+++ /dev/null
- GNU Emacs FAQ: Introduction
-
-This is the introduction to a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ)
-about GNU Emacs 20 with answers. Some of the answers are not valid for GNU
-Emacs 18 or 19.
-
-[This version has been somewhat edited from the last-posted version
-(as of February 1999) for inclusion in the Emacs distribution.]
-
-The FAQ is posted (in five parts) to reduce the noise level in the
-gnu.emacs.help newsgroup (which is also the help-gnu-emacs mailing list)
-which results from the repetition of frequently asked questions, wrong
-answers to these questions, corrections to the wrong answers, corrections
-to the corrections, debate, name calling, and generally unproductive use of
-the mailing list. Also, it serves as a repository of the canonical "best"
-answers to these questions. However, if you know a better answer or even a
-slight change that improves an answer, please tell us!
-
-If you know the answer to a question in the FAQ list, please reply to the
-question by e-mail instead of posting. Help reduce noise!
-
-The FAQ is crossposted to comp.emacs because some sites do not receive the
-gnu.* newsgroups. The FAQ is also crossposted to news.answers.
-
-Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22.
-
-A diff file between the last version of the FAQ and this one should have
-been posted along with the FAQ. If you did not receive the diff file, you
-can get it at
-
- ftp://the-tech.mit.edu/pub/GNU-Emacs/faq-diffs
-
-Please suggest new questions, answers, wording changes, and deletions by
-sending mail to emacs-faq@lerner.co.il. The most helpful form for
-suggestions is a context diff (i.e., the output of `diff -c'). Include
-"FAQ" in the subject of messages about the FAQ list.
-
-Please do not send questions to us just because you do not want to disturb
-a lot of people and you think we would know the answer. We do not have
-time to answer questions individually. :-(
-
---
-Reuven M. Lerner <reuven@lerner.co.il> and the FAQ team (a full list is
-at the bottom of the FAQ).
-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-Notation Used in FAQ
-
-1: What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.?
-2: What does "M-x command" mean?
-3: How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual?
-4: What do these mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h, lisp/default.el?
-5: What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, and GPL?
-
-General Questions
-
-6: What is the LPF?
-7: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?
-8: What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug,
- comp.emacs, etc.?
-9: Where can I get old postings to gnu.emacs.help and other GNU groups?
-10: Where should I report bugs and other problems with Emacs?
-11: How do I unsubscribe from this mailing list?
-12: What is the current address of the FSF?
-
-On-line Help, Printed Manuals, Other Sources of Help
-
-13: I'm just starting Emacs; how do I do basic editing?
-14: How do I find out how to do something in Emacs?
-15: How do I get a printed copy of the Emacs manual?
-16: Where can I get documentation on Emacs Lisp?
-17: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?
-18: How do I print a Texinfo file?
-19: Can I view Info files without using Emacs?
-20: What informational files are available for Emacs?
-21: Where can I get help in installing Emacs?
-22: Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)?
-
-Status of Emacs
-
-23: Where does the name "Emacs" come from?
-24: What is the latest version of Emacs?
-25: What is different about Emacs 20?
-
-Common Things People Want To Do
-
-26: How do I set up a .emacs file properly?
-27: How do I debug a .emacs file?
-28: How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number?
-29: How can I modify the titlebar to contain the current filename?
-30: How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX?
-31: How do I turn on auto-fill mode by default?
-32: How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files?
-33: How do I search for, delete, or replace unprintable (8-bit or control)
- characters?
-34: How can I highlight a region of text in Emacs?
-35: How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing?
-36: How do I make Emacs wrap words for me?
-37: Where can I get a better spelling checker for Emacs?
-38: How can I spell-check TeX or *roff documents?
-39: How do I change load-path?
-40: How do I use an already running Emacs from another window?
-41: How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages?
-42: How do I indent switch statements like this?
-43: How can I make Emacs automatically scroll horizontally?
-44: How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" instead of inserting?
-45: How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal?
-46: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?
-47: How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the
- indentation of the previous line?
-48: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at?
-49: In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef
- commands are handled by the compiler?
-50: Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi?
-51: What are the valid X resource settings (i.e., stuff in .Xdefaults)?
-52: How do I execute ("evaluate") a piece of Emacs Lisp code?
-53: How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length?
-54: How do I insert `>' at the beginning of every line?
-55: How do I insert "_^H" before each character in a region to get an
- underlined paragraph?
-56: How do I repeat a command as many times as possible?
-57: 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?
-58: How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself?
-59: How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs?
-60: How do I perform a replace operation across more than one file?
-61: Where is the documentation for "etags"?
-62: How do I disable backup files?
-63: How do I disable auto-save-mode?
-64: How can I create or modify new pull-down menu options?
-65: How do I delete menus and menu options?
-66: How do I turn on syntax highlighting?
-67: How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the
- bottom of the screen?
-68: How can I replace highlighted text with what I type?
-69: How can I edit MS-DOS-style text files using Emacs?
-70: How can I tell Emacs to fill paragraphs with a single space after
- each period?
-
-Bugs/Problems
-
-71: Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes?
-72: How do I get rid of ^M or echoed commands in my shell buffer?
-73: Why do I get "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1"?
-74: Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type "emacs"?
-75: Why does Emacs spontaneously start displaying "I-search:" and beeping?
-76: Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)?
-77: Why does Emacs say "Error in init file"?
-78: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?
-79: Why does Emacs take 20 seconds to visit a file?
-80: How do I edit a file with a `$' in its name?
-81: Why does shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory?
-82: Are there any security risks in Emacs?
-83: Dired says, "no file on this line" when I try to do something.
-
-Difficulties Building/Installing/Porting Emacs
-
-84: How do I install Emacs?
-85: How do I update Emacs to the latest version?
-86: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?
-87: Why does linking Emacs with -lX11 fail?
-
-Finding/Getting Emacs and Related Packages
-
-88: Where can I get Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?
-89: How do I find a Emacs Lisp package that does XXX?
-90: Where can I get Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs?
-91: How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
-92: Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?
-93: What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid
- Emacs")?
-94: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?
-95: Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows, Windows 9x, or Windows
- NT?
-96: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?
-97: Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
-98: Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga?
-99: Where can I get Emacs for NeXTSTEP?
-100: Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer?
-101: Where do I get Emacs that runs on VMS under DECwindows?
-102: Where can I get modes for Lex, Yacc/Bison, Bourne shell, Csh, C++,
- Objective-C, Pascal, Java, and Awk?
-103: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?
-
-Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs
-
-104: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs, with MIME support
-105: Supercite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs
-106: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs
-107: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs
-108: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities
-109: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers
-110: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs
-111: W3-mode -- A World Wide Web browser inside of Emacs
-112: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes
-113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news
-114: JDE -- Development environment for Java programming
-115: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files
-
-Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems
-
-116: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?
-117: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"?
-118: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
- .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
-119: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
-120: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys
- emit?
-121: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?
-122: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?
-123: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered
- out?
-124: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?
-125: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?
-126: How do I "swap" two keys?
-127: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?
-128: What if I don't have a Meta key?
-129: What if I don't have an Escape key?
-130: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key?
-131: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?
-132: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?
-133: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0
- and 9.x?
-
-Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets
-
-134: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?
-135: How do I input 8-bit characters?
-136: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other
- character sets?
-137: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?
-
-Mail and News
-
-138: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?
-139: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?
-140: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
-141: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?
-142: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?
-143: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?
-144: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?
-145: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the
- other recipients?
-146: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME?
-147: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?
-148: How do I read news under Emacs?
-149: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP?
-150: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
- ClariNews)?
-151: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?
-152: How do I make Gnus start up faster?
-153: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?
-154: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
- headers?
-155: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?
-156: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?
-157: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?
-158: Where can I find out more about Gnus?
-
-------------------------------------------------------------
-
-If you are viewing this text 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. Type RET to end the search.
-
-If you have a web browser and the browse-url package configured for
-it, you can visit ftp and HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by
-placing the cursor on the URL and typing M-x browse-url-at-point.
-
-The FAQ is posted in five parts; if you are missing a section or would
-prefer to read the FAQ in a single file, see question 22.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------
- Time-stamp: <1999-02-10 18:44:04 reuven>
-
-
-Notation Used in FAQ
-
- Skip this section and then come back if you don't understand some of the
- later answers.
-
-1: What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.?
-
- C-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Control key
-
- M-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Meta key (if your computer
- doesn't have a Meta key, see question 128)
-
- M-C-x: press the `x' key while holding down both Control and Meta
- C-M-x: a synonym for the above
-
- LFD: Linefeed or Newline; same as C-j
- RET: Return, sometimes marked Enter; same as C-m
- DEL: Delete, usually not the same as Backspace; same as C-? (See
- question 124 if deleting invokes Emacs help)
- ESC: Escape; same as C-[
- TAB: Tab; same as C-i
- SPC: Space bar
-
- Key sequences longer than one key (and some single-key sequences) are
- inside double quotes or on lines by themselves. Any real spaces in such
- a key sequence should be ignored; only SPC really means press the space
- key.
-
- The ASCII code sent by C-x (except for C-?) is the value that would be
- sent by pressing just `x' minus 96 (or 64 for uppercase `X') and will be
- from 0 to 31. The ASCII code sent by M-x is the sum of 128 and the ASCII
- code that would be sent by pressing just the `x' key. Essentially, the
- Control key turns off bits 5 and 6 and the Meta key turns on bit 7.
-
- NOTE: C-? (aka DEL) is ASCII code 127. It is a misnomer to call C-? a
- "control" key, since 127 has both bits 5 and 6 turned ON. Also, on very
- few keyboards does C-? generate ASCII code 127.
-
- For further information, see "Characters" and "Keys" in the on-line
- manual. (See question 3 if you don't know how.)
-
-2: What does "M-x command" mean?
-
- "M-x command" means type M-x, then type the name of the command, then
- type RET. (See question 1 if you're not sure what "M-x" and "RET" mean.)
-
- M-x (by default) 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, `?' for a list of possibilities, and M-p and
- M-n to see previous commands entered. 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, see question 52.
-
-3: How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual?
-
- When we refer you to topic XXX in the on-line manual, you can read this
- manual node inside Emacs (assuming nothing is broken) by typing this:
-
- C-h i m emacs RET m XXX RET
-
- This invokes Info, the GNU hypertext documentation browser. If you don't
- already know how to use Info, type `?' from within Info.
-
- If we refer to topic XXX:YYY, type this:
-
- C-h i m emacs RET m XXX RET m YYY RET
-
- WARNING: Your system administrator may not have installed the Info files,
- or may have installed them improperly. In this case you should complain.
-
- See question 15 if you would like a paper copy of the Emacs manual.
-
-4: What do these mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h, lisp/default.el?
-
- These are files that come with Emacs. The Emacs distribution is divided
- into subdirectories; the important ones are "etc", "lisp", and "src".
-
- If you use Emacs, but don't know where it is kept on your system, start
- Emacs, then type "C-h v data-directory RET". The directory name
- displayed by this will be the full pathname of the installed "etc"
- directory.
-
- The location of your Info directory (i.e., where on-line documentation is
- stored) is kept in the variable Info-default-directory-list. Use "C-h v
- Info-default-directory-list RET" to see the contents of this variable,
- which will be a list of directory names. The last directory in that list
- is probably where most Info files are stored. By default, Info
- documentation is placed in /usr/local/info.
-
- Some of these files are available individually via FTP or e-mail; see
- question 20. All are available in the source distribution. Many of the
- files in the "etc" directory are also available via the Emacs "help"
- menu, or by typing "C-h ?" (M-x help-for-help).
-
- WARNING: Your system administrator may have removed the src directory and
- many files from the etc directory.
-
-5: What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, 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
- GPL == GNU General Public License
-
- 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 consortium of
- computer vendors which develops commercial software for Unix systems.
-
- NOTE: 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 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.
-
-
-General Questions
-
-6: What is the LPF?
-
- The LPF opposes the expanding danger of software patents and
- look-and-feel copyrights. To get more information, feel free to contact
- the LPF via e-mail or otherwise. You may also contact Joe Wells
- <jbw@cs.bu.edu>; he will be happy to talk with you about the LPF.
-
- You can find more information about the LPF in the file etc/LPF. More
- papers describing the LPF's views are available on the Internet and also
- from the LPF:
-
- http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/
-
-7: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft?
-
- The real legal meaning of the GNU General Public License (copyleft) will
- only be known if and when a judge rules on its validity and scope. There
- has never been a copyright infringement case involving the GPL to set any
- precedents. Please take any discussion regarding this issue to the
- newsgroup gnu.misc.discuss, which was created to hold the extensive flame
- wars on the subject.
-
- 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.
-
-8: 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 20 if you want a copy of the file.) For those lists 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
- Emacs along with various other implementations, such as JOVE, MicroEmacs,
- Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, and Epsilon.
-
- Many people post 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.
-
- Messages advocating "non-free" software are considered unacceptable on
- any of the gnu.* newsgroups except for gnu.misc.discuss, which was
- created to hold the extensive flame-wars on the subject. "Non-free"
- software includes any software for which the end user can't freely modify
- the source code and exchange enhancements. Be careful to remove the
- gnu.* groups from the "Newsgroups:" line when posting a followup that
- recommends such software.
-
- gnu.emacs.bug is a place where bug reports appear, but avoid posting bug
- reports to this newsgroup (see question 10).
-
-9: Where can I get old postings to gnu.emacs.help and other GNU groups?
-
- The FSF has maintained archives of all of the GNU mailing lists for many
- years, although there may be some unintentional gaps in coverage. The
- archive is not particularly well organized or easy to retrieve individual
- postings from, but pretty much everything is there. The archives
- are available at
-
- ftp://ftp-mailing-list-archives.gnu.org/
-
- Web-based Usenet search services, such as DejaNews, also archive the
- gnu.* groups. You can reach DejaNews at
-
- http://www.dejanews.com
-
-10: Where should I report bugs and other problems with Emacs?
-
- The correct way to report Emacs bugs is by e-mail to
- bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Anything sent here also appears in the
- newsgroup gnu.emacs.bug, but please use e-mail instead of news to submit
- the bug report. This ensures a reliable return address so you can be
- contacted for further details.
-
- Be sure to read the "Bugs" section of the Emacs manual before reporting a
- bug to bug-gnu-emacs! The manual describes in detail how to submit a
- useful bug report. (See question 3 if you don't know how to read the
- manual.)
-
- RMS says:
-
- Sending bug reports 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.
-
- However, RMS says there are circumstances when it is okay to post to
- gnu.emacs.help:
-
- If you have reported a bug and you don't hear about a possible fix,
- then after a suitable delay (such as a week) it is okay to post on
- gnu.emacs.help asking if anyone can help you.
-
- If you are unsure whether you have found a bug, consider the following
- non-exhaustive list, courtesy of RMS:
-
- If Emacs crashes, that is a bug. If Emacs gets compilation errors
- while building, that is a bug. If Emacs crashes while building, that
- is a bug. If Lisp code does not do what the documentation says it
- does, that is a bug.
-
-11: How do I unsubscribe from this mailing list?
-
- If you are receiving a GNU mailing list named "XXX", you might be able to
- unsubscribe from it by sending a request to the address
- <XXX-request@gnu.org>. However, this will not work if you are
- not listed on the main mailing list, but instead receive 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" or
- "VRFY" sendmail commands through "telnet <site-address> smtp". Ask your
- postmaster for help.
-
-12: What is the current address of the FSF?
-
- E-mail: gnu@gnu.org
- Telephone: +1-617-542-5942
- Fax: +1-617-542-2652
- World Wide Web: http://www.gnu.org/
-
- Postal address:
- Free Software Foundation
- 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
- Boston, MA 02111-1307
- USA
-
- For details on how to order items directly from the FSF, see the file
- etc/ORDERS.
-
-
-On-line Help, Printed Manuals, Other Sources of Help
-
-13: I'm just starting Emacs; how do I do basic editing?
-
- Type "C-h t" to invoke the self-paced tutorial. Just typing `C-h' enters
- the help system.
-
- WARNING: Your system administrator may have changed `C-h' to act like DEL
- to deal with local keyboards. 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 help works best if it is invoked by a single key whose value
- should be stored in the variable help-char.
-
- There is also a WWW-based tutorial for Emacs 18, much of which is also
- relevant for Emacs 20, available at
-
- http://kufacts.cc.ukans.edu/cwis/writeups/misc/emacsguide.html
-
-14: How do I find out how to do something in Emacs?
-
- There are several methods for finding out how to do things in Emacs.
-
- * The complete text of the Emacs manual is available on-line via the Info
- hypertext reader. Type "C-h i" to invoke Info. Typing `h' immediately
- after entering Info will provide a short tutorial on how to use it.
-
- * You can order a hardcopy of the manual from the FSF. See question 15.
-
- * 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 or etc/refcard.ps files
- in the Emacs distribution.
-
- * You can list all of the commands whose names contain a certain word
- (actually which match a regular expression) using "C-h a" (M-x
- command-apropos).
-
- * You can list all of the functions and variables whose names contain a
- certain word using M-x apropos.
-
- * There are many other commands in Emacs for getting help and
- information. To get a list of these commands, type `?' after `C-h'.
-
-15: How do I get a printed copy of the Emacs manual?
-
- You can order a printed copy of the Emacs manual from the FSF. For
- details see the file etc/ORDERS.
-
- 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
- 440-page manual yourself (see question 18).
-
- If you absolutely have to print your own copy, and you don't have TeX,
- you can get a PostScript version from
-
- ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/gnu/manuals_ps/emacs-19.21.ps.gz
-
- Note that the above document is somewhat out of date, although most major
- concepts are still relevant. This site requests that you please *confine
- any major ftping to late evenings or early mornings, local time* (Pacific
- time zone, GMT-8).
-
- A WWW version of the (somewhat outdated) Emacs 19.34 manual is at
-
- http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/texinfodoc/emacs_toc.html
-
- See also question 14 for how to view the manual on-line.
-
-16: Where can I get documentation on Emacs Lisp?
-
- Within Emacs, you can type "C-h f" to get the documentation for a
- function, "C-h v" for a variable.
-
- For more information, obtain the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual. Details on
- ordering it from FSF are in file etc/ORDERS.
-
- The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is also available on-line, in Info
- format. Texinfo source for the manual (along with pregenerated Info
- files) is available at
-
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-manual-20-2.5.tar.gz
-
- and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (See question 92 for a list). See
- question 17 if you want to install the Info files, or question 18 if you
- want to use the Texinfo source to print the manual yourself.
-
- WWW versions of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual are available at
-
- http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/texinfodoc/elisp_1.html
- http://www.cs.indiana.edu/usr/local/www/elisp/lispref/elisp_toc.html
-
-17: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation?
-
- First, you must turn the Texinfo files into Info files. You may do this
- using the stand-alone "makeinfo" program, available as part of the latest
- Texinfo package at
-
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/texinfo/texinfo-3.12.tar.gz
-
- and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (see question 92 for a list).
-
- 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 on-line.
-
- Neither texinfo-format-buffer nor makeinfo installs 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 4 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. Follow the examples already in this file. The format is:
-
- * Topic: (relative-pathname). Short description of topic.
-
- If (as it should have done) the Texinfo file used the @direntry
- command, you can run the "install-info" command from the current
- Texinfo distribution to do this automatically -- see the example in
- the top-level Makefile in the Emacs source.
-
- If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary
- privileges, you have several options:
-
- * Info files don't actually need to be installed before being used. 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
-
- * You can create your own Info directory. You can tell Emacs where the
- Info directory is by adding its pathname to the value of the variable
- Info-default-directory-list. For example, to use a private Info
- directory which is a subdirectory of your home directory named "Info",
- you could put this in your .emacs file:
-
- (setq Info-default-directory-list
- (cons "~/Info" Info-default-directory-list))
-
- You will need a top-level Info file named "dir" in this directory which
- has everything the system dir file has in it, except it should list
- only entries for Info files in that directory. You might not need it
- if all files in this directory were referenced by other "dir" files.
- The node lists from all dir files in Info-default-directory-list are
- merged by the Info system.
-
-18: How do I print a Texinfo file?
-
- NOTE: You can't get nicely printed output from Info files; you must still
- have the original Texinfo source file for the manual you want to print.
-
- Assuming you have TeX installed on your system, follow these steps:
-
- 1. Make sure the first line of the Texinfo file looks like this:
-
- \input texinfo
-
- You may need to change "texinfo" to the full pathname of the
- texinfo.tex file, which comes with Emacs as man/texinfo.tex (or copy
- or link it into the current directory).
-
- 2. tex XXX.texinfo
-
- 3. texindex XXX.??
-
- The texindex program comes with Emacs as man/texindex.c.
-
- 4. tex XXX.texinfo
-
- 5. Print the DVI file XXX.dvi in the normal way for printing DVI files at
- your site.
-
- To get more general instructions, retrieve the latest Texinfo package
- mentioned in question 17. The "texi2dvi" command from it will perform
- the above steps 1 to 4 for you.
-
-19: Can I view Info files without using Emacs?
-
- Yes. Here are some alternative programs:
-
- * Info, a stand-alone version of the Info program, comes as part of the
- Texinfo package. See question 17 for details.
-
- * Xinfo, a stand-alone version of the Info program that runs under X
- Windows. You can get it at
-
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/xinfo/xinfo-1.01.01.tar.gz
-
- and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (See question 92 for a list).
-
- * Tkinfo, an Info viewer that runs under X Windows and uses Tcl/Tk. You
- can get Tkinfo at
-
- http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/tkinfo/
-
-20: What informational files are available for Emacs?
-
- This isn't a frequently asked question, but it should be! A variety of
- informational files about 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 Emacs
- distribution (see question 4 if you're not sure where that is).
-
- COPYING -- Emacs General Public License
- DISTRIB -- Emacs Availability Information, including the popular
- "Free Software Foundation Order Form"
- FAQ -- Emacs Frequently Asked Questions (You're reading it)
- 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
- LPF -- Why you should join the League for Programming Freedom
- MACHINES -- Status of Emacs on Various Machines and Systems
- MAILINGLISTS -- GNU Project Electronic Mailing Lists
- NEWS -- Emacs news, a history of user-visible changes
- PROBLEMS -- Known problems with building and running Emacs in various
- situations, often with workarounds.
- SERVICE -- GNU Service Directory
- SUN-SUPPORT -- including "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs"
-
- Latest versions of some of the above files are also available at
-
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/
-
- More GNU information, including back issues of the "GNU's Bulletin", are at
-
- http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bulletins.html
- http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/gnu.html
-
-21: Where can I get help in installing Emacs?
-
- See question 84 for some basic installation hints, and question 83 if you
- have problems with the installation.
-
- The file etc/SERVICE (see question 4 if you're not sure where that is)
- lists companies and individuals willing to sell you help in installing or
- using Emacs. An up-to-date version this file is available on ftp.gnu.org
- (see question 20).
-
-22: Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)?
-
- The Emacs FAQ is available in several ways:
-
- * Inside of Emacs itself. You can get it from selecting the "Emacs FAQ"
- option from the "Help" menu at the top of any Emacs frame, or by typing
- C-h F (M-x view-emacs-FAQ).
-
- * Via USENET. If you can read news, the FAQ should be available in your
- news spool, in both the gnu.emacs.help and comp.emacs newsgroups.
- Every news reader should allow you to read any news article that is
- still in the news spool, even if you have read the article before. You
- may need to read the instructions for your news reader to discover how
- to do this. In rn, this command will do this for you at the article
- selection level:
-
- ?GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions?rc:m
-
- In Gnus, you should type "C-u c-x c-s" from the *Summary* buffer or
- "C-u SPC" from the *Newsgroup* buffer to view all articles in a
- newsgroup.
-
- If the FAQ articles have expired and been deleted from your news spool,
- it might (or might not) do some good to complain to your news
- administrator, because the most recent FAQ should not expire for a
- while.
-
- * Via HTTP or FTP. You can always fetch the latest FAQ at
-
- http://www.lerner.co.il/emacs/
-
- and
-
- ftp://ftp.lerner.co.il/pub/emacs/
-
- * In the Emacs distribution. Since Emacs 18.56, the FAQ at the time of
- release has been part of the Emacs distribution as etc/FAQ (see
- question 4).
-
- * Via the World Wide Web. A hypertext version is available at
-
- http://www.lerner.co.il/emacs/
-
- * Via anonymous ftp and e-mail from rtfm.mit.edu (and its mirror in
- Europe), the main repository for FAQs and other items posted to
- news.answers. The Emacs FAQs are available at
-
- ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs/
- ftp://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/pub/doc/FAQ/comp/emacs/
-
- If you do not have access to anonymous FTP, you can access the archives
- using the rtfm.mit.edu mail server. The Emacs FAQ can be retrieved by
- sending mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with a blank subject and
- containing
-
- send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/diffs
- send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part1
- send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part2
- send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part3
- send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part4
- send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part5
-
- For more information, send email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with
- "help" and "index" in the body on separate lines.
-
- * As the very last resort, you can e-mail a request to
- emacs-faq@lerner.co.il. Don't do this unless you have made a serious
- effort to obtain the FAQ list via one of the methods listed above.
-
-
-Status of Emacs
-
-23: Where does the name "Emacs" come from?
-
- Emacs originally was an acronym for Editor MACroS. RMS says he "picked
- the name Emacs because `E' was not in use as an abbreviation on ITS at
- the time." The first Emacs was a set of macros written in 1976 at MIT by
- RMS for the editor TECO (Text Editor and COrrector, originally Tape
- Editor and COrrector) under ITS on a PDP-10. RMS had already extended
- TECO with a "real-time" full screen mode with reprogrammable keys. Emacs
- was started by Guy Steele <gls@east.sun.com> as a project to unify the
- many divergent TECO command sets and key bindings at MIT, and completed
- by RMS.
-
- Many people have said that TECO code looks a lot like line noise. See
- alt.lang.teco if you are interested. Someone has written a TECO
- implementation in Emacs Lisp (to find it, see question 90); it would be
- an interesting project to run the original TECO Emacs inside of Emacs.
-
- For some not-so-serious alternative reasons for Emacs to have that name,
- check out etc/JOKES (see question 4).
-
-24: What is the latest version of Emacs?
-
- Emacs 20.4 is the current version as of this writing.
-
-25: What is different about Emacs 20?
-
- To find out what has changed in recent versions, type C-h n (M-x
- view-emacs-news). The oldest changes are at the bottom of the file, so
- you might want to read it starting there, rather than at the top.
-
- The differences between Emacs versions 18 and 19 was rather dramatic; the
- introduction of frames, faces, and colors on windowing systems was
- obvious to even the most casual user.
-
- There are differences between Emacs versions 19 and 20 as well, but many
- are more subtle or harder to find. Among the changes are the inclusion
- of MULE code for languages that use non-Latin characters, the "customize"
- facility for modifying variables without having to use Lisp, and
- automatic conversion of files from Macintosh, Microsoft, and Unix
- platforms.
-
- Many Lisp packages have been updated and enhanced for Emacs 20.
-
-
-Common Things People Want To Do
-
-26: How do I set up a .emacs file properly?
-
- See "Init File" in the on-line manual.
-
- 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. :-)
-
- Emacs 20 includes the new "customize" facility, which can be invoked
- using M-x customize RET or via the Help menu. This allows users who are
- unfamiliar with Emacs Lisp to modify their .emacs files in a relatively
- straightforward way, using menus rather than Lisp code. While all the
- packages included with Emacs (are meant to) support Customize now,
- packages from other sources may not.
-
- While Customize might indeed make it easier to configure Emacs, consider
- taking a bit of time to learn Emacs Lisp and modifying your .emacs
- directly. Simple configuration options are described rather completely in
- the "Init File" section of the on-line manual, for users interested in
- performing frequently requested, basic tasks.
-
-27: How do I debug a .emacs file?
-
- Start Emacs with the "-debug-init" command-line option. This enables the
- Emacs Lisp debugger before evaluating your .emacs file, and places you in
- the debugger if something goes wrong. The top line in the trace-back
- buffer will be the error message, and the second or third line of that
- buffer will display the Lisp code from your .emacs file that caused the
- problem.
-
- You can also evaluate an individual function or argument to a function in
- your .emacs file by moving the cursor to the end of the function or
- argument and typing "C-x C-e" (M-x eval-last-sexp). "C-M-x" (M-x
- eval-defun) is particularly useful for re-evaluating "defvar" and
- "customize" forms.
-
- Use "C-h v" (M-x describe-variable) to check the value of variables which
- you are trying to set or use.
-
-28: How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number?
-
- To toggle having Emacs automatically display the current line number of the
- point in the mode line, do "M-x line-number-mode". (This option is on by
- default.) Note that Emacs will not display the line number if the buffer is
- larger than the value of the variable line-number-display-limit.
-
- As of Emacs 20, you can similarly display the current column with "M-x
- column-number-mode", by putting the form
-
- (setq column-number-mode t)
-
- in your .emacs file or by using Customize.
-
- The "%c" format specifier in the variable mode-line-format will insert
- the current column's value into the mode line. See the documentation for
- mode-line-format (using "C-h v mode-line-format RET") for more
- information on how to set and use this variable.
-
- Users of all Emacs versions can display the current column using Per
- Abrahamsen's <abraham@iesd.auc.dk> "column" package. See question 90 for
- instructions on how to get it.
-
- None of the vi emulation modes provide the "set number" capability of vi
- (as far as we know) but Kyle Jones's setnu.el package implements such a
- feature.
-
-29: How can I modify the titlebar to contain the current filename?
-
- The contains of an Emacs frame's titlebar is controlled by the variable
- frame-title-format, which has the same structure as the variable
- mode-line-format. (Use "C-h v" or "M-x describe-variable" to get
- information about one or both of these variables.)
-
- By default, the titlebar for a frame does contain the name of the buffer
- currently being visited, except if there is a single frame. In such a
- case, the titlebar contains the name of the user and the machine at which
- Emacs was invoked. This is done by setting frame-title-format to the
- default value of
-
- (multiple-frames "%b" ("" invocation-name "@" system-name))
-
- To modify the behavior such that frame titlebars contain the buffer's
- name regardless of the number of existing frames, include the following
- in your .emacs:
-
- (setq frame-title-format "%b")
-
-30: How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX?
-
- Put this in your .emacs file:
-
- (condition-case ()
- (quietly-read-abbrev-file)
- (file-error nil))
-
- (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook
- (lambda ()
- (setq abbrev-mode t)))
-
-31: How do I turn on auto-fill mode by default?
-
- To turn on auto-fill mode just once for one buffer, use "M-x
- auto-fill-mode".
-
- To turn it on for every buffer in a certain mode, you must use the hook
- for that mode. For example, to turn on auto-fill mode for all text
- buffers, including the following in your .emacs file:
-
- (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)
-
- You can also do this via the Help -> Options menu, which runs the command
- toggle-text-mode-auto-fill.
-
- If you want auto-fill mode on in all major modes, do this:
-
- (setq-default auto-fill-function 'do-auto-fill)
-
-32: 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:
-
- (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode))
-
- Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to
- edit in XXX mode (in the second line, if the first line begins with
- "#!"):
-
- -*-XXX-*-
-
- Beginning with Emacs 19, the variable interpreter-mode-alist specifies
- which mode to use when loading a shell script. (Emacs determines which
- interpreter you're using by examining the first line of the file.) This
- feature only applies when the file name doesn't indicate which mode to
- use. Use "C-h v" (or M-x describe-variable) on interpreter-mode-alist to
- learn more.
-
-33: How do I search for, delete, or replace 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 (i.e., `C-q').) Searching for ALL unprintable
- characters is best done with a regular expression ("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 these special characters in an interactive argument to
- isearch-forward-regexp or re-search-forward, you need to use C-q. (`\t',
- `\n', `\r', and `\f' stand respectively for TAB, LFD, RET, and C-l.) So,
- to search for unprintable characters using re-search-forward:
-
- M-x re-search-forward RET [^ TAB C-q LFD 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 replace-regexp:
-
- M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET RET
-
- Replacing is similar to the above. To replace all unprintable characters
- with a colon, use:
-
- M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET : RET
-
- NOTE: * You don't need to quote TAB with either isearch or typing
- something in the minibuffer.
-
-34: How can I highlight a region of text in Emacs?
-
- If you are using a windowing system such as X, you can cause the region
- to be highlighted when the mark is active by including
-
- (transient-mark-mode t)
-
- in your .emacs file, using Customize or via the Help->Options menu.
- (Also see question 66.)
-
-35: How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity 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
-
- To change this or similar variables during an Emacs session, use
- M-x set-variable.
-
- Similarly, for replacing, the variable case-replace determines whether
- replacements preserve case.
-
- To change the case sensitivity just for one major mode, use the major
- mode's hook. For example:
-
- (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook
- (lambda ()
- (setq case-fold-search nil)))
-
-36: How do I make Emacs wrap words for me?
-
- Use auto-fill mode, activated by typing "M-x auto-fill-mode". The
- default maximum line width is 70, determined by the variable fill-column.
- To learn how to turn this on automatically, see question 31.
-
-37: Where can I get a better spelling checker for Emacs?
-
- Use Ispell. See question 110.
-
-38: How can I spell-check TeX or *roff documents?
-
- Use Ispell. See question 110. Ispell can handle TeX and *roff
- documents.
-
-39: 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 (cons "/XXX/YYY/" load-path))
-
- To do this relative to your home directory:
-
- (setq load-path (cons "~/YYY/" load-path)
-
-40: How do I use an already running Emacs from another window?
-
- Emacsclient, which comes with Emacs, is for editing a file using an
- already running Emacs rather than starting up a new Emacs. It does this
- by sending a request to the already running Emacs, which must be
- expecting the request.
-
- * Setup
-
- Emacs must have executed the "server-start" function for emacsclient to
- work. This can be done either by a command line option:
-
- emacs -f server-start
-
- or by invoking server-start from the .emacs file:
-
- (if (some conditions are met) (server-start))
-
- When this is done, Emacs starts a subprocess running a program called
- "server". "server" creates a Unix domain socket in the user's home
- directory named .emacs_server.
-
- To get your news reader, mail reader, etc., to invoke emacsclient, try
- setting the environment variable EDITOR (or sometimes VISUAL) to the
- value "emacsclient". You may have to specify the full pathname of the
- emacsclient program instead. Examples:
-
- # csh commands:
- setenv EDITOR emacsclient
- setenv EDITOR /usr/local/emacs/etc/emacsclient # using full pathname
-
- # sh command:
- EDITOR=emacsclient ; export EDITOR
-
- * Normal use
-
- When emacsclient is run, it connects to the ".emacs_server" socket and
- passes its command line options to "server". When "server" receives
- these requests, it sends this information on the the Emacs process,
- which at the next opportunity will visit the files specified. (Line
- numbers can be specified just like with Emacs.) The user will have to
- switch to the Emacs window by hand. When the user is done editing a
- file, the user can type "C-x #" (or M-x server-edit) to indicate this.
- If there is another buffer requested by emacsclient, Emacs will switch
- to it; otherwise emacsclient will exit, signaling the calling program
- to continue.
-
- NOTE: "emacsclient" and "server" must be running on machines which
- share the same filesystem for this to work. The pathnames that
- emacsclient specifies should be correct for the filesystem that the
- Emacs process sees. The Emacs process should not be suspended at the
- time emacsclient is invoked. emacsclient should either be invoked from
- another X window or from a shell window inside Emacs itself.
-
- There is an enhanced version of emacsclient/server called "gnuserv" by
- Andy Norman <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com> which is available in the Emacs Lisp
- Archive (see question 90). Gnuserv uses Internet domain sockets, so it
- can work across most network connections. It also supports the
- execution of arbitrary Emacs Lisp forms and does not require the client
- program to wait for completion.
-
- The alpha version of an enhanced version of gnuserv is available at
-
- ftp://ftp.splode.com/pub/users/friedman/packages/fgnuserv-1.0.tar.gz
-
-41: How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages?
-
- The variable compilation-error-regexp-alist helps control how Emacs
- parses your compiler output. It is a list of triples of the form:
-
- (REGEXP FILE-IDX LINE-IDX)
-
- where REGEXP, FILE-IDX and LINE-IDX are strings. To help determine what
- the constituent elements should be, load compile.el and then use
-
- C-h v compilation-error-regexp-alist RET
-
- to see the current value. A good idea is to look at compile.el itself as
- the comments included for this variable are quite useful -- the regular
- expressions required for your compiler's output may be very close to one
- already provided. Once you have determined the proper regexps, use the
- following to inform Emacs of your changes:
-
- (add-to-list 'compilation-error-regexp-alist
- '(REGEXP FILE-IDX LINE-IDX))
-
-42: How do I indent C switch statements like this?
-
- Many people want to indent their switch statements like this:
-
- f()
- {
- switch(x) {
- case A:
- x1;
- break;
- case B:
- x2;
- break;
- default:
- x3;
- }
- }
-
- The solution at first appears to be: set c-indent-level to 4 and
- c-label-offset to -2. However, this will give you an indentation spacing
- of four instead of two.
-
- The solution is to use cc-mode (the default mode for C programming in
- Emacs 20) and add the following line:
-
- (c-set-offset 'case-label '+)
-
- There appears to be no way to do this with the old c-mode.
-
-43: How can I make Emacs automatically scroll horizontally?
-
- Use hscroll-mode, included in Emacs 20. Here is some information from
- the documentation, available by typing C-h f hscroll-mode RET:
-
- Automatically scroll horizontally when the point moves off the
- left or right edge of the window.
-
- - Type "M-x hscroll-mode" to enable it in the current buffer.
- - Type "M-x hscroll-global-mode" to enable it in every buffer.
- - "turn-on-hscroll" is useful in mode hooks as in:
- (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-hscroll)
-
- - hscroll-margin controls how close the cursor can get to the edge
- of the window.
- - hscroll-step-percent controls how far to jump once we decide to do so.
-
-44: How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" instead of inserting?
-
- M-x overwrite-mode (a minor mode). This toggles overwrite-mode on and
- off, so exiting from overwrite-mode is as easy as another M-x
- overwrite-mode.
-
- On some systems the "Insert" key toggles overwrite-mode on and off.
-
-45: 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.
-
- That is, put the following in your TERMCAP environment variable
- (assuming you have one):
-
- ... :vb=: ...
-
- And evaluate the following Lisp form:
-
- (setq visible-bell t)
-
- There is also a way to turn off _all_ effects of a bell, by defining
- a custom `ring-bell-function' that does nothing.
-
-46: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows?
-
- You can adjust the bell volume and duration for all programs with the
- shell command xset.
-
- Invoking xset without any arguments produces some basic information,
- including the following:
-
- usage: xset [-display host:dpy] option ...
- To turn bell off:
- -b b off b 0
- To set bell volume, pitch and duration:
- b [vol [pitch [dur]]] b on
-
-47: How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the
- indentation of the previous line?
-
- Such behavior is automatic in text mode in Emacs 20. From the NEWS file
- for Emacs 20.2:
-
- ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs. This makes
- it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode in Text mode,
- and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode). TAB in Text mode
- now runs the command indent-relative; this makes a practical difference
- only when you use indented paragraphs.
-
- As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
- and is an alias for it.
-
- If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph, use
- the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
-
- If you have auto-fill mode on (see question 31), 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.
-
- NOTE: If you have paragraphs with different levels of indentation, you
- will have to set the fill prefix to the correct value each time you move
- to a new paragraph. To avoid this hassle, try one of the many packages
- available from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 90.) Look up "fill"
- and "indent" in the Lisp Code Directory for guidance.
-
-48: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at?
-
- As of version 19, Emacs comes with paren.el, which (when loaded) will
- automatically highlight matching parentheses whenever point (i.e., the
- cursor) is located over one. To load paren automatically, include the
- line
-
- (require 'paren)
-
- in your .emacs file. As of version 20.1, you must instead call
- show-paren-mode in your .emacs file:
-
- (show-paren-mode 1)
-
- and the "require" is redundant.
-
- The "customize" facility will let you turn on show-paren-mode. Use M-x
- customize-group RET paren-showing RET. From within customize, you can
- also go directly to the "paren-showing" group.
-
- Alternatives to paren include:
-
- * 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 one set
- of 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
- parenthesis, like in vi. In addition, if the cursor isn't over a
- parenthesis, it simply inserts a % like normal. (`Parenthesis' actually
- includes and character with `open' or `close' syntax, which usually means
- "()[]{}".)
-
- ;; 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)))))
-
-49: 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 might also want to try
- cpp.el, available at the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 90).
-
-50: Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi?
-
- (`.' is the redo command in vi. It redoes the last insertion/deletion.)
-
- In Emacs 20.3 and later, use the C-x z ("repeat") command to repeat `simple
- commands'.
-
- Otherwise you can type "C-x ESC 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 a set of commands, use keyboard macros. (See "Keyboard Macros"
- in the on-line manual.)
-
- VIPER, which comes with Emacs, emulates vi, including `.'. (See question
- 107.)
-
-51: What are the valid X resource settings (i.e., stuff in .Xdefaults)?
-
- See Emacs man page, or "Resources X" in the on-line manual.
-
- You can also use a resource editor, such as editres (for X11R5 and
- onwards), to look at the resource names for the menu bar, assuming Emacs
- was compiled with the X toolkit.
-
-52: How do I execute ("evaluate") a piece of Emacs Lisp code?
-
- There are a number of ways to execute ("evaluate," in Lisp lingo) 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. This is known as your ".emacs
- file," and contains all of your personal customizations.
-
- * You can type the form in the *scratch* buffer, and then type LFD (or
- C-j) after it. The result of evaluating the form will be inserted in
- the buffer.
-
- * 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-: 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.)
-
- These functions are also useful (see question 16 if you want to learn
- more about them):
-
- load-library, eval-region, eval-current-buffer, require, autoload
-
-53: How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length?
-
- Set the variable default-tab-width. For example, to set tab stops every
- 10 characters, insert the following in your .emacs file:
-
- (setq default-tab-width 10)
-
- Do not confuse variable tab-width with variable tab-stop-list. The
- former is used for the display of literal tab characters. The latter
- controls what characters are inserted when you press the TAB character in
- certain modes.
-
-54: How do I insert `>' at the beginning of every line?
-
- To do this to an entire buffer, type "M-< M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET >
- RET".
-
- To do this to a region, use "string-rectangle" ("C-x r t"). Set the mark
- (`C-SPC') at the beginning of the first line you want to prefix, move the
- cursor to last line to be prefixed, and type "C-x r t > RET". To do this
- for the whole buffer, type "C-x h C-x r t > RET". In Emacs 20.3 and
- later, this will affect only the current region if Transient Mark mode is
- on (see NEWS via C-h N).
-
- If you are trying to prefix a yanked mail message with '>', you might
- want to set the variable mail-yank-prefix. Better yet, get the Supercite
- package (see question 105), which provides flexible citation for yanked
- mail and news messages.
-
-55: How do I insert "_^H" before each character in a region to get an
- underlined paragraph?
-
- M-x underline-region.
-
-56: How do I repeat a command as many times as possible?
-
- Use "C-x (" and "C-x )" to 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.
-
-57: 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.
-
-58: How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself?
-
- "C-z" iconifies Emacs when running under X Windows and suspends Emacs
- otherwise. See "Misc X" in the on-line manual.
-
-59: How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs?
-
- See "Regexps" in the on-line manual.
-
- WARNING: The "or" operator is `\|', not `|', and the grouping operators
- are `\(' and `\)'. Also, the string syntax for a backslash is `\\'. To
- specify a regular expression like xxx\(foo\|bar\) in a Lisp string, use
-
- "xxx\\(foo\\|bar\\)"
-
- Notice the doubled backslashes!
-
- WARNING: Unlike in Unix grep, sed, etc., a complement character set
- ([^...]) can match a newline character (LFD aka C-j aka \n), unless
- newline is mentioned as one of the characters not to match.
-
- WARNING: The character syntax regexps (e.g., "\sw") are not meaningful
- inside character set regexps (e.g., "[aeiou]"). (This is actually
- typical for regexp syntax.)
-
-60: How do I perform a replace operation across more than one file?
-
- The "tags" feature of Emacs includes the command tags-query-replace which
- performs a query-replace across all the files mentioned in the TAGS file.
- See "Tags Search" in the on-line manual.
-
- As of Emacs 19.29, Dired mode ("M-x dired RET", or C-x d) supports the
- command dired-do-query-replace, which allows users to replace regular
- expressions in multiple files.
-
-61: Where is the documentation for "etags"?
-
- "etags" is documented in the Tags node of the Emacs manual. The "etags"
- man page should be in the same place as the "emacs" man page.
-
- Quick command-line switch descriptions are also available. For example,
- "etags -H".
-
-62: How do I disable backup files?
-
- You probably don't want to do this, since backups are useful.
-
- To avoid seeing backup files (and other "uninteresting" files) in Dired,
- load dired-x by adding the following to your .emacs file:
-
- (add-hook 'dired-load-hook
- (function (lambda ()
- (load "dired-x"))))
-
- With dired-x loaded, `M-o' toggles omitting in each dired buffer. You
- can make omitting the default for new dired buffers by putting the
- following in your .emacs:
-
- (setq initial-dired-omit-files-p t)
-
- If you're tired of seeing backup files whenever you do an "ls" at the
- Unix shell, try GNU ls with the "-B" option. GNU ls is part of the GNU
- fileutils package, available at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (see question 92).
-
- To disable or change how backups are made, see "Backup Names" in the
- on-line manual.
-
-63: How do I disable auto-save-mode?
-
- You probably don't want to do this, since auto-saving is useful,
- especially when Emacs or your computer crashes while you are editing a
- document.
-
- Instead, you might want to change the variable auto-save-interval, which
- specifies how many keystrokes Emacs waits before auto-saving. Increasing
- this value forces Emacs to wait longer between auto-saves, which might
- annoy you less.
-
- You might also want to look into Sebastian Kremer's auto-save package,
- available from the Lisp Code Archive (see question 90). This package
- also allows you to place all auto-save files in one directory, such as
- /tmp.
-
- To disable or change how auto-save-mode works, see "Auto Save" in the
- on-line manual.
-
-64: How can I create or modify new pull-down menu options?
-
- Each menu title (e.g., Buffers, File, Edit) represents a local or global
- keymap. Selecting a menu title with the mouse displays that keymap's
- non-nil contents in the form of a menu.
-
- So to add a menu option to an existing menu, all you have to do is add a
- new definition to the appropriate keymap. Adding a "forward word"
- command to the "Edit" menu thus requires the following Lisp code:
-
- (define-key global-map
- [menu-bar edit forward]
- '("Forward word" . forward-word))
-
- The first line adds the entry to the global keymap, which includes global
- menu bar entries. Replacing the reference to "global-map" with a local
- keymap would add this menu option only within a particular mode.
-
- The second line describes the path from the menu-bar to the new entry.
- Placing this menu entry underneath the "File" menu would mean changing
- the word "edit" in the second line to "file."
-
- The third line is a cons cell whose first element is the title that will
- be displayed, and whose second element is the function that will be
- called when that menu option is invoked.
-
- To add a new menu, rather than a new option to an existing menu, we must
- define an entirely new keymap:
-
- (define-key global-map [menu-bar words]
- (cons "Words" (make-sparse-keymap "Words")))
-
- The above code creates a new sparse keymap, gives it the name "Words",
- and attaches it to the global menu bar. Adding the "forward word"
- command to this new menu would thus require the following code:
-
- (define-key global-map
- [menu-bar words forward]
- '("Forward word" . forward-word))
-
- Note that because of the way keymaps work, menu options are displayed
- with the more recently defined items at the top. Thus if you were to
- define menu options "foo", "bar", and "baz" (in that order), menu option
- "baz" would appear at the top, and "foo" would be at the bottom.
-
- One way to avoid this problem is to use the function define-key-after,
- which works the same as define-key, but lets you modify where items
- appear. The following Lisp code would insert the "forward word" function
- in the "edit" menu immediately following the "undo" option:
-
- (define-key-after
- (lookup-key global-map [menu-bar edit])
- [forward]
- '("Forward word" . forward-word)
- 'undo)
-
- Note how the second and third arguments to define-key-after are different
- from those of define-key, and that we have added a new (final) argument,
- the function after which our new key should be defined.
-
- To move a menu option from one position to another, simply evaluate
- define-key-after with the appropriate final argument.
-
- More detailed information -- and more examples of how to create and
- modify menu options -- are in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, under
- "Menu Keymaps." (See question 16 for information on this manual.)
-
- Note that Emacs 20.3 introduced a better (`extended') format for menu
- items, described in the NEWS file and the Lisp Manual. The "easymenu"
- package provides support for defining menus conveniently with some
- portability amongst Emacs versions.
-
-65: How do I delete menus and menu options?
-
- The simplest way to remove a menu is to set its keymap to nil. For
- example, to delete the "Words" menu (from question 64), use:
-
- (define-key global-map [menu-bar words] nil)
-
- Similarly, removing a menu option requires redefining a keymap entry to
- nil. For example, to delete the "Forward word" menu option from the
- "Edit" menu (we added it in question 64), use:
-
- (define-key global-map [menu-bar edit forward] nil)
-
-66: How do I turn on syntax highlighting?
-
- Font-lock mode is the standard way to have Emacs perform syntax
- highlighting. With font-lock mode invoked, different types of text will
- appear in different colors. For instance, if you turn on font-lock in a
- programming mode, variables will appear in one face, keywords in a
- second, and comments in a third.
-
- Earlier versions of Emacs supported hilit19, a similar package. Use of
- hilit19 is now considered non-standard, although hilit19.el comes with
- the stock Emacs distribution. It is no longer maintained.
-
- To turn font-lock mode on within an existing buffer, use "M-x
- font-lock-mode RET".
-
- To automatically invoke font-lock mode when a particular major mode is
- invoked, set the major mode's hook or define font-lock-global-modes as a
- list with the mode name as an element. For example, to fontify all
- c-mode buffers, add the following to your .emacs file:
-
- (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
-
- To automatically invoke font-lock mode for all major modes, you can turn
- on global-font-lock mode by including the following line in your .emacs
- file (or use Custom):
-
- (global-font-lock-mode 1)
-
- This instructs Emacs to turn on font-lock mode in those buffers for which
- a font-lock mode definition has been provided (in the variable
- font-lock-global-modes or via the variable font-lock-defaults-alist). If
- you edit a file in pie-ala-mode, and no font-lock definitions have been
- provided for pie-ala files, then the above setting will have no effect on
- that particular buffer.
-
- Highlighting with font-lock mode can take quite a while, and thus
- different levels of decoration are available, from slight to gaudy. To
- control how decorated your buffers should become, set the value of
- font-lock-maximum-decoration in your .emacs file, with a nil value
- indicating default (usually minimum) decoration, and a t value indicating
- the maximum decoration. For the gaudiest possible look, then, include
- the line
-
- (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t)
-
- in your .emacs file. You can also set this variable such that different
- modes are highlighted in a different ways; for more information, see the
- documentation for font-lock-maximum-decoration with "C-h v" (or "M-x
- describe-variable RET").
-
- You might also want to investigate fast-lock-mode and lazy-lock-mode,
- versions of font-lock-mode that speed up highlighting. The advantage of
- lazy-lock-mode is that it only fontifies buffers when certain conditions
- are met, such as after a certain amount of idle time, or after you have
- finished scrolling through text. See the documentation for
- lazy-lock-mode by typing C-h f lazy-lock-mode ("M-x describe-function RET
- lazy-lock-mode RET").
-
- Also see the documentation for the function font-lock-mode, available by
- typing C-h f font-lock-mode ("M-x describe-function RET font-lock-mode
- RET").
-
- For more information on font-lock mode, particularly adding new patterns,
- see the Lisp Reference Manual and the commentary in the source
- font-lock.el, which you can find in Emacs 20 (if it is installed) using,
- say, M-x find-function font-lock-mode.
-
- To print buffers with the faces (i.e., colors and fonts) intact, use
- "M-x ps-print-buffer-with-faces" or "M-x ps-print-region-with-faces".
-
-67: How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the
- bottom of the screen?
-
- Place the following Lisp form in your .emacs file:
-
- (setq scroll-step 1)
-
- Also see "Scrolling" in the on-line manual.
-
-68: How can I replace highlighted text with what I type?
-
- Use delete-selection mode, which you can start automatically by placing
- the following Lisp form in your .emacs file:
-
- (delete-selection-mode t)
-
- According to the documentation string for delete-selection mode (which
- you can read using M-x describe-function RET delete-selection-mode RET):
-
- When ON, typed text replaces the selection if the selection is active.
- When OFF, typed text is just inserted at point.
-
- This mode also allows you to delete (not kill) the highlighted region by
- pressing DEL.
-
-69: How can I edit MS-DOS-style text files using Emacs?
-
- As of Emacs 20, detection and handling of MS-DOS (and Windows) files is
- performed transparently. You can open an MS-DOS file on a Unix system
- (and vice versa), edit it, and save it without having to worry about the
- file format. To save it with a different end-of-line convention use
- C-x RET c to specify a new coding system such as undecided-unix.
-
- When editing an MS-DOS style file, a backslash (\) will appear in the
- mode line.
-
- You can avoid translation of the end-of-line conventions either by
- visiting a file using M-x find-file-literally or by setting the variable
- inhibit-eol-conversion to t.
-
- If you are running an earlier version of Emacs, get crypt++ from
- ftp://ftp.cs.umb.edu/pub/misc/crypt++.el. Among other things, crypt++
- transparently modifies MS-DOS files as they are loaded and saved,
- allowing you to ignore the different conventions that Unix and MS-DOS
- have for delineating the end of a line.
-
-70: How can I tell Emacs to fill paragraphs with a single space after
- each period?
-
- Ulrich Mueller <ulm@vsnhd1.cern.ch> suggests adding the following two
- lines to your .emacs file:
-
- (setq sentence-end "[.?!][]\"')}]*\\($\\|[ \t]\\)[ \t\n]*")
- (setq sentence-end-double-space nil)
-
- See "Sentences" in the online manual.
-
-
-Bugs/Problems
-
-71: Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes?
-
- Old versions (i.e., anything before 19.29) of Emacs had problems editing
- files larger than 8 megabytes. As of version 19.29, the maximum buffer
- size is at least 2^27-1, or 134,217,727 bytes.
-
- If you are using an older version of Emacs and cannot upgrade, you will
- have to recompile. Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@lucid.com> suggests putting
- the following two lines in src/config.h before compiling Emacs to allow
- for 26-bit integers and pointers (and thus file sizes of up to 33,554,431
- bytes):
-
- #define VALBITS 26
- #define GCTYPEBITS 5
-
- WARNING: This method may result in "ILLEGAL DATATYPE" and other random
- errors on some machines.
-
- David Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu> explains how this problems
- crops up; while his numbers are true only for pre-19.29 versions of
- Emacs, the theory remains the same with current versions.
-
- 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.
-
-72: How do I get rid of ^M or echoed commands in my shell buffer?
-
- Try typing "M-x shell-strip-ctrl-m RET" while in shell-mode to make them
- go away. You might add this function to comint-output-filter-functions:
-
- (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions 'shell-strip-ctrl-m)
-
- If that doesn't work, you have several options:
-
- For tcsh, put this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file:
-
- if ($?EMACS) then
- if ("$EMACS" == t) then
- if ($?tcsh) unset edit
- stty nl
- endif
- 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
-
- (You must start Emacs over again with the environment variable properly
- set for this to take effect.)
-
- You can also set the ESHELL environment variable in Emacs Lisp with
- the following Lisp form,
-
- (setenv "ESHELL" "/bin/csh")
-
- On a related note: If your shell is echoing your input line in the shell
- buffer, you might want to try the following command in your shell
- start-up file:
-
- stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z
-
-73: Why do I get "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1"?
-
- The most likely reason for this message is that the "env" program is not
- properly installed. Compile this program for your architecture, and
- install it with a+x permission in the architecture-dependent Emacs
- program directory. (You can find what this directory is at your site by
- inspecting the value of the variable exec-directory by typing "C-h v
- exec-directory RET".)
-
- You should also check for other programs named "env" in your path (e.g.,
- SunOS has a program named /usr/bin/env). We don't understand why this
- can cause a failure and don't know a general solution for working around
- the problem in this case.
-
- It has been reported that this sometimes happened when Emacs was started
- as an X client from an xterm window (i.e., had a controlling tty) but the
- xterm was later terminated.
-
- See also etc/PROBLEMS for other possible causes of this message.
-
-74: Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type "emacs"?
-
- The termcap entry for terminal type "emacs" is ordinarily put in the
- TERMCAP environment variable of subshells. It may help in certain
- situations (e.g., using rlogin from shell buffer) to add an entry for
- "emacs" to the system-wide termcap file. Here is a correct termcap entry
- for "emacs":
-
- emacs:tc=unknown:
-
- To make a terminfo entry for "emacs", use "tic" or "captoinfo." You need
- to generate /usr/lib/terminfo/e/emacs. It may work to simply copy
- /usr/lib/terminfo/d/dumb to /usr/lib/terminfo/e/emacs.
-
- Having a termcap/terminfo entry will not enable the use of full screen
- programs in shell buffers. Use M-x terminal-emulator for that instead.
-
- A workaround to the problem of missing termcap/terminfo entries is to
- change terminal type "emacs" to type "dumb" or "unknown" in your shell
- start up file. "csh" users could put this in their .cshrc files:
-
- if ("$term" == emacs) set term=dumb
-
-75: Why does Emacs spontaneously start displaying "I-search:" and beeping?
-
- 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 possible solutions,
- see question 122.
-
-76: Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)?
-
- The problem may be that Emacs is linked with a wimpier version of
- gethostbyname than the rest of the programs on the machine. This is
- often manifested as a message on startup of "X server not responding.
- Check your DISPLAY environment variable." or a message of "Unknown host"
- from open-network-stream.
-
- On a Sun, this may be because Emacs had to be linked with the static C
- library. The version of gethostbyname in the static C library may only
- look in /etc/hosts and the NIS (YP) maps, while the version in the
- dynamic C library may be smart enough to check DNS in addition to or
- instead of NIS. On a Motorola Delta running System V R3.6, the version
- of gethostbyname in the standard library works, but the one that works
- with NIS doesn't (the one you get with -linet). Other operating systems
- have similar problems.
-
- Try these options:
-
- * Explicitly add the host you want to communicate with to /etc/hosts.
-
- * Relink Emacs with this line in src/config.h:
-
- #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv
-
- * Replace gethostbyname and friends in libc.a with more useful versions
- such as the ones in libresolv.a. Then relink Emacs.
-
- * If you are actually running NIS, make sure that "ypbind" is properly
- told to do DNS lookups with the correct command line switch.
-
-77: Why does Emacs say "Error in init file"?
-
- An error occurred while loading either your .emacs file or the
- system-wide lisp/default.el file. For information on how to debug your
- .emacs file, see question 27.
-
- It may be the case that you need to load some package first, or use a
- hook that will be evaluated after the package is loaded. A common case
- of this is explained in question 118.
-
-78: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)?
-
- As of version 19, Emacs searches for X resources in the files specified
- by the XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR environment
- variables, emulating the functionality provided by programs written using
- Xt.
-
- XFILESEARCHPATH and XUSERFILESEARCHPATH should be a list of file names
- separated by colons; XAPPLRESDIR should be a list of directory names
- separated by colons.
-
- Emacs searches for X resources
-
- + specified on the command line, with the "-xrm RESOURCESTRING"
- option,
- + then in the value of the XENVIRONMENT environment variable,
- - or if that is unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults-HOSTNAME if it
- exists
- (where HOSTNAME is the hostname of the machine Emacs is running on),
- + then in the screen-specific and server-wide resource properties
- provided by the server,
- - or if those properties are unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults
- if it exists,
- + then in the files listed in XUSERFILESEARCHPATH,
- - or in files named LANG/Emacs in directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
- (where LANG is the value of the LANG environment variable), if
- the LANG environment variable is set,
- - or in files named Emacs in the directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR
- - or in ~/LANG/Emacs (if the LANG environment variable is set),
- - or in ~/Emacs,
- + then in the files listed in XFILESEARCHPATH.
-
-79: Why does Emacs take 20 seconds to visit a file?
-
- Old versions of Emacs (i.e., versions before Emacs 20.x) often
- encountered this when the master lock file, "!!!SuperLock!!!" has been
- left in the lock directory somehow. Delete it.
-
- Mark Meuer <meuer@geom.umn.edu> says that NeXT NFS has a bug where an
- exclusive create succeeds but returns an error status. This can cause
- the same problem. Since Emacs's file locking doesn't work over NFS
- anyway, the best solution is to recompile Emacs with CLASH_DETECTION
- undefined.
-
-80: 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.
-
-81: 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 huge variety of fixes and enhancements
- to shell mode for this problem have been written to handle this problem.
- Check the Lisp Code Directory (see question 89).
-
- You can tell Emacs the shell's current directory with the command "M-x
- dirs".
-
-82: Are there any security risks in Emacs?
-
- * the "movemail" incident (No, this is not a risk.)
-
- In his book "The Cuckoo's Egg," Cliff Stoll describes this in chapter
- 4. The site at LBL had installed the "etc/movemail" program setuid
- root. (As of version 19, movemail is in your architecture-specific
- directory; type "C-h v exec-directory RET" to see what it is.) Since
- "movemail" had not been designed for this situation, a security hole
- was created and users could get root privileges.
-
- "movemail" has since been changed so that this security hole will not
- exist, even if it is installed setuid root. However, movemail no
- longer needs to be installed setuid root, which should eliminate this
- particular risk.
-
- We have heard unverified reports that the 1988 Internet worm took
- advantage of this configuration problem.
-
- * the file-local-variable feature (Yes, a risk, but easy to change.)
-
- There is an Emacs feature that allows the setting of local values for
- variables when editing a file by including specially formatted text
- near the end of the file. This feature also includes the ability to
- have arbitrary Emacs Lisp code evaluated when the file is visited.
- Obviously, there is a potential for Trojan horses to exploit this
- feature.
-
- Emacs 18 allowed this feature by default; users could disable it by
- setting the variable inhibit-local-variables to a non-nil value.
-
- As of Emacs 19, Emacs has a list of local variables that create a
- security risk. If a file tries to set one of them, it asks the user to
- confirm whether the variables should be set. You can also tell Emacs
- whether to allow the evaluation of Emacs Lisp code found at the bottom
- of files by setting the variable enable-local-eval.
-
- For more information, see "File Variables" in the on-line manual.
-
- * synthetic X events (Yes, a risk; use MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 or better.)
-
- Emacs accepts synthetic X events generated by the SendEvent request as
- though they were regular events. As a result, if you are using the
- trivial host-based authentication, other users who can open X
- connections to your X workstation can make your Emacs process do
- anything, including run other processes with your privileges.
-
- The only fix for this is to prevent other users from being able to open
- X connections. The standard way to prevent this is to use a real
- authentication mechanism, such as MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1. If using the
- "xauth" program has any effect, then you are probably using
- MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1. Your site may be using a superior authentication
- method; ask your system administrator.
-
- If real authentication is not a possibility, you may be satisfied by
- just allowing hosts access for brief intervals while you start your X
- programs, then removing the access. This reduces the risk somewhat by
- narrowing the time window when hostile users would have access, but
- DOES NOT ELIMINATE THE RISK.
-
- On most computers running Unix and X Windows, you enable and disable
- access using the "xhost" command. To allow all hosts access to your X
- server, use
-
- xhost +
-
- at the shell prompt, which (on an HP machine, at least) produces the
- following message:
-
- access control disabled, clients can connect from any host
-
- To deny all hosts access to your X server (except those explicitly
- allowed by name), use
-
- xhost -
-
- On the test HP computer, this command generated the following message:
-
- access control enabled, only authorized clients can connect
-
-83: Dired says, "no file on this line" when I try to do something.
-
- Chances are you're using a localized version of Unix that doesn't
- use US date format in dired listings. You can check this by looking
- at dired listings or by typing `ls -l' to a shell and looking at the
- dates that come out.
-
- Dired uses a regular expression to find the beginning of a file
- name. In a long Unix-style directory listing ("ls -l"), the file
- name starts after the date. The regexp has thus been written to
- look for the date, the format of which can vary on non-US systems.
-
- There are two approaches to solving this. The first one involves
- setting things up so that "ls -l" outputs US date format. This can
- be done by setting the locale. See your OS manual for more
- information.
-
- The second approach involves changing the regular expression used by
- dired, dired-move-to-filename-regexp.
-
-
-Difficulties Building/Installing/Porting Emacs
-
-84: How do I install Emacs?
-
- This answer is meant for users of Unix and Unix-like systems. Users of
- other operating systems should see the series of questions beginning with
- question 94, which describe where to get non-Unix source and binaries.
- These packages should come with installation instructions.
-
- For Unix and Unix-like systems, the easiest way is often to compile it
- from scratch. You will need:
-
- * Emacs sources. See question 92 for a list of ftp sites that make them
- available. On ftp.gnu.org, the main GNU distribution site, sources are
- available at
-
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/emacs-20.4.tar.gz
-
- The above will obviously change as new versions of Emacs come out. For
- instance, when Emacs 20.5 is released, it will most probably be
- available at
-
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/emacs-20.5.tar.gz
-
- Again, you should use one of the mirror sites in question 92 (and
- adjust the URL accordingly) so as to reduce load on ftp.gnu.org.
-
- * Gzip, the GNU compression utility. You can get gzip via anonymous ftp
- at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org sites; it should compile and install without
- much trouble on most systems. Once you have retrieved the Emacs
- sources, you will probably be able to uncompress them with the command
-
- gunzip --verbose emacs-20.4.tar.gz
-
- changing the Emacs version (20.4), as necessary. Once gunzip has
- finished doing its job, a file by the name of "emacs-20.4.tar" should
- be in your build directory.
-
- * Tar, the "tape archiving" program, which moves multiple files into and
- out of archive files, or "tarfiles." All of the files comprising the
- Emacs source come in a single tarfile, and must be extracted using tar
- before you can build Emacs. Typically, the extraction command would
- look like
-
- tar -xvvf emacs-20.4.tar
-
- The `x' indicates that we want to extract files from this tarfile, the
- two `v's force verbose output, and the `f' tells tar to use a disk
- file, rather than one on tape.
-
- If you're using GNU tar (available at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org), you can
- combine this step and the previous one by using the command
-
- tar -zxvvf emacs-20.4.tar.gz
-
- The additional `z' at the beginning of the options list tells GNU tar
- to uncompress the file with gunzip before extracting the tarfile's
- components.
-
- At this point, the Emacs sources (all 25+ megabytes of them) should be
- sitting in a directory called "emacs-20.4". On most common Unix and
- Unix-like systems, you should be able to compile Emacs (with X Windows
- support) with the following commands:
-
- cd emacs-20.4 [ change directory to emacs-20.4 ]
- ./configure [ configure Emacs for your particular system ]
- make [ use Makefile to build components, then Emacs ]
-
- If the "make" completes successfully, the odds are fairly good that the
- build has gone well. (See question 86 if you weren't successful.)
-
- To install Emacs in its default directories of /usr/local/bin (binaries),
- /usr/local/share/emacs/20.xx (Lisp code and support files),
- /usr/local/libexec/CONFIGURATION/emacs/VERSION (executable files to be
- run by Emacs rather than users), /usr/local/man/man1 (man pages) and
- /usr/local/info (Info documentation), become the super-user and type
-
- make install
-
- Note that "make install" will overwrite /usr/local/bin/emacs and any
- Emacs Info files that might be in /usr/local/info.
-
- Much more verbose instructions (with many more hints and suggestions)
- come with the Emacs sources, in the file "INSTALL".
-
-85: How do I update Emacs to the latest version?
-
- Follow the instructions in question 84.
-
- Emacs places nearly everything in version-specific directories (e.g.,
- /usr/local/share/emacs/20.4), so the only files that can be overwritten
- when installing a new release are /usr/local/bin/emacs and the Emacs Info
- documentation in /usr/local/info. Back up these files before you install
- a new release, and you shouldn't have too much trouble.
-
-86: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs?
-
- First look in the file PROBLEMS (in the top-level directory when you
- unpack the Emacs source) to see if there is already a solution for your
- problem. Next, look for other questions in this FAQ that have to do with
- Emacs installation and compilation problems.
-
- If you'd like to have someone look at your problem and help solve it, see
- question 21.
-
- If you don't find a solution, then report your problem via e-mail to
- bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Please do not post it to gnu.emacs.help
- or e-mail it to help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. For further guidelines,
- see question 8 and question 10.
-
-87: Why does linking Emacs with -lX11 fail?
-
- Emacs needs to be linked with the static version of the X11 library,
- libX11.a. This may be missing.
-
- Under OpenWindows, you may need to use "add_services" to add the
- "OpenWindows Programmers" optional software category from the CD-ROM.
-
- Under HP-UX 8.0, you may need to run "update" again to load the X11-PRG
- "fileset". This may be missing even if you specified "all filesets" the
- first time. If libcurses.a is missing, you may need to load the
- "Berkeley Development Option."
-
- David Zuhn <zoo@armadillo.com> says that MIT X builds shared libraries by
- default, and only shared libraries, on those platforms that support them.
- These shared libraries can't be used when undumping temacs (the last
- stage of the Emacs build process). To get regular libraries in addition
- to shared libraries, add this to site.cf:
-
- #define ForceNormalLib YES
-
- Other systems may have similar problems. You can always define
- CANNOT_DUMP and link with the shared libraries instead.
-
- To get the Xmenu stuff to work, you need to find a copy of MIT's
- liboldX.a.
-
-
-Finding/Getting Emacs and Related Packages
-
-88: Where can I get Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)?
-
- Look in the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for information on nearby
- archive sites and etc/ORDERS for mail orders. If you don't already have
- Emacs, see question 20 for how to get these files.
-
- See question 84 for information on how to obtain and build the latest
- version of Emacs, and question 92 for a list of archive sites that make
- GNU software available.
-
-89: How do I find a Emacs Lisp package that does XXX?
-
- First of all, you should check to make sure that the package isn't
- already available. For example, typing "M-x apropos RET wordstar RET"
- lists all functions and variables containing the string "wordstar".
-
- It is also possible that the package is on your system, but has not been
- loaded. To see which packages are available for loading, look through your
- computer's lisp directory (see question 4) or use the Finder (C-h p) to
- search under keywords. The Lisp source to most packages contains a
- short description of how they should be loaded, invoked, and configured --
- so before you use or modify a Lisp package, see if the author has provided
- any hints in the source code.
-
- If a package does not come with Emacs, check the Lisp Code
- Directory, maintained (unfortunately slowly at present) by Dave
- Brennan <brennan@gnu.org>. The directory is contained in the file
- LCD-datafile.Z, available from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question
- 90), and is accessed using the "lispdir" package, available from the
- same site. Note that lispdir.el requires crypt++, which you can
- grab from the Emacs Lisp Archive's "misc" subdirectory when you get
- lispdir.el.
-
- Once you have installed lispdir.el and LCD-datafile, you can use "M-x
- lisp-dir-apropos" to search the listing. For example, "M-x
- lisp-dir-apropos RET ange-ftp RET" produces this output:
-
- GNU Emacs Lisp Code Directory Apropos -- "ange-ftp"
- "~/" refers to ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/emacs-lisp/
-
- ange-ftp (4.18) 15-Jul-1992
- Andy Norman, <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- ~/packages/ange-ftp.tar.Z
- transparent FTP Support for GNU Emacs
- auto-save (1.19) 01-May-1992
- Sebastian Kremer, <sk@thp.uni-koeln.de>
- ~/misc/auto-save.el.Z
- Safer autosaving with support for ange-ftp and /tmp
- ftp-quik (1.0) 28-Jul-1993
- Terrence Brannon, <tb06@pl122f.eecs.lehigh.edu>
- ~/modes/ftp-quik.el.Z
- Quik access to dired'ing of ange-ftp and normal paths
-
- You actually don't need the directory file LCD-datafile if your computer
- is on the Internet, since the latest version is retrieved automatically
- the first time you type "M-x lisp-dir-apropos" in a particular Emacs
- session. If you would prefer to use a local copy of LCD-datafile, be
- sure to set the variable lisp-code-directory at the top of the lispdir.el
- source code.
-
- A searchable version of the LCD is also available at
-
- http://www.cs.indiana.edu/LCD/cover.html
-
-90: Where can I get 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 89). Next, check local archives and the
- Emacs Lisp Archive to find a copy of the relevant files. If you still
- haven't found it, you can send e-mail to the author asking for a copy.
- If you find Emacs Lisp code that doesn't appear in the LCD, please submit
- a copy to the LCD (see question 91).
-
- You can access the Emacs Lisp Archive at the following sites:
-
- ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/emacs-lisp/
- ftp://ftp.uni-mainz.de/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/
- ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/GNU/elisp-archive/
- ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/
- ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/elisp-archive/
- ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/public/Mirrors/ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/emacs-lisp/
-
- Retrieve and read the file README first.
-
- NOTE: * The archive maintainers do not have time to answer individual
- requests for packages or the list of packages in the archive. If
- you cannot use FTP or UUCP to access the archive yourself, try to
- find a friend who can, but please don't ask the maintainers.
-
- * Any files with names ending in ".Z", ".z", or ".gz" are
- compressed, so 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".
-
- Packages which have been posted to gnu.emacs.sources should be locatable
- via a service like Dejanews.
-
-91: How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive?
-
- Guidelines and procedures for submission to the archive can be found in
- the file GUIDELINES in the archive directory (see question 90). It
- covers documentation, copyrights, packaging, submission, and the Lisp
- Code Directory Record. Anonymous FTP uploads are not permitted.
- Instead, all submissions are mailed to elisp-archive@cis.ohio-state.edu.
- The lispdir.el package has a function named submit-lcd-entry which will
- help you with this.
-
- Note that maintenance of the archive is currently very slow.
-
-92: Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff?
-
- The most up-to-date official GNU software is normally kept on
- ftp.gnu.org and is available at
-
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu
-
- Read the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for more information.
-
- A list of sites mirroring ftp.gnu.org can be found at
-
- http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html
-
-93: What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid
- Emacs")?
-
- XEmacs is a modified version of GNU Emacs.
-
- This FAQ refers to the latest version to be distributed by the FSF
- as "Emacs," partly because the XEmacs maintainers now refer to their
- product using the "XEmacs" name, and partly because there isn't any
- accurate way to differentiate between the two without getting mired
- in paragraphs of legalese and history.
-
- XEmacs, which began life as Lucid Emacs, is based on an early version of
- Emacs 19 and Epoch, an X-aware version of Emacs 18.
-
- Emacs (i.e., the version distributed by the FSF) has a larger installed
- base and now always contains the MULE multilingual facilities. XEmacs
- can do some clever tricks with X Windows, such as putting arbitrary
- graphics in a buffer; similar facilities have been implemented for Emacs,
- which will be integrated after version 20.4. Emacs and XEmacs each come
- with some Lisp packages that are lacking or more up-to-date in the other;
- RMS says that the FSF would include more packages that come with XEmacs,
- but that the XEmacs maintainers don't always keep track of the authors of
- contributed code, which makes it impossible for the FSF to have certain
- legal papers signed. (Without these legal papers, the FSF will not
- distribute Lisp packages with Emacs.) The two versions have some
- significant differences at the Lisp programming level.
-
-94: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?
-
- A pre-built binary distribution of Emacs is available from the Simtel
- archives. This version works under MS-DOS and Windows (3.x, 9x, and NT) and
- supports long file names under Windows 9x. More information is available
- from:
-
- ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu/emacs.README
-
- And the binary itself is available in the files em1934*.zip in the
- directory
-
- ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu/
-
- If you prefer to compile Emacs for yourself, you will need a 386 (or
- better) processor, and are running MS-DOS 3.0 or later. According to Eli
- Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> and Darrel Hankerson
- <hankedr@dms.auburn.edu>, you will need the following:
-
- Compiler: djgpp version 1.12 maint 1 or later. Djgpp 2.0 or later is
- recommended, since 1.x is being phased out. Djgpp 2 supports
- long filenames under Windows 9x.
-
- You can get the latest release of djgpp by retrieving
- all of the files in
-
- ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp
-
- Gunzip and tar:
-
- The easiest way is to use "djtar" which comes with djgpp v2.x,
- because it can open gzip'ed tarfiles (i.e., those ending with
- ".tar.gz") in one step. Djtar comes in "djdev201.zip", from
- the URL mentioned above.
-
- Utilities: make, mv, sed, rm.
-
- All of these utilities are available at
-
- ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu
-
- 16-bit utilities can be found in GNUish:
-
- ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/gnuish
-
- The files INSTALL and etc/PROBLEMS in the Emacs source contains some
- additional information regarding Emacs under MS-DOS.
-
- For a list of other MS-DOS implementations of Emacs (and Emacs
- look-alikes), consult the list of "Emacs implementations and literature,"
- available at
-
- ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs/
-
- Note that while many of these programs look similar to Emacs, they often
- lack certain features, particularly the Emacs Lisp extension language.
-
-95: Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows, Windows 9x, or Windows
- NT?
-
- GNU Emacs has been fully ported to Windows NT and Windows 95/98.
- If you have MSVC 4.0 or greater, then you can compile GNU Emacs
- directly from the source distribution. First read the file
- nt/README, and then the file nt/INSTALL, for step by step
- instructions on how to compile and install GNU Emacs on your system.
-
- You can also download precompiled distributions of GNU Emacs from:
-
- ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs
-
- If you need the gunzip and tar utilities for unpacking distributions,
- you can download precompiled versions from:
-
- ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/utilities
-
- For more information on configuring your favorite package to run with
- GNU Emacs on Windows NT/95/98, see the following FAQ:
-
- http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html
- ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/docs/ntemacs.html
-
- If you are running Windows 3.11, and if you compile GNU Emacs for MSDOS
- with the tools listed in the previous question, it will run under
- Microsoft Windows in a DOS box.
-
-96: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2?
-
- Emacs 19.33 is ported for emx on OS/2 2.0 or 2.1, and is available at:
-
- ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/editors/emacs/v19.33/
-
-97: Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST?
-
- Roland Schäuble reports that Emacs 18.58 running on plain TOS and MiNT
- is available at
-
- ftp://atari.archive.umich.edu/Editors/Emacs-18-58/1858b-d3.zoo
-
-98: Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga?
-
- The files you need are available at
-
- ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/gnu/
-
- David Gilbert <dgilbert@gamiga.guelphnet.dweomer.org> has released a beta
- version of Emacs 19.25 for the Amiga. You can get the binary at
-
- ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/gnu/a2.0bEmacs-bin.lha
-
-99: Where can I get Emacs for NeXTSTEP?
-
- Emacs.app is a NeXTSTEP version of Emacs 19.34 which supports colors,
- menus, and multiple frames. You can get it from
-
- ftp://next-ftp.peak.org/pub/next/apps/emacs/Emacs_for_NeXTstep.4.20a1.NIHS.b.tar.gz
-
-100: Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer?
-
-
- There used to be a boycott of Apple because of its "look and feel"
- lawsuit. The lawsuit failed, and the boycott is over.
- Currently the GNU project treats Apple like other computer companies.
-
- Since the Mac operating system is very different from Unix and GNU,
- support for it would be a big job. And this job would be tangential
- to the GNU project's goals. Meanwhile, we don't have the resources
- to do all we want to do on supporting Emacs for GNU-like systems.
- So if we had to do work on support for the Macintosh, that would
- directly harm the GNU project.
-
- Of course, the same is true for MSDOS and Windows NT. We decided to
- incorporate support for those systems because the code was very modular,
- because volunteers not only wrote all the code but also investigate
- all the bugs reported on those systems, and because we hoped that we
- will be able to raise funds for GNU using these versions, and in this
- way these ports will make up for the effort that they took. (We still
- hope so, but it has not happened yet.)
-
- An unofficial port of GNU Emacs 18.59 to the Macintosh is available at a
- number of ftp sites, the home being
-
- ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/parmet/Emacs-1.17.sit.bin
-
- To the best of our knowledge, Emacs 19 has not been ported to the
- Macintosh.
-
- Apple's forthcoming "OS X" is based largely on NeXTSTEP and OpenStep.
- See question 99 for more details about that version.
-
-101: Where do I get Emacs that runs on VMS under DECwindows?
-
- Up-to-date information about GNU software (including Emacs) for VMS is
- available at
-
- http://vms.gnu.org/
-
-102: Where can I get modes for Lex, Yacc/Bison, Bourne shell, Csh, C++,
- Objective-C, Pascal, Java, and Awk?
-
- Most of these modes are now available in standard Emacs distribution. To
- get additional modes, look in the Lisp Code Directory (see question 89).
- For C++, if you use lisp-dir-apropos, you must specify the pattern like
- this:
-
- M-x lisp-dir-apropos RET c\+\+ RET
-
- Note that Barry Warsaw's cc-mode now works for C, C++, Objective-C, and
- Java code. You can get the latest version from the Emacs Lisp Archive;
- see question 90 for details. A FAQ for cc-mode is available at
-
- http://www.python.org/emacs/cc-mode/
-
-103: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ?
-
- If you are on a Unix machine, try using the "nslookup" command, included
- in the Berkeley BIND package. For example, to find the IP address of
- "ftp.gnu.org", you would type
-
- nslookup ftp.gnu.org
-
- Your computer should then provide the IP address of that computer.
-
- If your site's nameserver is deficient, you can use IP addresses to FTP
- files. You can get this information by
-
- * E-mail:
-
- To: dns@[134.214.84.25] (to grasp.insa-lyon.fr)
- Body: ip XXX.YYY.ZZZ (or "help" for more information
- and options - no quotes)
- or:
-
- To: resolve@[147.31.254.130] (to laverne.cs.widener.edu)
- Body: site XXX.YYY.ZZZ
-
-
-Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs
-
-104: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs, with MIME support
-
- Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@uunet.uu.net>
- Latest version: 6.67
- Anonymous FTP:
- ftp://ftp.wonderworks.com/pub/vm/vm.tar.gz
- Newsgroups and mailing lists:
- Informational newsgroup/mailing list:
- gnu.emacs.vm.info (newsgroup)
- info-vm-request@uunet.uu.net (for subscriptions)
- info-vm@uunet.uu.net (for submissions)
- Bug reports newsgroup/mailing list:
- gnu.emacs.vm.bug (newsgroup)
- bug-vm-request@uunet.uu.net (for subscriptions)
- bug-vm@uunet.uu.net (for submissions)
- NOTE: VM 6 is not guaranteed to work under Emacs 20 (although many people
- seem to use it without too much trouble). Users of Emacs 20 might prefer
- to use VM 5.97, available from the same FTP site.
-
-105: Supercite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs
-
- Author: Barry Warsaw <bwarsaw@cen.com>
- Latest version: 3.1 (comes with Emacs 20)
-
- World Wide Web:
- http://www.python.org/emacs/supercite.tar.gz
- Mailing list:
- supercite-request@python.org (for subscriptions)
- supercite@python.org (for submissions)
- NOTE: Superyank is an old version of Supercite.
-
-106: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs
-
- Author: Dave Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu>
- Latest version: 2.02f
- Anonymous FTP:
- ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/calc/calc-2.02f.tar.gz
- NOTE: Unlike Wolfram Research, Dave has never threatened to sue
- anyone for having a program with a similar command language to
- Calc. :-)
-
-107: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs
-
- Since Emacs 19.29, the preferred vi emulation in Emacs is VIPER (M-x
- viper-mode RET), which comes with Emacs. It extends and supersedes VIP
- (including VIP 4.3) and provides vi emulation at several levels, from one
- that closely follows vi to one that departs from vi in several
- significant ways.
-
- For Emacs 19.28 and earlier, the following version of VIP is generally
- better than the one distributed with Emacs:
-
- Author: Aamod Sane <sane@cs.uiuc.edu>
- Latest version: 4.3
- Anonymous FTP:
- ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/emacs-lisp/modes/vip-mode.tar.Z
-
-108: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities
-
- Authors: Kresten Krab Thorup <krab@iesd.auc.dk>
- and Per Abrahamsen <abraham@iesd.auc.dk>
- Latest version: 9.8l
- Anonymous FTP:
- ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/packages/auctex/auctex.tar.gz
- Mailing list:
- auc-tex-request@iesd.auc.dk (for subscriptions)
- auc-tex@iesd.auc.dk (for submissions)
- auc-tex_mgr@iesd.auc.dk (auc-tex development team)
- World Wide Web:
- http://sunsite.auc.dk/auctex/
-
-109: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers
-
- Maintainer: Matt Simmons <simmonmt@acm.org>
- Latest released version: 2.00
- Available from:
- http://www.netcom.com/~simmonmt/bbdb/index.html
- Mailing lists:
- info-bbdb-request@xemacs.org (for subscriptions)
- info-bbdb@xemacs.org (for submissions)
- bbdb-announce-request@xemacs.org (to be informed of new releases)
-
-110: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs
-
- Author: Geoff Kuenning <geoff@itcorp.com>
- Latest released version: 3.1.20
- Anonymous FTP:
- Master Sites:
- ftp://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/ispell/ispell-3.1.20.tar.gz
- Known Mirror Sites:
- ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/dicts/ispell/
- ftp://ftp.nl.net/pub/textproc/ispell/
- World Wide Web:
- http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/geoff/ispell.html
-
- NOTE: * Do not ask Geoff to send you the latest version of Ispell.
- He does not have free e-mail.
-
- * This Ispell program is distinct from GNU Ispell 4.0. GNU
- Ispell 4.0 is no longer a supported product.
-
-111: W3-mode -- A World Wide Web browser inside of Emacs
-
- Author: Bill Perry <wmperry@spry.com>
- Latest version: 4.0pre.39
- Anonymous FTP:
- ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/elisp/w3/.betas/w3.tar.gz
- Mailing lists:
- w3-announce-request@indiana.edu (to get announcements of new versions)
- w3-beta-request@indiana.edu (for beta-testers of new versions)
- w3-dev@indiana.edu (for developers of W3)
-
-112: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes
-
- Author: Michael Ernst <mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu>
- Latest version: 1.21
- Anonymous FTP:
- ftp://theory.lcs.mit.edu/pub/emacs/edb
-
-113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news
-
- Authors: Patrick J. LoPresti <patl@lcs.mit.edu> and
- Jin S. Choi <jin@atype.com>
- Maintainer: Len Budney <lbudney@pobox.com>
- Latest version: 3.5.1
- Anonymous FTP:
- ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/crypto/mailcrypt-3.5.1.tar.gz
- World Wide Web:
- http://www.nb.net/~lbudney/linux/software/mailcrypt.html
-
-114: JDE -- Development environment for Java programming
-
- Author: Paul Kinnucan <paulk@mathworks.com>
- Mailing list: jde-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk
- Latest version: 2.1.4
- World Wide Web: http://sunsite.auc.dk/jde/
-
-115: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files
-
- Author: Larry Wall <lwall@wall.org> (with GNU modifications)
- Latest version: 2.5
- Anonymous FTP: See question 92
-
-
-Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems
-
-116: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands?
-
- Keys can be bound to commands either interactively or in your .emacs
- file. To interactively bind keys for all modes, type
-
- M-x global-set-key RET KEY CMD RET
-
- To bind a key just in the current major mode, type
-
- M-x local-set-key RET KEY CMD RET
-
- See "Key Bindings" in the on-line manual for further details.
-
- To bind keys on starting Emacs or on starting any given mode, use the
- following "trick": First bind the key interactively, then immediately
- type "C-x ESC ESC C-a C-k C-g". Now, the command needed to bind the key
- is in the kill ring, and can be yanked into your .emacs file. If the key
- binding is global, no changes to the command are required. For example,
-
- (global-set-key [f1] 'help-for-help)
-
- can be placed directly into the .emacs file. If the key binding is
- local, the command is used in conjunction with the "add-hook" command.
- For example, in tex-mode, a local binding might be
-
- (add-hook 'tex-mode-hook
- (lambda ()
- (local-set-key [f1] 'help-for-help)))
-
- NOTE: * Control characters in key sequences, in the form yanked from the
- kill ring are given in their graphic form -- i.e., CTRL is shown
- as `^', TAB as a set of spaces (usually 8), etc. You may want to
- convert these into their vector or string forms.
-
- * If a prefix key of the character sequence to be bound is already
- bound as a complete key, then you must unbind it before the new
- binding. For example, if "ESC {" is previously bound:
-
- (global-unset-key [?\e ?{]) ;; or
- (local-unset-key [?\e ?{])
-
- * Aside from commands and "lambda lists," a vector or string also
- can be bound to a key and thus treated as a macro. For example:
-
- (global-set-key [f10] [?\C-x?\e?\e?\C-a?\C-k?\C-g]) ;; or
- (global-set-key [f10] "\C-x\e\e\C-a\C-k\C-g")
-
- * The "kbd" macro is convenient for converting a key description in
- the form used in documentation or printed by C-h c (except that
- function key symbols must be enclosed in angle brackets). For
- example:
-
- (global-set-key (kbd "<f1>") 'help-for-help)
- (global-set-key (kbd "C-h") 'help-for-help)
- (local-set-key (kbd "DEL") 'scroll-down)
-
-117: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"?
-
- Usually, one of two things has happened. In one case, the control
- character in the key sequence has been misspecified (e.g. "C-f" used
- instead of "\C-f" within a Lisp expression). In the other case, a
- "prefix key" in the keystroke sequence you were trying to bind was
- already bound as a "complete key." Historically, the "ESC [" prefix was
- usually the problem, in which case you should evaluate either of these
- forms before attempting to bind the key sequence:
-
- (global-unset-key [?\e ?[]) ;; or
- (global-unset-key "\e[")
-
-118: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my
- .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up?
-
- During startup, Emacs initializes itself according to a given code/file
- order. If some of the code executed in your .emacs file needs to be
- postponed until the initial terminal or window-system setup code has been
- executed but is not, then you will experience this problem (this
- code/file execution order is not enforced after startup).
-
- To postpone the execution of Emacs Lisp code until after terminal or
- window-system setup, treat the code as a "lambda list" and set the value
- of either the "term-setup-hook" or "window-setup-hook" variable to this
- "lambda function." For example,
-
- (setq term-setup-hook
- (function
- (lambda ()
- (cond ((string-match "\\`vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") ""))
- ;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x:
- (global-set-key [do] 'execute-extended-command))
- ))))
-
- For information on what Emacs does every time it is started, see
- "Starting Up Emacs" in the Lisp Reference Manual.
-
-119: How do I use function keys under X Windows?
-
- With Emacs 19, functions keys under X are bound like any other key. See
- question 116 for details.
-
-120: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys
- emit?
-
- Type "C-h c" then the function or arrow keys. The command will return
- either a function key symbol or character sequence (see the Emacs on-line
- documentation for an explanation). This works for other keys as well.
-
-121: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs?
-
- Emacs is not written using the Xt library by default, so there are no
- "translations" to be set. (We aren't sure how to set such translations
- if you do build Emacs with Xt; please let us know if you've done this!)
-
- The only way to affect the behavior of keys within Emacs is through
- "xmodmap" (outside Emacs) or "define-key" (inside Emacs). The
- "define-key" command should be used in conjunction with the
- "function-key-map" map. For instance,
-
- (define-key function-key-map [M-tab] [?\M-\t])
-
- defines the "M-TAB" key sequence.
-
-122: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control?
-
- C-s and C-q are used in the XON/XOFF flow control protocol. This messes
- things up when you're using Emacs, because Emacs binds these keys to
- commands by default. Because Emacs won't honor them as flow control
- characters, too many of these characters are not passed on and overwhelm
- output buffers. Sometimes, intermediate software using XON/XOFF flow
- control will prevent Emacs from ever seeing C-s and C-q.
-
- Possible solutions:
-
- * Disable the use of C-s and C-q for flow control.
-
- You need to determine the cause of the flow control.
-
- * your terminal
-
- Your terminal may use XON/XOFF flow control to have time to display
- all the characters it receives. For example, VT series terminals do
- this. It may be possible to turn this off from a setup menu. For
- example, on a VT220 you may select "No XOFF" in the setup menu. This
- is also true for some terminal emulation programs on PCs.
-
- When you turn off flow control at the terminal, you will also need to
- turn it off at the other end, which might be at the computer you are
- logged in to or at some terminal server in between.
-
- If you turn off flow control, characters may be lost; using a printer
- connected to the terminal may fail. You may be able to get around
- this problem by modifying the "termcap" entry for your terminal to
- include extra NUL padding characters.
-
- * a modem
-
- If you are using a dialup connection, the modems may be using
- XON/XOFF flow control. It's not clear how to get around this.
-
- * a router or terminal server
-
- Some network box between the terminal and your computer may be using
- XON/XOFF flow control. It may be possible to make it use some other
- kind of flow control. You will probably have to ask your local
- network experts for help with this.
-
- * tty and/or pty devices
-
- If your connection to Emacs goes through multiple tty and/or pty
- devices, they may be using XON/XOFF flow control even when it is not
- necessary.
-
- 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. Sometimes "rlogin -8" will avoid this
- problem.
-
- 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.
-
- Use "stty -ixon" instead of "stty start u stop u" on some systems.
-
- * Make Emacs speak the XON/XOFF flow control protocol.
-
- You can make Emacs treat C-s and C-q as flow control characters by
- evaluating the form
-
- (enable-flow-control)
-
- to unconditionally enable flow control or
-
- (enable-flow-control-on "vt100" "h19")
-
- (using your terminal names instead of "vt100" or "h19") to enable
- selectively. These commands will automatically swap `C-s' and `C-q' to
- `C-\' and `C-^'. Variables can be used to change the default swap keys
- ("flow-control-c-s-replacement" and "flow-control-c-q-replacement").
-
- If you are fixing this for yourself, simply put the form in your .emacs
- file. If you are fixing this for your entire site, the best place to
- put it is in the lisp/site-start.el file. Putting this form in
- lisp/default.el has the problem that if the user's .emacs file has an
- error, this will prevent lisp/default.el from being loaded and Emacs
- may be unusable for the user, even for correcting their .emacs file
- (unless they're smart enough to move it to another name).
-
- For further discussion of this issue, read the file PROBLEMS (in the
- top-level directory when you unpack the Emacs source).
-
-123: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered
- out?
-
- To bind `C-s' and `C-q', use either "enable-flow-control" or
- "enable-flow-control-on". See question 122 for usage and implementation
- details.
-
- To bind other keys, use "keyboard-translate". See question 126 for usage
- details. To do this for an entire site, you should swap the keys in
- lisp/site-start.el. See question 122 for an explanation of why
- lisp/default.el should not be used.
-
- NOTE: * If you do this for an entire site, the users will be confused by
- the disparity between what the documentation says and how Emacs
- actually behaves.
-
-124: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help?
-
- The "Backspace" key (on most keyboards) generates ASCII code 8. `C-h'
- sends the same code. In Emacs by default `C-h' invokes help-command.
- This is intended to be easy to remember since the first letter of "help"
- is `h'. 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 many people this solution may be problematic:
-
- * They normally use Backspace outside of Emacs for deleting the previous
- character. This can be solved by making DEL the command for deleting
- the previous character outside of Emacs. On many Unix systems, this
- command will remap DEL:
-
- stty erase `^?'
-
- * 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
- Backspace key should be made to behave like Delete. There are several
- methods.
-
- * Some terminals (e.g., VT3## terminals) allow the character generated by
- the Backspace key to be changed from a setup menu.
-
- * You may be able to get a keyboard that is completely programmable.
-
- * Under X or on a dumb terminal, it is possible to swap the Backspace and
- Delete keys inside Emacs:
-
- (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?)
-
- See question 126 for further details of "keyboard-translate".
-
- * Another approach is to switch key bindings and put help on "C-x h"
- instead:
-
- (global-set-key "\C-h" 'delete-backward-char)
- (global-set-key "\C-xh" 'help-command) ;; overrides mark-whole-buffer
-
- Other popular key bindings for help are M-? and "C-x ?".
-
- NOTE: * Don't try to bind DEL to help-command, because there are many
- modes that have local bindings of DEL that will interfere.
-
-125: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete?
-
- Good question!
-
-126: How do I "swap" two keys?
-
- In Emacs 19, you can swap two keys (or key sequences) by using the
- "keyboard-translate" function. For example, to turn `C-h' into DEL and
- DEL to `C-h', use
-
- (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?) ; translate `C-h' to DEL
- (keyboard-translate ?\C-? ?\C-h) ; translate DEL to `C-h'.
-
- The first key sequence of the pair after the function identifies what is
- produced by the keyboard; the second, what is matched for in the keymaps.
-
- Keyboard translations are not the same as key bindings in keymaps. Emacs
- contains numerous keymaps that apply in different situations, but there
- is only one set of keyboard translations, and it applies to every
- character that Emacs reads from the terminal. Keyboard translations take
- place at the lowest level of input processing; the keys that are looked
- up in keymaps contain the characters that result from keyboard
- translation.
-
- Also see "Keyboard Translations" in the on-line manual.
-
-127: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard?
-
- On terminals (but not under X), some common "aliases" are:
-
- C-2 or C-SPC for C-@
- C-6 for C-^
- C-7 or C-S-- for C-_
- C-4 for C-\
- C-5 for C-]
- C-/ for C-?
-
- Often other aliases exist; use the "C-h c" command and try `CTRL' with
- all of the digits on your keyboard to see what gets generated. You can
- also try the "C-h w" command if you know the name of the command.
-
-128: What if I don't have a Meta key?
-
- Instead of typing "M-a", you can type "ESC a". In fact, Emacs converts
- M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway (depending on the value of
- meta-prefix-char). Note that you press "Meta" and `a' together, while
- you press `ESC', release it, and then press `a'.
-
-129: What if I don't have an Escape key?
-
- Type `C-[' instead. This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape
- key would. `C-3' may also work on some terminal (but not under X). For
- many terminals (notably DEC terminals) `F11' generates ESC. If not, the
- following form can be used to bind it:
-
- (define-key function-key-map [f11] [?\e]) ; F11 is the documented ESC
- ; replacement on DEC terminals.
-
-130: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key?
-
- On a dumb terminal such as a VT220, no. It is rumored that certain VT220
- clones could have their Compose key configured this way. If you're using
- X, you might be able to do this with the "xmodmap" program.
-
-131: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key?
-
- With Emacs 19 you can represent modified function keys in vector format
- by adding prefixes to the function key symbol. For example (from the
- on-line documentation):
-
- (global-set-key [?\C-x right] 'forward-page)
-
- where "?\C-x" is the Lisp character constant for the character "C-x".
-
- You can use the modifier keys Control, Meta, Hyper, Super, Alt, and Shift
- with function keys. To represent these modifiers, prepend the strings
- "C-", "M-", "H-", "s-", "A-", and "S-" to the symbol name. Here is how
- to make "Hyper-Meta-RIGHT" move forward a word:
-
- (global-set-key [H-M-right] 'forward-word)
-
- In recent Emacs versions this may also be written as:
-
- (global-set-key [(hyper meta right)] 'forward-word)
-
- NOTE: * Not all modifiers are permitted in all situations. Hyper, Super,
- and Alt are available only under X (provided there are such
- keys). Non-ASCII keys and mouse events (e.g. "C-=" and
- "mouse-1") also fall under this category.
-
- See question 116 for general key binding instructions.
-
-132: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window?
-
- Try all of these methods before asking for further help:
-
- * You may have big problems using "mwm" as your window manager. {Does
- anyone know a good generic solution to allow the use of the Meta key in
- Emacs with mwm?}
-
- * For X11: Make sure it really is a Meta key. Use "xev" to find out what
- keysym your Meta key generates. It should be either Meta_L or Meta_R.
- If it isn't, use xmodmap to fix the situation.
-
- * Make sure the pty the xterm is using is passing 8 bit characters.
- "stty -a" (or "stty everything") should show "cs8" somewhere. If it
- shows "cs7" instead, use "stty cs8 -istrip" (or "stty pass8") to fix
- it.
-
- * If there is an rlogin connection between the xterm and the Emacs, the
- "-8" argument may need to be given to rlogin to make it pass all 8 bits
- of every character.
-
- * If the Emacs is running under Ultrix, it is reported that evaluating
- (set-input-mode t nil) helps.
-
- * If all else fails, you can make xterm generate "ESC W" when you type
- M-W, which is the same conversion Emacs would make if it got the M-W
- anyway. In X11R4, the following resource specification will do this:
-
- XTerm.VT100.EightBitInput: false
-
- (This changes the behavior of the insert-eight-bit action.)
-
- With older xterms, you can specify this behavior with a translation:
-
- XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \
- Meta<KeyPress>: string(0x1b) insert()
-
- You might have to replace "Meta" with "Alt".
-
-133: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0
- and 9.x?
-
- This is a result of an internationalization extension in X11R4 and the
- fact that HP is now using this extension. Emacs assumes that
- XLookupString returns the same result regardless of the Meta key state
- which is no longer necessarily true. Until Emacs is fixed, the temporary
- kludge is to run this command after each time the X server is started but
- preferably before any xterm clients are:
-
- xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Mode_switch'
-
- NOTE: This will disable the use of the extra keysyms systemwide, which
- may be undesirable if you actually intend to use them.
-
-
-Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets
-
-134: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters?
-
- Emacs 19 introduced built-in support for 8-bit characters. Emacs 20 can
- operate similarly in Unibyte mode or else in Multibyte mode. See the
- "International" node in the online manual, specifically "Single-Byte
- European Support".
-
-135: How do I input 8-bit characters?
-
- Again, see the "International" node of the on-line manual.
-
-136: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other
- character sets?
-
- Emacs 20 now includes many of the features of MULE, the Multilingual
- Enhancement of Emacs. See question 84 for information on where to find
- and download Emacs.
-
-137: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets?
-
- Emacs 20 supports Hebrew characters (ISO 8859-8), but does not yet
- support right-to-left character entry.
-
- Joel M. Hoffman <joel@exc.com> has written a Lisp package called
- hebrew.el that allows right-to-left editing of Hebrew. It reportedly
- works out of the box with Emacs 19, but requires patches for Emacs 18.
- Write to Joel if you want the patches or package.
-
- Hebrew.el requires a Hebrew screen font, but no other Hardware support.
- Joel has a screen font for PCs running MS-DOS and Linux.
-
- You might also try to query archie for files named with "hebrew"; several
- ftp sites in Israel may also have the necessary files.
-
-
-Mail and News
-
-138: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups?
-
- If you read mail with Rmail or news with Gnus, set the variable
- mail-yank-prefix. For VM, set vm-included-text-prefix. For mh-e, set
- mh-ins-buf-prefix.
-
- For fancier control of citations, use Supercite. See question 105.
-
- To prevent Emacs from including various headers of the replied-to
- message, set the value of mail-yank-ignored-headers to an appropriate
- regexp.
-
-139: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail?
-
- You can either mail yourself a copy by including a "BCC:" header in the
- mail message, or store a copy of the message directly to a file by
- including an "FCC:" header.
-
- If you use standard mail, you can automatically create a "BCC:" to
- yourself by putting
-
- (setq mail-self-blind t)
-
- in your .emacs file. You can automatically include an "FCC:" field by
- putting something like the following in your .emacs file:
-
- (setq mail-archive-file-name (expand-file-name "~/outgoing"))
-
- The output file will be in Unix mail format, which can be read directly
- by VM, but not always by Rmail. See question 141.
-
- For Gnus, see the `Archived Messages node of the Gnus manual.
-
- If you use mh-e, add an "FCC:" or "BCC:" field to your components file.
-
- It does not work to put "set record filename" in the .mailrc file.
-
-140: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail?
-
- * You must separate multiple addresses in the headers of the mail buffer
- with commas. This is because Emacs supports RFC822 standard addresses
- like this one:
-
- To: Willy Smith <wks@xpnsv.lwyrs.com>
-
- However, you do not need to -- and probably should not, unless your
- system's version of /usr/ucb/mail (aka mailx) supports RFC822 --
- separate addresses with commas in your ~/.mailrc file.
-
- * 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-x rebuild-mail-abbrevs RET" to make Emacs reread your ~/.mailrc
- file.
-
- * If you like, you can expand mail aliases as abbrevs, as soon as you
- type them in. To enable this feature, execute the following:
-
- (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-abbrevs-setup)
-
- Note that the aliases are expanded automatically only after you type
- RET or a punctuation character (e.g. `,'). You can force their
- expansion by moving point to the end of the alias and typing "C-x a e"
- (M-x expand-abbrev).
-
-141: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message?
-
- A file created through the FCC: field in a message is in Unix mail
- format, not the format that Rmail uses (BABYL format). Rmail will try to
- convert a Unix mail file into BABYL format on input, but sometimes it
- makes errors. For guaranteed safety, you can make the saved-messages
- file be an inbox for your Rmail file by using the function
- set-rmail-inbox-list.
-
-142: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder?
-
- In Rmail, type "C-c C-s C-h" to get a list of sorting functions and their
- key bindings.
-
-143: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail?
-
- This is the behavior of the "movemail" program which Rmail uses. This
- indicates that movemail is configured to use lock files.
-
- RMS writes:
-
- Certain systems require lock files to interlock access to mail files.
- On these systems, movemail must write lock files, or you risk losing
- mail. You simply must arrange to let movemail write them.
-
- Other systems use the flock system call to interlock access. On these
- systems, you should configure movemail to use flock.
-
-144: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format?
-
- If you have just done rmail-input on a file and you don't want to save it
- in Rmail's format (called BABYL), just kill the buffer (with C-x k).
-
- If you typed M-x rmail and it read some messages out of your inbox and
- you want to put them in a Unix mail file, use C-o on each message.
-
- If you want to convert an existing file from BABYL format to Unix mail
- format, use the command M-x unrmail: it will prompt you for the input and
- output file names.
-
-145: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the
- other recipients?
-
- Ron Isaacson <isaacson@seas.upenn.edu> says: When you hit "r" to reply in
- Rmail, by default it CCs all of the original recipients (everyone on the
- original "To" and "CC" lists). With a prefix argument (i.e., typing "C-u"
- before "r"), it replies only to the sender. However, going through the
- whole C-u business every time you want to reply is a pain. This is the
- best fix I've been able to come up with:
-
- (defun rmail-reply-t ()
- "Reply only to the sender of the current message. (See rmail-reply.)"
- (interactive)
- (rmail-reply t))
-
- (add-hook 'rmail-mode-hook
- '(lambda ()
- (define-key rmail-mode-map "r" 'rmail-reply-t)
- (define-key rmail-mode-map "R" 'rmail-reply)))
-
-146: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME?
-
- Look at the Emacs MIME FAQ, maintained by MacDonald Hall Jackson
- <trey@cs.berkeley.edu> at
-
- http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/~trey/emacs/mime.html
-
- Version 6.x of VM supports MIME. See question 104.
-
- MIME support has been added in the development version of Gnus which will
- be included with a future version of Emacs.
-
-147: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader?
-
- To start Emacs in Gnus:
-
- emacs -f gnus
-
- in Rmail:
-
- emacs -f rmail
-
- A more convenient way to start with Gnus:
-
- alias gnus 'emacs -f gnus'
- gnus
-
- It is probably unwise to automatically start your mail or news reader
- from your .emacs file. This would cause problems if you needed to run
- two copies of Emacs at one time. Also, this would make it difficult for
- you to start Emacs quickly when you needed to.
-
-148: How do I read news under Emacs?
-
- Use M-x gnus. It is documented in Info (see question 14).
-
-149: Why doesn't Gnus work 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)
-
- You can find out what version of NNTP your news server is running by
- telnetting to the NNTP port (usually 119) on the news server machine
- (i.e., "telnet server-machine 119"). The server should give its version
- number in the welcome message. Type "quit" to get out.
-
- Also see question 75 in this FAQ for some additional ideas.
-
-150: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g.,
- ClariNews)?
-
- Underlining appears like this:
-
- _^Hu_^Hn_^Hd_^He_^Hr_^Hl_^Hi_^Hn_^Hi_^Hn_^Hg
-
- Use Gnus' "Overstrike" function from the Article -> Washing menu (or type
- "W o"). You can do this for all articles with:
-
- (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook 'gnus-article-treat-overstrike)
-
- If you prefer to do away with underlining altogether, you can
- destructively remove it with M-x ununderline-region; do this
- automatically via
-
- (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook
- (lambda () (ununderline-region (point-min) (point-max))))
-
- See the Gnus manual for more information about this and similar methods
- for treating article contents.
-
-151: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus?
-
- Use gnus-uu. Type C-c C-v C-h in the Gnus summary buffer to see a list
- of available commands.
-
-152: How do I make Gnus start up faster?
-
- From the Gnus FAQ (see question 158):
-
- Pranav Kumar Tiwari <pktiwari@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: I posted the same
- query recently and I got an answer to it. I am going to repeat the
- answer. What you need is a newer version of gnus, version 5.0.4+. I am
- using 5.0.12 and it works fine with me with the following settings:
-
- (setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil
- gnus-read-active-file 'some
- gnus-nov-is-evil nil
- gnus-select-method '(nntp gnus-nntp-server))
-
-153: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus?
-
- In the "*Newsgroup*" buffer, type the following magical incantation:
-
- M-< C-x ( c y C-x ) M-0 C-x e
-
- Leave off the "M-<" if you only want to catch up from point to the end of
- the "*Newsgroup" buffer.
-
-154: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control
- headers?
-
- Gnus will complain that the "Newsgroups:", "Keywords:", and "Control:"
- headers are "Unknown header" fields.
-
- For the "Newsgroups:" header, there is an easy workaround: kill on the
- "Xref" header instead, which will be present on any cross-posted article
- (as long as your site carries the cross-post group).
-
- If you really want to kill on one of these headers, you can do it like
- this:
-
- (gnus-kill nil "^Newsgroups: .*\\(bad\\.group\\|worse\\.group\\)")
-
-155: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections?
-
- Set nntp-debug-read to nil.
-
-156: Why is catch up slow in Gnus?
-
- Because Gnus is marking crosspostings read. You can control this with
- the variable gnus-use-cross-reference.
-
-157: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting?
-
- David Lawrence <tale@uunet.uu.net> explains:
-
- The problem is almost always interaction between NNTP and C News. NNTP
- POST asks C News's inews to not background itself but rather hang
- around and give its exit status so it knows whether the post was
- successful. (That wait will on some systems not return the exit status
- of the waited for job is a different sort of problem.) It ends up
- taking a long time because inews is calling relaynews, which often
- waits for another relaynews to free the lock on the news system so it
- can file the article.
-
- My preferred solution is to change inews to not call relaynews, but
- rather use newsspool. This loses some error-catching functionality,
- but is for the most part safe as inews will detect a lot of the errors
- on its own. The C News folks have sped up inews, too, so speed should
- look better to most folks as that update propagates around.
-
-158: Where can I find out more about Gnus?
-
- Visit http://www.gnus.org/, which has a pointer to the current Gnus FAQ and
- more information. The relevant newsgroup is gnu.emacs.gnus.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------
-Modified, with permission, for the Emacs 20.4 distribution by Dave Love.
-
-Copyright 1994-1998 Reuven M. Lerner
-Copyright 1992-1993 Steven Byrnes
-Copyright 1990-1992 Joseph Brian Wells
-
-This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs with answers
-("FAQ") may be translated into other languages, transformed into other
-formats (e.g. Texinfo, Info, WWW, WAIS), and updated with new information.
-
-The same conditions apply to any derivative of the FAQ as apply to the FAQ
-itself. Every copy of the FAQ must include this notice or an approved
-translation, information on who is currently maintaining the FAQ and how to
-contact them (including their e-mail address), and information on where the
-latest version of the FAQ is archived (including FTP information).
-
-The FAQ may be copied and redistributed under these conditions, except that
-the FAQ may not be embedded in a larger literary work unless that work
-itself allows free copying and redistribution.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------
-
-People who helped with this version of the FAQ:
-
-Ethan Bradford <ethanb@u.washington.edu>, William G. Dubuque
-<wgd@martigny.ai.mit.edu>, Michael Ernst <mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu>,
-and Denby Wong <3dw16@qlink.QueensU.CA>.
projects / emacs.git / commitdiff