- (if (string-match "\\`vt[123][024]0" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
+ (and (fboundp 'enable-arrow-keys)
+ (eq 'backward-paragraph (lookup-key esc-map "["))
(enable-arrow-keys))))))
@@ -1263,9 +1285,10 @@
Q: How do I get rid of the ^M junk in my Shell buffer?
- If you are using a recent version of tcsh, the problem won't occur.
- With an older version of tcsh, put this in your ".cshrc" (or ".tcshrc")
- file:
+ For tcsh, put this in your ".cshrc" (or ".tcshrc") file:
- if ($?tcsh) if ($?EMACS) unset edit
+ if ($?EMACS) then
+ if ($?tcsh) unset edit
+ stty nl
+ endif
Or put this in your .emacs_tcsh file:
@@ -1272,6 +1295,14 @@
unset edit
+ stty nl
+
+ Alternatively, use csh in your Shell buffers instead of tcsh. One way
+ is:
+
+ (setq explicit-shell-file-name "/bin/csh")
+
+ and another is to do this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file:
- {Someone should send me the solution for csh.}
+ setenv ESHELL /bin/csh
Q: Does GNU Emacs have a vulnerability to Trojan horses?
@@ -1288,6 +1319,20 @@
"File Variables" section of the manual (and Info tree).
+Q: How do I recover my mail files after RMAIL munges their format?
+ You may have noticed that RMAIL has a disturbing way of eating your
+ "mbox" file and producing instead an RMAIL file in an entirely different
+ format. To remedy this, Ken Manheimer <klm@cme.nist.gov> wrote a
+ package called "rmail-to-vm" that does a very nice job of recovering
+ mail files, even entire directories of mail files.
+
+ WARNING: The last version I used didn't correctly handle the number of
+ spaces after the day of the month in the date portion of the "From "
+ line message separator. So you may have to add an extra space by hand
+ after days with only one digit in them, or else Mail will think several
+ messages are just one.
+
+
Configuring Emacs for yourself:
@@ -1300,4 +1345,9 @@
C-h i m emacs RET g init SPC file RET
+ WARNING: In general, new Emacs users should not have .emacs files,
+ because it causes confusing non-standard behavior. Then they send
+ questions to help-gnu-emacs asking why Emacs isn't behaving as
+ documented. :-)
+
Q: How do you debug a .emacs file?
@@ -1396,4 +1446,9 @@
Then "xset b 0" will turn off Emacs's beeping.
+ After "xset b BASE":
+
+ XBell (disp, VAL) beeps with volume BASE - (BASE*VAL)/100 + VAL,
+ XBell (disp, -VAL) beeps with volume BASE - (BASE*VAL)/100.
+
Q: How do I make Emacs send 8-bit characters to my terminal?
@@ -1517,14 +1572,63 @@
Make a keyboard macro that invokes the command and then type "M-0 C-x e".
+
WARNING: any messages your command prints in the echo area will be
suppressed.
-Q: How do I search for an unprintable (8-bit) character that appears
- in a buffer as \237?
+Q: How do I search for or delete unprintable (8-bit or control) characters?
+
+ To search for a single character that appears in the buffer as, for
+ example, \237, you can type "C-s C-q 2 3 7". (This assumes the value of
+ search-quote-char is 17 (C-q).)
+
+ Searching for ALL unprintable characters is best done with a "regexp"
+ search. The easiest regexp to use for the unprintable chars is the
+ complement of the regexp for the printable chars.
+
+ Regexp for the printable chars: [\t\n\r\f -~]
+
+ Regexp for the unprintable chars: [^\t\n\r\f -~]
+
+ To type some of these special characters (\t, \n, \r, \f) as an
+ interactive argument to isearch-forward-regexp or re-search-forward, you
+ need to use C-q.
- C-s C-q 2 3 7
+ So, to search for unprintable characters using re-search-forward:
- (This assumes the value of search-quote-char is 17 (C-q).)
+ M-x re-search-forward RET [^ TAB C-q C-j C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET
+ Using isearch-forward-regexp:
+
+ M-C-s [^ TAB RET C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~]
+
+ To delete all unprintable characters, simply use a replace-regexp:
+
+ M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q C-j C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET RET
+
+ Notes:
+
+ * With isearch, you can type RET to get a quoted C-j. (Not a quoted C-m.)
+
+ * You don't need to quote TAB with either isearch or typing something in
+ the minibuffer.
+
+ Here are the Emacs Lisp forms of the above regexps:
+
+ ;; regexp matching all printable characters:
+ "[\t\n\r\f -~]"
+
+ ;; regexp matching all unprintable characters:
+ "[^\t\n\r\f -~]"
+
+ ;; alternative regexps for all unprintable characters:
+ "[\C-@-\C-h\C-k\C-n-\C-_\C-?-\377]"
+ "[\000-\010\013\016-\037\177-\377]"
+
+ (To use "[\000-\010\013\016-\037\177-\377]" interactively, type:
+
+ [ C-q 000 - C-q 010 C-q 013 C-q 016 - C-q 037 C-q 177 - C-q 377 ]
+
+ )
+
Q: How do I control Emacs's case sensitivitiy when searching/replacing?
@@ -1556,8 +1660,4 @@
M-x overwrite-mode (minor mode).
- WARNING: delete-backward-char (usually the delete key) doesn't work
- properly in Overwrite mode. It deletes the character to the left,
- rather than replacing it with a space.
-
Q: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at?
@@ -1582,6 +1682,6 @@
"Go to the matching parenthesis if on parenthesis otherwise insert %."
(interactive "p")
- (cond ((looking-at "[([{]") (forward-sexp 1) (backward-char))
- ((looking-at "[])}]") (forward-char) (backward-sexp 1))
+ (cond ((looking-at "\\s\(") (forward-list 1) (backward-char 1))
+ ((looking-at "\\s\)") (forward-char 1) (backward-list 1))
(t (self-insert-command (or arg 1)))))
@@ -1650,11 +1750,11 @@
Emacs". Also read the man page for emacstool (etc/emacstool.1).
-Q: How do I get Emacs to display the current line number on the mode line?
+Q: How do I make Emacs show the current line (column) number on the mode line?
- There is no "correct" way to constantly display the current line number
- on the mode line in Emacs 18. Emacs is not a line-oriented editor, and
- really has no idea what "lines" of the buffer are displayed in the
- window. It would require a lot of work at the C code level to make
- Emacs keep track of this.
+ There is no "correct" way to constantly display the current line (or
+ column) number on the mode line in Emacs 18. Emacs is not a
+ line-oriented editor, and really has no idea what "lines" of the buffer
+ are displayed in the window. It would require a lot of work at the C
+ code level to make Emacs keep track of this.
Emacs 19 will probably be able to do this, but probably not with greatjbw@maverick.uswest.com (Joe Wells) (06/21/91)
Here is the differences between this version of the FAQ list and the last
version. Question numbers were stripped from both versions before doing
the comparison because the questions are automatically renumbered. (I
don't keep numbers in the master copy that I edit; the numbers are only
there so the cross-references will work.) To reduce noise, I may have
deleted certain differences that were the result of typo correction or
similar non-semantic changes.
Enjoy!
--
Joe Wells <jbw@uswest.com>
-------------------------------------------------
GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (differences)
Thu Jun 20 11:06:43 1991
--- FAQ-7.sed Sun May 12 21:55:32 1991
+++ FAQ-8.sed Thu Jun 20 11:07:38 1991
@@ -489,5 +481,5 @@
makeinfo is available as part of the latest Texinfo package
(prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/texinfo-2.05.tar.Z). It also comes with
- Emacs, but several include files are missing.
+ Emacs, but several include files are missing, so you can't compile it.
For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which
@@ -561,5 +553,5 @@
comp.emacs is for discussion of Emacs programs in general. This
includes GNU Emacs along with various other implementations like JOVE,
- MicroEmacs, Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, etc.
+ MicroEmacs, Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, Epsilon, etc.
Many people post GNU Emacs questions to comp.emacs because they don't
@@ -653,5 +645,5 @@
greatly improved mouse and window support. The latest version of Epoch
is available via anonymous FTP
- (cs.uiuc.edu:/pub/epoch-files/epoch/epoch-3.2b, b stands for beta).
+ (cs.uiuc.edu:/pub/epoch-files/epoch/epoch-3.2{.tar.Z,-patch-{1,2.tar.Z}}).
NOTE: Epoch only works with the X Window System; it does not work on
@@ -708,8 +700,9 @@
MicroEmacs is programmable in a BASIC-like language. The author is
- Daniel Lawrence <dan@midas.mgmt.purdue.edu, nwd@j.cc.purdue.edu,
- dan@mdbs.uucp>. Many of the keybindings are different from GNU Emacs.
- The latest version is 3.10 and it is available via anonymous FTP
- (durer.cme.nist.gov).
+ Daniel Lawrence <dan@mdbs.uucp, dan@midas.mgmt.purdue.edu,
+ nwd@j.cc.purdue.edu>. Many of the keybindings are different from GNU
+ Emacs. The latest version is 3.10 and it is available via anonymous FTP
+ (midas.mgmt.purdue.edu (non-working hours only), durer.cme.nist.gov).
+ Version 3.11 is in beta test.
Another Emacs for small machines is JOVE (Jonathan's Own Version of
@@ -717,5 +710,6 @@
newer version. People rumored to be working on JOVE include Mark Moraes
at cs.toronto.edu and Bill Marsh <bmarsh@cod.nosc.mil>. It is available
- via anonymous FTP (cs.rochester.edu:/pub/jove.tar.4.14.Z).
+ via anonymous FTP (cs.rochester.edu:/pub/jove.tar.4.14.Z,
+ cs.toronto.edu:/pub/moraes/jove4.14.3.tar.Z).
Yet another Emacs is "mg", which used to stand for MicroGNUEmacs, but
@@ -740,5 +753,6 @@
Q: Why does my key binding fail?
- Most likely, it failed because "ESC [" was already defined. Evaluate
+ Most likely, it failed because the key sequence you were binding started
+ with "ESC [" and this sequence was already bound to a command. Evaluate
this form first:
@@ -745,4 +759,8 @@
(define-key esc-map "[" nil)
+ WARNING: By default, "ESC [" is bound to backward-paragraph, and if you
+ do this you will lose this key binding. For most people, this is not a
+ problem.
+
Q: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
.emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
@@ -780,6 +798,6 @@
WARNING: I am about to describe a gross, disgusting hack to you.
- If compiled on a Sun, Emacs recognizes these X "keysyms" that are
- normally on a Sun keyboard:
+ Case I. If compiled on a Sun, Emacs recognizes these X "keysyms" that
+ are normally on a Sun keyboard:
F1 through F9
@@ -803,8 +821,8 @@
above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
- If not compiled on a Sun, the function keys will appear to Emacs in a
- way remarkably similar to the keys of a DEC LK201 keyboard (used on some
- VT series terminals). The arrow keys work the same as above. These X
- keysyms will be recognized:
+ Case II. If not compiled on a Sun, the function keys will appear to
+ Emacs in a way remarkably similar to the keys of a DEC LK201 keyboard
+ (used on some VT series terminals). The arrow keys work the same as
+ above. These X keysyms will be recognized:
F1 through F20
@@ -828,8 +846,9 @@
~", where ## is replaced by a number. The key sequences are identical
to those generated by a LK201 keyboard. Any function key not listed
- above generates "ESC [ - 1 z".
+ above generates "ESC [ - 1 ~".
For the complete list of the numbers which are generated by the function
- keys, look in the file src/x11term.c.
+ keys, look in the file src/x11term.c at the definitions of the function
+ "stringFuncVal".
If you are running Emacs on a Sun machine, even if your X display is
@@ -1177,13 +1177,9 @@
.mailrc.
-Q: Why doesn't setting default-directory always work?
-
- There is a separate value of default-directory for each Emacs buffer.
- The value in the current buffer is the one that is used.
-
Q: Why doesn't my change to load-path work?
- If you added file names with tildes (~) in them to your load-path,
- you'll need to do something like this:
+ If you added a directory name containing a tilde (~) to your load-path,
+ expecting the tilde to be interpreted as your home directory, then you
+ need to do something like this:
(setq load-path (mapcar 'expand-file-name load-path))
@@ -1196,6 +1192,6 @@
"C-u C-x C-n".
- If you make this mistake frequently, you might want to unbind this
- command by doing one of these two:
+ If you make this mistake frequently, you might want to unbind or disable
+ this command by doing one of these two:
(define-key ctl-x-map "\C-n" nil)
@@ -1306,4 +1302,7 @@
setenv ESHELL /bin/csh
+ (You must start Emacs over again with the environment variable properly
+ set for this to take effect.)
+
Q: Does GNU Emacs have a vulnerability to Trojan horses?
@@ -1526,6 +1525,6 @@
Q: How can I highlight a region?
- There are ways to get highlighting in GNU Emacs 18.57, but they all
- require patching the C code of Emacs and rebuilding. They are also slow
+ There are ways to get highlighting in GNU Emacs 18.57, but either they
+ require patching the C code of Emacs and rebuilding, or they are slow
and the highlighting disappears if you scroll or redraw the screen. One
patch is by Kenichi Handa <handa@etl.go.jp>.