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| author | Dave Love | 1999-10-05 18:31:28 +0000 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Dave Love | 1999-10-05 18:31:28 +0000 |
| commit | 3dfa7f6a229bd5220c9517876bd1be72d6625323 (patch) | |
| tree | 807bf2c6b50c1679d6ae5d8b6dfca25060c27720 | |
| parent | 08aecf0498695e37d22ddf94f3f06a58032dba3c (diff) | |
| download | emacs-3dfa7f6a229bd5220c9517876bd1be72d6625323.tar.gz emacs-3dfa7f6a229bd5220c9517876bd1be72d6625323.zip | |
Now in Texinfo.
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| 1 | GNU Emacs FAQ: Introduction | ||
| 2 | |||
| 3 | This is the introduction to a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) | ||
| 4 | about GNU Emacs 20 with answers. Some of the answers are not valid for GNU | ||
| 5 | Emacs 18 or 19. | ||
| 6 | |||
| 7 | [This version has been somewhat edited from the last-posted version | ||
| 8 | (as of February 1999) for inclusion in the Emacs distribution.] | ||
| 9 | |||
| 10 | The FAQ is posted (in five parts) to reduce the noise level in the | ||
| 11 | gnu.emacs.help newsgroup (which is also the help-gnu-emacs mailing list) | ||
| 12 | which results from the repetition of frequently asked questions, wrong | ||
| 13 | answers to these questions, corrections to the wrong answers, corrections | ||
| 14 | to the corrections, debate, name calling, and generally unproductive use of | ||
| 15 | the mailing list. Also, it serves as a repository of the canonical "best" | ||
| 16 | answers to these questions. However, if you know a better answer or even a | ||
| 17 | slight change that improves an answer, please tell us! | ||
| 18 | |||
| 19 | If you know the answer to a question in the FAQ list, please reply to the | ||
| 20 | question by e-mail instead of posting. Help reduce noise! | ||
| 21 | |||
| 22 | The FAQ is crossposted to comp.emacs because some sites do not receive the | ||
| 23 | gnu.* newsgroups. The FAQ is also crossposted to news.answers. | ||
| 24 | |||
| 25 | Full instructions for getting the latest FAQ are in question 22. | ||
| 26 | |||
| 27 | A diff file between the last version of the FAQ and this one should have | ||
| 28 | been posted along with the FAQ. If you did not receive the diff file, you | ||
| 29 | can get it at | ||
| 30 | |||
| 31 | ftp://the-tech.mit.edu/pub/GNU-Emacs/faq-diffs | ||
| 32 | |||
| 33 | Please suggest new questions, answers, wording changes, and deletions by | ||
| 34 | sending mail to emacs-faq@lerner.co.il. The most helpful form for | ||
| 35 | suggestions is a context diff (i.e., the output of `diff -c'). Include | ||
| 36 | "FAQ" in the subject of messages about the FAQ list. | ||
| 37 | |||
| 38 | Please do not send questions to us just because you do not want to disturb | ||
| 39 | a lot of people and you think we would know the answer. We do not have | ||
| 40 | time to answer questions individually. :-( | ||
| 41 | |||
| 42 | -- | ||
| 43 | Reuven M. Lerner <reuven@lerner.co.il> and the FAQ team (a full list is | ||
| 44 | at the bottom of the FAQ). | ||
| 45 | |||
| 46 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||
| 47 | |||
| 48 | Notation Used in FAQ | ||
| 49 | |||
| 50 | 1: What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.? | ||
| 51 | 2: What does "M-x command" mean? | ||
| 52 | 3: How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual? | ||
| 53 | 4: What do these mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h, lisp/default.el? | ||
| 54 | 5: What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, and GPL? | ||
| 55 | |||
| 56 | General Questions | ||
| 57 | |||
| 58 | 6: What is the LPF? | ||
| 59 | 7: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft? | ||
| 60 | 8: What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug, | ||
| 61 | comp.emacs, etc.? | ||
| 62 | 9: Where can I get old postings to gnu.emacs.help and other GNU groups? | ||
| 63 | 10: Where should I report bugs and other problems with Emacs? | ||
| 64 | 11: How do I unsubscribe from this mailing list? | ||
| 65 | 12: What is the current address of the FSF? | ||
| 66 | |||
| 67 | On-line Help, Printed Manuals, Other Sources of Help | ||
| 68 | |||
| 69 | 13: I'm just starting Emacs; how do I do basic editing? | ||
| 70 | 14: How do I find out how to do something in Emacs? | ||
| 71 | 15: How do I get a printed copy of the Emacs manual? | ||
| 72 | 16: Where can I get documentation on Emacs Lisp? | ||
| 73 | 17: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation? | ||
| 74 | 18: How do I print a Texinfo file? | ||
| 75 | 19: Can I view Info files without using Emacs? | ||
| 76 | 20: What informational files are available for Emacs? | ||
| 77 | 21: Where can I get help in installing Emacs? | ||
| 78 | 22: Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)? | ||
| 79 | |||
| 80 | Status of Emacs | ||
| 81 | |||
| 82 | 23: Where does the name "Emacs" come from? | ||
| 83 | 24: What is the latest version of Emacs? | ||
| 84 | 25: What is different about Emacs 20? | ||
| 85 | |||
| 86 | Common Things People Want To Do | ||
| 87 | |||
| 88 | 26: How do I set up a .emacs file properly? | ||
| 89 | 27: How do I debug a .emacs file? | ||
| 90 | 28: How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number? | ||
| 91 | 29: How can I modify the titlebar to contain the current filename? | ||
| 92 | 30: How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX? | ||
| 93 | 31: How do I turn on auto-fill mode by default? | ||
| 94 | 32: How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files? | ||
| 95 | 33: How do I search for, delete, or replace unprintable (8-bit or control) | ||
| 96 | characters? | ||
| 97 | 34: How can I highlight a region of text in Emacs? | ||
| 98 | 35: How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing? | ||
| 99 | 36: How do I make Emacs wrap words for me? | ||
| 100 | 37: Where can I get a better spelling checker for Emacs? | ||
| 101 | 38: How can I spell-check TeX or *roff documents? | ||
| 102 | 39: How do I change load-path? | ||
| 103 | 40: How do I use an already running Emacs from another window? | ||
| 104 | 41: How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages? | ||
| 105 | 42: How do I indent switch statements like this? | ||
| 106 | 43: How can I make Emacs automatically scroll horizontally? | ||
| 107 | 44: How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" instead of inserting? | ||
| 108 | 45: How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal? | ||
| 109 | 46: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows? | ||
| 110 | 47: How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the | ||
| 111 | indentation of the previous line? | ||
| 112 | 48: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at? | ||
| 113 | 49: In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef | ||
| 114 | commands are handled by the compiler? | ||
| 115 | 50: Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi? | ||
| 116 | 51: What are the valid X resource settings (i.e., stuff in .Xdefaults)? | ||
| 117 | 52: How do I execute ("evaluate") a piece of Emacs Lisp code? | ||
| 118 | 53: How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length? | ||
| 119 | 54: How do I insert `>' at the beginning of every line? | ||
| 120 | 55: How do I insert "_^H" before each character in a region to get an | ||
| 121 | underlined paragraph? | ||
| 122 | 56: How do I repeat a command as many times as possible? | ||
| 123 | 57: How do I make Emacs behave like this: when I go up or down, the cursor | ||
| 124 | should stay in the same column even if the line is too short? | ||
| 125 | 58: How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself? | ||
| 126 | 59: How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs? | ||
| 127 | 60: How do I perform a replace operation across more than one file? | ||
| 128 | 61: Where is the documentation for "etags"? | ||
| 129 | 62: How do I disable backup files? | ||
| 130 | 63: How do I disable auto-save-mode? | ||
| 131 | 64: How can I create or modify new pull-down menu options? | ||
| 132 | 65: How do I delete menus and menu options? | ||
| 133 | 66: How do I turn on syntax highlighting? | ||
| 134 | 67: How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the | ||
| 135 | bottom of the screen? | ||
| 136 | 68: How can I replace highlighted text with what I type? | ||
| 137 | 69: How can I edit MS-DOS-style text files using Emacs? | ||
| 138 | 70: How can I tell Emacs to fill paragraphs with a single space after | ||
| 139 | each period? | ||
| 140 | |||
| 141 | Bugs/Problems | ||
| 142 | |||
| 143 | 71: Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes? | ||
| 144 | 72: How do I get rid of ^M or echoed commands in my shell buffer? | ||
| 145 | 73: Why do I get "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1"? | ||
| 146 | 74: Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type "emacs"? | ||
| 147 | 75: Why does Emacs spontaneously start displaying "I-search:" and beeping? | ||
| 148 | 76: Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)? | ||
| 149 | 77: Why does Emacs say "Error in init file"? | ||
| 150 | 78: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)? | ||
| 151 | 79: Why does Emacs take 20 seconds to visit a file? | ||
| 152 | 80: How do I edit a file with a `$' in its name? | ||
| 153 | 81: Why does shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory? | ||
| 154 | 82: Are there any security risks in Emacs? | ||
| 155 | 83: Dired says, "no file on this line" when I try to do something. | ||
| 156 | |||
| 157 | Difficulties Building/Installing/Porting Emacs | ||
| 158 | |||
| 159 | 84: How do I install Emacs? | ||
| 160 | 85: How do I update Emacs to the latest version? | ||
| 161 | 86: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs? | ||
| 162 | 87: Why does linking Emacs with -lX11 fail? | ||
| 163 | |||
| 164 | Finding/Getting Emacs and Related Packages | ||
| 165 | |||
| 166 | 88: Where can I get Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)? | ||
| 167 | 89: How do I find a Emacs Lisp package that does XXX? | ||
| 168 | 90: Where can I get Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs? | ||
| 169 | 91: How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive? | ||
| 170 | 92: Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff? | ||
| 171 | 93: What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid | ||
| 172 | Emacs")? | ||
| 173 | 94: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS? | ||
| 174 | 95: Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows, Windows 9x, or Windows | ||
| 175 | NT? | ||
| 176 | 96: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2? | ||
| 177 | 97: Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST? | ||
| 178 | 98: Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga? | ||
| 179 | 99: Where can I get Emacs for NeXTSTEP? | ||
| 180 | 100: Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer? | ||
| 181 | 101: Where do I get Emacs that runs on VMS under DECwindows? | ||
| 182 | 102: Where can I get modes for Lex, Yacc/Bison, Bourne shell, Csh, C++, | ||
| 183 | Objective-C, Pascal, Java, and Awk? | ||
| 184 | 103: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ? | ||
| 185 | |||
| 186 | Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs | ||
| 187 | |||
| 188 | 104: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs, with MIME support | ||
| 189 | 105: Supercite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs | ||
| 190 | 106: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs | ||
| 191 | 107: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs | ||
| 192 | 108: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities | ||
| 193 | 109: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers | ||
| 194 | 110: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs | ||
| 195 | 111: W3-mode -- A World Wide Web browser inside of Emacs | ||
| 196 | 112: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes | ||
| 197 | 113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news | ||
| 198 | 114: JDE -- Development environment for Java programming | ||
| 199 | 115: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files | ||
| 200 | |||
| 201 | Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems | ||
| 202 | |||
| 203 | 116: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands? | ||
| 204 | 117: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"? | ||
| 205 | 118: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my | ||
| 206 | .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up? | ||
| 207 | 119: How do I use function keys under X Windows? | ||
| 208 | 120: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys | ||
| 209 | emit? | ||
| 210 | 121: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs? | ||
| 211 | 122: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control? | ||
| 212 | 123: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered | ||
| 213 | out? | ||
| 214 | 124: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help? | ||
| 215 | 125: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete? | ||
| 216 | 126: How do I "swap" two keys? | ||
| 217 | 127: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard? | ||
| 218 | 128: What if I don't have a Meta key? | ||
| 219 | 129: What if I don't have an Escape key? | ||
| 220 | 130: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key? | ||
| 221 | 131: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key? | ||
| 222 | 132: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window? | ||
| 223 | 133: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0 | ||
| 224 | and 9.x? | ||
| 225 | |||
| 226 | Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets | ||
| 227 | |||
| 228 | 134: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters? | ||
| 229 | 135: How do I input 8-bit characters? | ||
| 230 | 136: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other | ||
| 231 | character sets? | ||
| 232 | 137: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets? | ||
| 233 | |||
| 234 | Mail and News | ||
| 235 | |||
| 236 | 138: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups? | ||
| 237 | 139: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail? | ||
| 238 | 140: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail? | ||
| 239 | 141: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message? | ||
| 240 | 142: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder? | ||
| 241 | 143: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail? | ||
| 242 | 144: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format? | ||
| 243 | 145: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the | ||
| 244 | other recipients? | ||
| 245 | 146: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME? | ||
| 246 | 147: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader? | ||
| 247 | 148: How do I read news under Emacs? | ||
| 248 | 149: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP? | ||
| 249 | 150: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g., | ||
| 250 | ClariNews)? | ||
| 251 | 151: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus? | ||
| 252 | 152: How do I make Gnus start up faster? | ||
| 253 | 153: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus? | ||
| 254 | 154: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control | ||
| 255 | headers? | ||
| 256 | 155: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections? | ||
| 257 | 156: Why is catch up slow in Gnus? | ||
| 258 | 157: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting? | ||
| 259 | 158: Where can I find out more about Gnus? | ||
| 260 | |||
| 261 | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ||
| 262 | |||
| 263 | If you are viewing this text in a GNU Emacs Buffer, you can type "M-2 C-x | ||
| 264 | $" to get an overview of just the questions. Then, when you want to look | ||
| 265 | at the text of the answers, just type "C-x $". | ||
| 266 | |||
| 267 | To search for a question numbered XXX, type "M-C-s ^XXX:", followed by a | ||
| 268 | C-r if that doesn't work. Type RET to end the search. | ||
| 269 | |||
| 270 | If you have a web browser and the browse-url package configured for | ||
| 271 | it, you can visit ftp and HTTP uniform resource locators (URLs) by | ||
| 272 | placing the cursor on the URL and typing M-x browse-url-at-point. | ||
| 273 | |||
| 274 | The FAQ is posted in five parts; if you are missing a section or would | ||
| 275 | prefer to read the FAQ in a single file, see question 22. | ||
| 276 | |||
| 277 | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ||
| 278 | Time-stamp: <1999-02-10 18:44:04 reuven> | ||
| 279 | |||
| 280 | |||
| 281 | Notation Used in FAQ | ||
| 282 | |||
| 283 | Skip this section and then come back if you don't understand some of the | ||
| 284 | later answers. | ||
| 285 | |||
| 286 | 1: What do these mean: C-h, M-C-a, RET, "ESC a", etc.? | ||
| 287 | |||
| 288 | C-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Control key | ||
| 289 | |||
| 290 | M-x: press the `x' key while holding down the Meta key (if your computer | ||
| 291 | doesn't have a Meta key, see question 128) | ||
| 292 | |||
| 293 | M-C-x: press the `x' key while holding down both Control and Meta | ||
| 294 | C-M-x: a synonym for the above | ||
| 295 | |||
| 296 | LFD: Linefeed or Newline; same as C-j | ||
| 297 | RET: Return, sometimes marked Enter; same as C-m | ||
| 298 | DEL: Delete, usually not the same as Backspace; same as C-? (See | ||
| 299 | question 124 if deleting invokes Emacs help) | ||
| 300 | ESC: Escape; same as C-[ | ||
| 301 | TAB: Tab; same as C-i | ||
| 302 | SPC: Space bar | ||
| 303 | |||
| 304 | Key sequences longer than one key (and some single-key sequences) are | ||
| 305 | inside double quotes or on lines by themselves. Any real spaces in such | ||
| 306 | a key sequence should be ignored; only SPC really means press the space | ||
| 307 | key. | ||
| 308 | |||
| 309 | The ASCII code sent by C-x (except for C-?) is the value that would be | ||
| 310 | sent by pressing just `x' minus 96 (or 64 for uppercase `X') and will be | ||
| 311 | from 0 to 31. The ASCII code sent by M-x is the sum of 128 and the ASCII | ||
| 312 | code that would be sent by pressing just the `x' key. Essentially, the | ||
| 313 | Control key turns off bits 5 and 6 and the Meta key turns on bit 7. | ||
| 314 | |||
| 315 | NOTE: C-? (aka DEL) is ASCII code 127. It is a misnomer to call C-? a | ||
| 316 | "control" key, since 127 has both bits 5 and 6 turned ON. Also, on very | ||
| 317 | few keyboards does C-? generate ASCII code 127. | ||
| 318 | |||
| 319 | For further information, see "Characters" and "Keys" in the on-line | ||
| 320 | manual. (See question 3 if you don't know how.) | ||
| 321 | |||
| 322 | 2: What does "M-x command" mean? | ||
| 323 | |||
| 324 | "M-x command" means type M-x, then type the name of the command, then | ||
| 325 | type RET. (See question 1 if you're not sure what "M-x" and "RET" mean.) | ||
| 326 | |||
| 327 | M-x (by default) invokes the command "execute-extended-command". This | ||
| 328 | command allows you to run any Emacs command if you can remember the | ||
| 329 | command's name. If you can't remember the command's name, you can type | ||
| 330 | TAB and SPC for completion, `?' for a list of possibilities, and M-p and | ||
| 331 | M-n to see previous commands entered. An Emacs "command" is any | ||
| 332 | "interactive" Emacs function. | ||
| 333 | |||
| 334 | NOTE: Your system administrator may have bound other key sequences to | ||
| 335 | invoke execute-extended-command. A function key labeled `Do' is a good | ||
| 336 | candidate for this. | ||
| 337 | |||
| 338 | To run non-interactive Emacs functions, see question 52. | ||
| 339 | |||
| 340 | 3: How do I read topic XXX in the on-line manual? | ||
| 341 | |||
| 342 | When we refer you to topic XXX in the on-line manual, you can read this | ||
| 343 | manual node inside Emacs (assuming nothing is broken) by typing this: | ||
| 344 | |||
| 345 | C-h i m emacs RET m XXX RET | ||
| 346 | |||
| 347 | This invokes Info, the GNU hypertext documentation browser. If you don't | ||
| 348 | already know how to use Info, type `?' from within Info. | ||
| 349 | |||
| 350 | If we refer to topic XXX:YYY, type this: | ||
| 351 | |||
| 352 | C-h i m emacs RET m XXX RET m YYY RET | ||
| 353 | |||
| 354 | WARNING: Your system administrator may not have installed the Info files, | ||
| 355 | or may have installed them improperly. In this case you should complain. | ||
| 356 | |||
| 357 | See question 15 if you would like a paper copy of the Emacs manual. | ||
| 358 | |||
| 359 | 4: What do these mean: etc/SERVICE, src/config.h, lisp/default.el? | ||
| 360 | |||
| 361 | These are files that come with Emacs. The Emacs distribution is divided | ||
| 362 | into subdirectories; the important ones are "etc", "lisp", and "src". | ||
| 363 | |||
| 364 | If you use Emacs, but don't know where it is kept on your system, start | ||
| 365 | Emacs, then type "C-h v data-directory RET". The directory name | ||
| 366 | displayed by this will be the full pathname of the installed "etc" | ||
| 367 | directory. | ||
| 368 | |||
| 369 | The location of your Info directory (i.e., where on-line documentation is | ||
| 370 | stored) is kept in the variable Info-default-directory-list. Use "C-h v | ||
| 371 | Info-default-directory-list RET" to see the contents of this variable, | ||
| 372 | which will be a list of directory names. The last directory in that list | ||
| 373 | is probably where most Info files are stored. By default, Info | ||
| 374 | documentation is placed in /usr/local/info. | ||
| 375 | |||
| 376 | Some of these files are available individually via FTP or e-mail; see | ||
| 377 | question 20. All are available in the source distribution. Many of the | ||
| 378 | files in the "etc" directory are also available via the Emacs "help" | ||
| 379 | menu, or by typing "C-h ?" (M-x help-for-help). | ||
| 380 | |||
| 381 | WARNING: Your system administrator may have removed the src directory and | ||
| 382 | many files from the etc directory. | ||
| 383 | |||
| 384 | 5: What are FSF, LPF, OSF, GNU, RMS, FTP, and GPL? | ||
| 385 | |||
| 386 | FSF == Free Software Foundation | ||
| 387 | LPF == League for Programming Freedom | ||
| 388 | OSF == Open Software Foundation | ||
| 389 | GNU == GNU's Not Unix | ||
| 390 | RMS == Richard Matthew Stallman | ||
| 391 | FTP == File Transfer Protocol | ||
| 392 | GPL == GNU General Public License | ||
| 393 | |||
| 394 | NOTE: Avoid confusing the FSF, the LPF, and the OSF. The LPF opposes | ||
| 395 | look-and-feel copyrights and software patents. The FSF aims to make high | ||
| 396 | quality free software available for everyone. The OSF is a consortium of | ||
| 397 | computer vendors which develops commercial software for Unix systems. | ||
| 398 | |||
| 399 | NOTE: The word "free" in the title of the Free Software Foundation refers | ||
| 400 | to "freedom," not "zero dollars." Anyone can charge any price for | ||
| 401 | GPL-covered software that they want to. However, in practice, the | ||
| 402 | freedom enforced by the GPL leads to low prices, because you can always | ||
| 403 | get the software for less money from someone else, because everyone has | ||
| 404 | the right to resell or give away GPL-covered software. | ||
| 405 | |||
| 406 | |||
| 407 | General Questions | ||
| 408 | |||
| 409 | 6: What is the LPF? | ||
| 410 | |||
| 411 | The LPF opposes the expanding danger of software patents and | ||
| 412 | look-and-feel copyrights. To get more information, feel free to contact | ||
| 413 | the LPF via e-mail or otherwise. You may also contact Joe Wells | ||
| 414 | <jbw@cs.bu.edu>; he will be happy to talk with you about the LPF. | ||
| 415 | |||
| 416 | You can find more information about the LPF in the file etc/LPF. More | ||
| 417 | papers describing the LPF's views are available on the Internet and also | ||
| 418 | from the LPF: | ||
| 419 | |||
| 420 | http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/ | ||
| 421 | |||
| 422 | 7: What is the real legal meaning of the GNU copyleft? | ||
| 423 | |||
| 424 | The real legal meaning of the GNU General Public License (copyleft) will | ||
| 425 | only be known if and when a judge rules on its validity and scope. There | ||
| 426 | has never been a copyright infringement case involving the GPL to set any | ||
| 427 | precedents. Please take any discussion regarding this issue to the | ||
| 428 | newsgroup gnu.misc.discuss, which was created to hold the extensive flame | ||
| 429 | wars on the subject. | ||
| 430 | |||
| 431 | RMS writes: | ||
| 432 | |||
| 433 | The legal meaning of the GNU copyleft is less important than the | ||
| 434 | spirit, which is that Emacs is a free software project and that work | ||
| 435 | pertaining to Emacs should also be free software. "Free" means that | ||
| 436 | all users have the freedom to study, share, change and improve Emacs. | ||
| 437 | To make sure everyone has this freedom, pass along source code when you | ||
| 438 | distribute any version of Emacs or a related program, and give the | ||
| 439 | recipients the same freedom that you enjoyed. | ||
| 440 | |||
| 441 | 8: What are appropriate messages for gnu.emacs.help, gnu.emacs.bug, | ||
| 442 | comp.emacs, etc.? | ||
| 443 | |||
| 444 | The file etc/MAILINGLISTS discusses the purpose of each GNU mailing-list. | ||
| 445 | (See question 20 if you want a copy of the file.) For those lists which | ||
| 446 | are gatewayed with newsgroups, it lists both the newsgroup name and the | ||
| 447 | mailing list address. | ||
| 448 | |||
| 449 | comp.emacs is for discussion of Emacs programs in general. This includes | ||
| 450 | Emacs along with various other implementations, such as JOVE, MicroEmacs, | ||
| 451 | Freemacs, MG, Unipress, CCA, and Epsilon. | ||
| 452 | |||
| 453 | Many people post Emacs questions to comp.emacs because they don't receive | ||
| 454 | any of the gnu.* newsgroups. Arguments have been made both for and | ||
| 455 | against posting GNU-Emacs-specific material to comp.emacs. You have to | ||
| 456 | decide for yourself. | ||
| 457 | |||
| 458 | Messages advocating "non-free" software are considered unacceptable on | ||
| 459 | any of the gnu.* newsgroups except for gnu.misc.discuss, which was | ||
| 460 | created to hold the extensive flame-wars on the subject. "Non-free" | ||
| 461 | software includes any software for which the end user can't freely modify | ||
| 462 | the source code and exchange enhancements. Be careful to remove the | ||
| 463 | gnu.* groups from the "Newsgroups:" line when posting a followup that | ||
| 464 | recommends such software. | ||
| 465 | |||
| 466 | gnu.emacs.bug is a place where bug reports appear, but avoid posting bug | ||
| 467 | reports to this newsgroup (see question 10). | ||
| 468 | |||
| 469 | 9: Where can I get old postings to gnu.emacs.help and other GNU groups? | ||
| 470 | |||
| 471 | The FSF has maintained archives of all of the GNU mailing lists for many | ||
| 472 | years, although there may be some unintentional gaps in coverage. The | ||
| 473 | archive is not particularly well organized or easy to retrieve individual | ||
| 474 | postings from, but pretty much everything is there. The archives | ||
| 475 | are available at | ||
| 476 | |||
| 477 | ftp://ftp-mailing-list-archives.gnu.org/ | ||
| 478 | |||
| 479 | Web-based Usenet search services, such as DejaNews, also archive the | ||
| 480 | gnu.* groups. You can reach DejaNews at | ||
| 481 | |||
| 482 | http://www.dejanews.com | ||
| 483 | |||
| 484 | 10: Where should I report bugs and other problems with Emacs? | ||
| 485 | |||
| 486 | The correct way to report Emacs bugs is by e-mail to | ||
| 487 | bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Anything sent here also appears in the | ||
| 488 | newsgroup gnu.emacs.bug, but please use e-mail instead of news to submit | ||
| 489 | the bug report. This ensures a reliable return address so you can be | ||
| 490 | contacted for further details. | ||
| 491 | |||
| 492 | Be sure to read the "Bugs" section of the Emacs manual before reporting a | ||
| 493 | bug to bug-gnu-emacs! The manual describes in detail how to submit a | ||
| 494 | useful bug report. (See question 3 if you don't know how to read the | ||
| 495 | manual.) | ||
| 496 | |||
| 497 | RMS says: | ||
| 498 | |||
| 499 | Sending bug reports to help-gnu-emacs (which has the effect of posting | ||
| 500 | on gnu.emacs.help) is undesirable because it takes the time of an | ||
| 501 | unnecessarily large group of people, most of whom are just users and | ||
| 502 | have no idea how to fix these problem. bug-gnu-emacs reaches a much | ||
| 503 | smaller group of people who are more likely to know what to do and have | ||
| 504 | expressed a wish to receive more messages about Emacs than the others. | ||
| 505 | |||
| 506 | However, RMS says there are circumstances when it is okay to post to | ||
| 507 | gnu.emacs.help: | ||
| 508 | |||
| 509 | If you have reported a bug and you don't hear about a possible fix, | ||
| 510 | then after a suitable delay (such as a week) it is okay to post on | ||
| 511 | gnu.emacs.help asking if anyone can help you. | ||
| 512 | |||
| 513 | If you are unsure whether you have found a bug, consider the following | ||
| 514 | non-exhaustive list, courtesy of RMS: | ||
| 515 | |||
| 516 | If Emacs crashes, that is a bug. If Emacs gets compilation errors | ||
| 517 | while building, that is a bug. If Emacs crashes while building, that | ||
| 518 | is a bug. If Lisp code does not do what the documentation says it | ||
| 519 | does, that is a bug. | ||
| 520 | |||
| 521 | 11: How do I unsubscribe from this mailing list? | ||
| 522 | |||
| 523 | If you are receiving a GNU mailing list named "XXX", you might be able to | ||
| 524 | unsubscribe from it by sending a request to the address | ||
| 525 | <XXX-request@gnu.org>. However, this will not work if you are | ||
| 526 | not listed on the main mailing list, but instead receive the mail from a | ||
| 527 | distribution point. In that case, you will have to track down at which | ||
| 528 | distribution point you are listed. Inspecting the "Received:" headers on | ||
| 529 | the mail messages may help, along with liberal use of the "EXPN" or | ||
| 530 | "VRFY" sendmail commands through "telnet <site-address> smtp". Ask your | ||
| 531 | postmaster for help. | ||
| 532 | |||
| 533 | 12: What is the current address of the FSF? | ||
| 534 | |||
| 535 | E-mail: gnu@gnu.org | ||
| 536 | Telephone: +1-617-542-5942 | ||
| 537 | Fax: +1-617-542-2652 | ||
| 538 | World Wide Web: http://www.gnu.org/ | ||
| 539 | |||
| 540 | Postal address: | ||
| 541 | Free Software Foundation | ||
| 542 | 59 Temple Place - Suite 330 | ||
| 543 | Boston, MA 02111-1307 | ||
| 544 | USA | ||
| 545 | |||
| 546 | For details on how to order items directly from the FSF, see the file | ||
| 547 | etc/ORDERS. | ||
| 548 | |||
| 549 | |||
| 550 | On-line Help, Printed Manuals, Other Sources of Help | ||
| 551 | |||
| 552 | 13: I'm just starting Emacs; how do I do basic editing? | ||
| 553 | |||
| 554 | Type "C-h t" to invoke the self-paced tutorial. Just typing `C-h' enters | ||
| 555 | the help system. | ||
| 556 | |||
| 557 | WARNING: Your system administrator may have changed `C-h' to act like DEL | ||
| 558 | to deal with local keyboards. You can use M-x help-for-help instead to | ||
| 559 | invoke help. To discover what key (if any) invokes help on your system, | ||
| 560 | type "M-x where-is RET help-for-help RET". This will print a | ||
| 561 | comma-separated list of key sequences in the echo area. Ignore the last | ||
| 562 | character in each key sequence listed. Each of the resulting key | ||
| 563 | sequences invokes help. | ||
| 564 | |||
| 565 | NOTE: Emacs help works best if it is invoked by a single key whose value | ||
| 566 | should be stored in the variable help-char. | ||
| 567 | |||
| 568 | There is also a WWW-based tutorial for Emacs 18, much of which is also | ||
| 569 | relevant for Emacs 20, available at | ||
| 570 | |||
| 571 | http://kufacts.cc.ukans.edu/cwis/writeups/misc/emacsguide.html | ||
| 572 | |||
| 573 | 14: How do I find out how to do something in Emacs? | ||
| 574 | |||
| 575 | There are several methods for finding out how to do things in Emacs. | ||
| 576 | |||
| 577 | * The complete text of the Emacs manual is available on-line via the Info | ||
| 578 | hypertext reader. Type "C-h i" to invoke Info. Typing `h' immediately | ||
| 579 | after entering Info will provide a short tutorial on how to use it. | ||
| 580 | |||
| 581 | * You can order a hardcopy of the manual from the FSF. See question 15. | ||
| 582 | |||
| 583 | * You can get a printed reference card listing commands and keys to | ||
| 584 | invoke them. You can order one from the FSF for $1 (or 10 for $5), or | ||
| 585 | you can print your own from the etc/refcard.tex or etc/refcard.ps files | ||
| 586 | in the Emacs distribution. | ||
| 587 | |||
| 588 | * You can list all of the commands whose names contain a certain word | ||
| 589 | (actually which match a regular expression) using "C-h a" (M-x | ||
| 590 | command-apropos). | ||
| 591 | |||
| 592 | * You can list all of the functions and variables whose names contain a | ||
| 593 | certain word using M-x apropos. | ||
| 594 | |||
| 595 | * There are many other commands in Emacs for getting help and | ||
| 596 | information. To get a list of these commands, type `?' after `C-h'. | ||
| 597 | |||
| 598 | 15: How do I get a printed copy of the Emacs manual? | ||
| 599 | |||
| 600 | You can order a printed copy of the Emacs manual from the FSF. For | ||
| 601 | details see the file etc/ORDERS. | ||
| 602 | |||
| 603 | The full TeX source for the manual also comes in the "man" directory of | ||
| 604 | the Emacs distribution, if you're daring enough to try to print out this | ||
| 605 | 440-page manual yourself (see question 18). | ||
| 606 | |||
| 607 | If you absolutely have to print your own copy, and you don't have TeX, | ||
| 608 | you can get a PostScript version from | ||
| 609 | |||
| 610 | ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/gnu/manuals_ps/emacs-19.21.ps.gz | ||
| 611 | |||
| 612 | Note that the above document is somewhat out of date, although most major | ||
| 613 | concepts are still relevant. This site requests that you please *confine | ||
| 614 | any major ftping to late evenings or early mornings, local time* (Pacific | ||
| 615 | time zone, GMT-8). | ||
| 616 | |||
| 617 | A WWW version of the (somewhat outdated) Emacs 19.34 manual is at | ||
| 618 | |||
| 619 | http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/texinfodoc/emacs_toc.html | ||
| 620 | |||
| 621 | See also question 14 for how to view the manual on-line. | ||
| 622 | |||
| 623 | 16: Where can I get documentation on Emacs Lisp? | ||
| 624 | |||
| 625 | Within Emacs, you can type "C-h f" to get the documentation for a | ||
| 626 | function, "C-h v" for a variable. | ||
| 627 | |||
| 628 | For more information, obtain the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual. Details on | ||
| 629 | ordering it from FSF are in file etc/ORDERS. | ||
| 630 | |||
| 631 | The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is also available on-line, in Info | ||
| 632 | format. Texinfo source for the manual (along with pregenerated Info | ||
| 633 | files) is available at | ||
| 634 | |||
| 635 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-manual-20-2.5.tar.gz | ||
| 636 | |||
| 637 | and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (See question 92 for a list). See | ||
| 638 | question 17 if you want to install the Info files, or question 18 if you | ||
| 639 | want to use the Texinfo source to print the manual yourself. | ||
| 640 | |||
| 641 | WWW versions of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual are available at | ||
| 642 | |||
| 643 | http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/texinfodoc/elisp_1.html | ||
| 644 | http://www.cs.indiana.edu/usr/local/www/elisp/lispref/elisp_toc.html | ||
| 645 | |||
| 646 | 17: How do I install a piece of Texinfo documentation? | ||
| 647 | |||
| 648 | First, you must turn the Texinfo files into Info files. You may do this | ||
| 649 | using the stand-alone "makeinfo" program, available as part of the latest | ||
| 650 | Texinfo package at | ||
| 651 | |||
| 652 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/texinfo/texinfo-3.12.tar.gz | ||
| 653 | |||
| 654 | and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (see question 92 for a list). | ||
| 655 | |||
| 656 | For information about the Texinfo format, read the Texinfo manual which | ||
| 657 | comes with Emacs. This manual also comes installed in Info format, so | ||
| 658 | you can read it on-line. | ||
| 659 | |||
| 660 | Neither texinfo-format-buffer nor makeinfo installs the resulting Info | ||
| 661 | files in Emacs's Info tree. To install Info files: | ||
| 662 | |||
| 663 | 1. Move the files to the "info" directory in the installed Emacs | ||
| 664 | distribution. See question 4 if you don't know where that is. | ||
| 665 | |||
| 666 | 2. Edit the file info/dir in the installed Emacs distribution, and add a | ||
| 667 | line for the top level node in the Info package that you are | ||
| 668 | installing. Follow the examples already in this file. The format is: | ||
| 669 | |||
| 670 | * Topic: (relative-pathname). Short description of topic. | ||
| 671 | |||
| 672 | If (as it should have done) the Texinfo file used the @direntry | ||
| 673 | command, you can run the "install-info" command from the current | ||
| 674 | Texinfo distribution to do this automatically -- see the example in | ||
| 675 | the top-level Makefile in the Emacs source. | ||
| 676 | |||
| 677 | If you want to install Info files and you don't have the necessary | ||
| 678 | privileges, you have several options: | ||
| 679 | |||
| 680 | * Info files don't actually need to be installed before being used. You | ||
| 681 | can feed a file name to the Info-goto-node command (invoked by pressing | ||
| 682 | `g' in Info mode) by typing the name of the file in parentheses. This | ||
| 683 | goes to the node named "Top" in that file. For example, to view a Info | ||
| 684 | file named "XXX" in your home directory, you can type this: | ||
| 685 | |||
| 686 | C-h i g (~/XXX) RET | ||
| 687 | |||
| 688 | * You can create your own Info directory. You can tell Emacs where the | ||
| 689 | Info directory is by adding its pathname to the value of the variable | ||
| 690 | Info-default-directory-list. For example, to use a private Info | ||
| 691 | directory which is a subdirectory of your home directory named "Info", | ||
| 692 | you could put this in your .emacs file: | ||
| 693 | |||
| 694 | (setq Info-default-directory-list | ||
| 695 | (cons "~/Info" Info-default-directory-list)) | ||
| 696 | |||
| 697 | You will need a top-level Info file named "dir" in this directory which | ||
| 698 | has everything the system dir file has in it, except it should list | ||
| 699 | only entries for Info files in that directory. You might not need it | ||
| 700 | if all files in this directory were referenced by other "dir" files. | ||
| 701 | The node lists from all dir files in Info-default-directory-list are | ||
| 702 | merged by the Info system. | ||
| 703 | |||
| 704 | 18: How do I print a Texinfo file? | ||
| 705 | |||
| 706 | NOTE: You can't get nicely printed output from Info files; you must still | ||
| 707 | have the original Texinfo source file for the manual you want to print. | ||
| 708 | |||
| 709 | Assuming you have TeX installed on your system, follow these steps: | ||
| 710 | |||
| 711 | 1. Make sure the first line of the Texinfo file looks like this: | ||
| 712 | |||
| 713 | \input texinfo | ||
| 714 | |||
| 715 | You may need to change "texinfo" to the full pathname of the | ||
| 716 | texinfo.tex file, which comes with Emacs as man/texinfo.tex (or copy | ||
| 717 | or link it into the current directory). | ||
| 718 | |||
| 719 | 2. tex XXX.texinfo | ||
| 720 | |||
| 721 | 3. texindex XXX.?? | ||
| 722 | |||
| 723 | The texindex program comes with Emacs as man/texindex.c. | ||
| 724 | |||
| 725 | 4. tex XXX.texinfo | ||
| 726 | |||
| 727 | 5. Print the DVI file XXX.dvi in the normal way for printing DVI files at | ||
| 728 | your site. | ||
| 729 | |||
| 730 | To get more general instructions, retrieve the latest Texinfo package | ||
| 731 | mentioned in question 17. The "texi2dvi" command from it will perform | ||
| 732 | the above steps 1 to 4 for you. | ||
| 733 | |||
| 734 | 19: Can I view Info files without using Emacs? | ||
| 735 | |||
| 736 | Yes. Here are some alternative programs: | ||
| 737 | |||
| 738 | * Info, a stand-alone version of the Info program, comes as part of the | ||
| 739 | Texinfo package. See question 17 for details. | ||
| 740 | |||
| 741 | * Xinfo, a stand-alone version of the Info program that runs under X | ||
| 742 | Windows. You can get it at | ||
| 743 | |||
| 744 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/xinfo/xinfo-1.01.01.tar.gz | ||
| 745 | |||
| 746 | and all mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (See question 92 for a list). | ||
| 747 | |||
| 748 | * Tkinfo, an Info viewer that runs under X Windows and uses Tcl/Tk. You | ||
| 749 | can get Tkinfo at | ||
| 750 | |||
| 751 | http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/tkinfo/ | ||
| 752 | |||
| 753 | 20: What informational files are available for Emacs? | ||
| 754 | |||
| 755 | This isn't a frequently asked question, but it should be! A variety of | ||
| 756 | informational files about Emacs and relevant aspects of the GNU project | ||
| 757 | are available for you to read. | ||
| 758 | |||
| 759 | The following files are available in the "etc" directory of the Emacs | ||
| 760 | distribution (see question 4 if you're not sure where that is). | ||
| 761 | |||
| 762 | COPYING -- Emacs General Public License | ||
| 763 | DISTRIB -- Emacs Availability Information, including the popular | ||
| 764 | "Free Software Foundation Order Form" | ||
| 765 | FAQ -- Emacs Frequently Asked Questions (You're reading it) | ||
| 766 | FTP -- How to get GNU Software by Internet FTP or by UUCP | ||
| 767 | GNU -- The GNU Manifesto | ||
| 768 | INTERVIEW -- Richard Stallman discusses his public-domain | ||
| 769 | UNIX-compatible software system with BYTE editors | ||
| 770 | LPF -- Why you should join the League for Programming Freedom | ||
| 771 | MACHINES -- Status of Emacs on Various Machines and Systems | ||
| 772 | MAILINGLISTS -- GNU Project Electronic Mailing Lists | ||
| 773 | NEWS -- Emacs news, a history of user-visible changes | ||
| 774 | PROBLEMS -- Known problems with building and running Emacs in various | ||
| 775 | situations, often with workarounds. | ||
| 776 | SERVICE -- GNU Service Directory | ||
| 777 | SUN-SUPPORT -- including "Using Emacstool with GNU Emacs" | ||
| 778 | |||
| 779 | Latest versions of some of the above files are also available at | ||
| 780 | |||
| 781 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/ | ||
| 782 | |||
| 783 | More GNU information, including back issues of the "GNU's Bulletin", are at | ||
| 784 | |||
| 785 | http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bulletins.html | ||
| 786 | http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/gnu.html | ||
| 787 | |||
| 788 | 21: Where can I get help in installing Emacs? | ||
| 789 | |||
| 790 | See question 84 for some basic installation hints, and question 83 if you | ||
| 791 | have problems with the installation. | ||
| 792 | |||
| 793 | The file etc/SERVICE (see question 4 if you're not sure where that is) | ||
| 794 | lists companies and individuals willing to sell you help in installing or | ||
| 795 | using Emacs. An up-to-date version this file is available on ftp.gnu.org | ||
| 796 | (see question 20). | ||
| 797 | |||
| 798 | 22: Where can I get the latest version of this document (the FAQ list)? | ||
| 799 | |||
| 800 | The Emacs FAQ is available in several ways: | ||
| 801 | |||
| 802 | * Inside of Emacs itself. You can get it from selecting the "Emacs FAQ" | ||
| 803 | option from the "Help" menu at the top of any Emacs frame, or by typing | ||
| 804 | C-h F (M-x view-emacs-FAQ). | ||
| 805 | |||
| 806 | * Via USENET. If you can read news, the FAQ should be available in your | ||
| 807 | news spool, in both the gnu.emacs.help and comp.emacs newsgroups. | ||
| 808 | Every news reader should allow you to read any news article that is | ||
| 809 | still in the news spool, even if you have read the article before. You | ||
| 810 | may need to read the instructions for your news reader to discover how | ||
| 811 | to do this. In rn, this command will do this for you at the article | ||
| 812 | selection level: | ||
| 813 | |||
| 814 | ?GNU Emacs Frequently Asked Questions?rc:m | ||
| 815 | |||
| 816 | In Gnus, you should type "C-u c-x c-s" from the *Summary* buffer or | ||
| 817 | "C-u SPC" from the *Newsgroup* buffer to view all articles in a | ||
| 818 | newsgroup. | ||
| 819 | |||
| 820 | If the FAQ articles have expired and been deleted from your news spool, | ||
| 821 | it might (or might not) do some good to complain to your news | ||
| 822 | administrator, because the most recent FAQ should not expire for a | ||
| 823 | while. | ||
| 824 | |||
| 825 | * Via HTTP or FTP. You can always fetch the latest FAQ at | ||
| 826 | |||
| 827 | http://www.lerner.co.il/emacs/ | ||
| 828 | |||
| 829 | and | ||
| 830 | |||
| 831 | ftp://ftp.lerner.co.il/pub/emacs/ | ||
| 832 | |||
| 833 | * In the Emacs distribution. Since Emacs 18.56, the FAQ at the time of | ||
| 834 | release has been part of the Emacs distribution as etc/FAQ (see | ||
| 835 | question 4). | ||
| 836 | |||
| 837 | * Via the World Wide Web. A hypertext version is available at | ||
| 838 | |||
| 839 | http://www.lerner.co.il/emacs/ | ||
| 840 | |||
| 841 | * Via anonymous ftp and e-mail from rtfm.mit.edu (and its mirror in | ||
| 842 | Europe), the main repository for FAQs and other items posted to | ||
| 843 | news.answers. The Emacs FAQs are available at | ||
| 844 | |||
| 845 | ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs/ | ||
| 846 | ftp://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/pub/doc/FAQ/comp/emacs/ | ||
| 847 | |||
| 848 | If you do not have access to anonymous FTP, you can access the archives | ||
| 849 | using the rtfm.mit.edu mail server. The Emacs FAQ can be retrieved by | ||
| 850 | sending mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with a blank subject and | ||
| 851 | containing | ||
| 852 | |||
| 853 | send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/diffs | ||
| 854 | send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part1 | ||
| 855 | send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part2 | ||
| 856 | send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part3 | ||
| 857 | send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part4 | ||
| 858 | send usenet/news.answers/GNU-Emacs-FAQ/part5 | ||
| 859 | |||
| 860 | For more information, send email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with | ||
| 861 | "help" and "index" in the body on separate lines. | ||
| 862 | |||
| 863 | * As the very last resort, you can e-mail a request to | ||
| 864 | emacs-faq@lerner.co.il. Don't do this unless you have made a serious | ||
| 865 | effort to obtain the FAQ list via one of the methods listed above. | ||
| 866 | |||
| 867 | |||
| 868 | Status of Emacs | ||
| 869 | |||
| 870 | 23: Where does the name "Emacs" come from? | ||
| 871 | |||
| 872 | Emacs originally was an acronym for Editor MACroS. RMS says he "picked | ||
| 873 | the name Emacs because `E' was not in use as an abbreviation on ITS at | ||
| 874 | the time." The first Emacs was a set of macros written in 1976 at MIT by | ||
| 875 | RMS for the editor TECO (Text Editor and COrrector, originally Tape | ||
| 876 | Editor and COrrector) under ITS on a PDP-10. RMS had already extended | ||
| 877 | TECO with a "real-time" full screen mode with reprogrammable keys. Emacs | ||
| 878 | was started by Guy Steele <gls@east.sun.com> as a project to unify the | ||
| 879 | many divergent TECO command sets and key bindings at MIT, and completed | ||
| 880 | by RMS. | ||
| 881 | |||
| 882 | Many people have said that TECO code looks a lot like line noise. See | ||
| 883 | alt.lang.teco if you are interested. Someone has written a TECO | ||
| 884 | implementation in Emacs Lisp (to find it, see question 90); it would be | ||
| 885 | an interesting project to run the original TECO Emacs inside of Emacs. | ||
| 886 | |||
| 887 | For some not-so-serious alternative reasons for Emacs to have that name, | ||
| 888 | check out etc/JOKES (see question 4). | ||
| 889 | |||
| 890 | 24: What is the latest version of Emacs? | ||
| 891 | |||
| 892 | Emacs 20.4 is the current version as of this writing. | ||
| 893 | |||
| 894 | 25: What is different about Emacs 20? | ||
| 895 | |||
| 896 | To find out what has changed in recent versions, type C-h n (M-x | ||
| 897 | view-emacs-news). The oldest changes are at the bottom of the file, so | ||
| 898 | you might want to read it starting there, rather than at the top. | ||
| 899 | |||
| 900 | The differences between Emacs versions 18 and 19 was rather dramatic; the | ||
| 901 | introduction of frames, faces, and colors on windowing systems was | ||
| 902 | obvious to even the most casual user. | ||
| 903 | |||
| 904 | There are differences between Emacs versions 19 and 20 as well, but many | ||
| 905 | are more subtle or harder to find. Among the changes are the inclusion | ||
| 906 | of MULE code for languages that use non-Latin characters, the "customize" | ||
| 907 | facility for modifying variables without having to use Lisp, and | ||
| 908 | automatic conversion of files from Macintosh, Microsoft, and Unix | ||
| 909 | platforms. | ||
| 910 | |||
| 911 | Many Lisp packages have been updated and enhanced for Emacs 20. | ||
| 912 | |||
| 913 | |||
| 914 | Common Things People Want To Do | ||
| 915 | |||
| 916 | 26: How do I set up a .emacs file properly? | ||
| 917 | |||
| 918 | See "Init File" in the on-line manual. | ||
| 919 | |||
| 920 | WARNING: In general, new Emacs users should not have .emacs files, | ||
| 921 | because it causes confusing non-standard behavior. Then they send | ||
| 922 | questions to help-gnu-emacs asking why Emacs isn't behaving as | ||
| 923 | documented. :-) | ||
| 924 | |||
| 925 | Emacs 20 includes the new "customize" facility, which can be invoked | ||
| 926 | using M-x customize RET or via the Help menu. This allows users who are | ||
| 927 | unfamiliar with Emacs Lisp to modify their .emacs files in a relatively | ||
| 928 | straightforward way, using menus rather than Lisp code. While all the | ||
| 929 | packages included with Emacs (are meant to) support Customize now, | ||
| 930 | packages from other sources may not. | ||
| 931 | |||
| 932 | While Customize might indeed make it easier to configure Emacs, consider | ||
| 933 | taking a bit of time to learn Emacs Lisp and modifying your .emacs | ||
| 934 | directly. Simple configuration options are described rather completely in | ||
| 935 | the "Init File" section of the on-line manual, for users interested in | ||
| 936 | performing frequently requested, basic tasks. | ||
| 937 | |||
| 938 | 27: How do I debug a .emacs file? | ||
| 939 | |||
| 940 | Start Emacs with the "-debug-init" command-line option. This enables the | ||
| 941 | Emacs Lisp debugger before evaluating your .emacs file, and places you in | ||
| 942 | the debugger if something goes wrong. The top line in the trace-back | ||
| 943 | buffer will be the error message, and the second or third line of that | ||
| 944 | buffer will display the Lisp code from your .emacs file that caused the | ||
| 945 | problem. | ||
| 946 | |||
| 947 | You can also evaluate an individual function or argument to a function in | ||
| 948 | your .emacs file by moving the cursor to the end of the function or | ||
| 949 | argument and typing "C-x C-e" (M-x eval-last-sexp). "C-M-x" (M-x | ||
| 950 | eval-defun) is particularly useful for re-evaluating "defvar" and | ||
| 951 | "customize" forms. | ||
| 952 | |||
| 953 | Use "C-h v" (M-x describe-variable) to check the value of variables which | ||
| 954 | you are trying to set or use. | ||
| 955 | |||
| 956 | 28: How do I make Emacs display the current line (or column) number? | ||
| 957 | |||
| 958 | To toggle having Emacs automatically display the current line number of the | ||
| 959 | point in the mode line, do "M-x line-number-mode". (This option is on by | ||
| 960 | default.) Note that Emacs will not display the line number if the buffer is | ||
| 961 | larger than the value of the variable line-number-display-limit. | ||
| 962 | |||
| 963 | As of Emacs 20, you can similarly display the current column with "M-x | ||
| 964 | column-number-mode", by putting the form | ||
| 965 | |||
| 966 | (setq column-number-mode t) | ||
| 967 | |||
| 968 | in your .emacs file or by using Customize. | ||
| 969 | |||
| 970 | The "%c" format specifier in the variable mode-line-format will insert | ||
| 971 | the current column's value into the mode line. See the documentation for | ||
| 972 | mode-line-format (using "C-h v mode-line-format RET") for more | ||
| 973 | information on how to set and use this variable. | ||
| 974 | |||
| 975 | Users of all Emacs versions can display the current column using Per | ||
| 976 | Abrahamsen's <abraham@iesd.auc.dk> "column" package. See question 90 for | ||
| 977 | instructions on how to get it. | ||
| 978 | |||
| 979 | None of the vi emulation modes provide the "set number" capability of vi | ||
| 980 | (as far as we know) but Kyle Jones's setnu.el package implements such a | ||
| 981 | feature. | ||
| 982 | |||
| 983 | 29: How can I modify the titlebar to contain the current filename? | ||
| 984 | |||
| 985 | The contains of an Emacs frame's titlebar is controlled by the variable | ||
| 986 | frame-title-format, which has the same structure as the variable | ||
| 987 | mode-line-format. (Use "C-h v" or "M-x describe-variable" to get | ||
| 988 | information about one or both of these variables.) | ||
| 989 | |||
| 990 | By default, the titlebar for a frame does contain the name of the buffer | ||
| 991 | currently being visited, except if there is a single frame. In such a | ||
| 992 | case, the titlebar contains the name of the user and the machine at which | ||
| 993 | Emacs was invoked. This is done by setting frame-title-format to the | ||
| 994 | default value of | ||
| 995 | |||
| 996 | (multiple-frames "%b" ("" invocation-name "@" system-name)) | ||
| 997 | |||
| 998 | To modify the behavior such that frame titlebars contain the buffer's | ||
| 999 | name regardless of the number of existing frames, include the following | ||
| 1000 | in your .emacs: | ||
| 1001 | |||
| 1002 | (setq frame-title-format "%b") | ||
| 1003 | |||
| 1004 | 30: How do I turn on abbrevs by default just in mode XXX? | ||
| 1005 | |||
| 1006 | Put this in your .emacs file: | ||
| 1007 | |||
| 1008 | (condition-case () | ||
| 1009 | (quietly-read-abbrev-file) | ||
| 1010 | (file-error nil)) | ||
| 1011 | |||
| 1012 | (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook | ||
| 1013 | (lambda () | ||
| 1014 | (setq abbrev-mode t))) | ||
| 1015 | |||
| 1016 | 31: How do I turn on auto-fill mode by default? | ||
| 1017 | |||
| 1018 | To turn on auto-fill mode just once for one buffer, use "M-x | ||
| 1019 | auto-fill-mode". | ||
| 1020 | |||
| 1021 | To turn it on for every buffer in a certain mode, you must use the hook | ||
| 1022 | for that mode. For example, to turn on auto-fill mode for all text | ||
| 1023 | buffers, including the following in your .emacs file: | ||
| 1024 | |||
| 1025 | (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill) | ||
| 1026 | |||
| 1027 | You can also do this via the Help -> Options menu, which runs the command | ||
| 1028 | toggle-text-mode-auto-fill. | ||
| 1029 | |||
| 1030 | If you want auto-fill mode on in all major modes, do this: | ||
| 1031 | |||
| 1032 | (setq-default auto-fill-function 'do-auto-fill) | ||
| 1033 | |||
| 1034 | 32: How do I make Emacs use a certain major mode for certain files? | ||
| 1035 | |||
| 1036 | If you want to use XXX mode for all files which end with the extension | ||
| 1037 | ".YYY", this will do it for you: | ||
| 1038 | |||
| 1039 | (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.YYY\\'" . XXX-mode)) | ||
| 1040 | |||
| 1041 | Otherwise put this somewhere in the first line of any file you want to | ||
| 1042 | edit in XXX mode (in the second line, if the first line begins with | ||
| 1043 | "#!"): | ||
| 1044 | |||
| 1045 | -*-XXX-*- | ||
| 1046 | |||
| 1047 | Beginning with Emacs 19, the variable interpreter-mode-alist specifies | ||
| 1048 | which mode to use when loading a shell script. (Emacs determines which | ||
| 1049 | interpreter you're using by examining the first line of the file.) This | ||
| 1050 | feature only applies when the file name doesn't indicate which mode to | ||
| 1051 | use. Use "C-h v" (or M-x describe-variable) on interpreter-mode-alist to | ||
| 1052 | learn more. | ||
| 1053 | |||
| 1054 | 33: How do I search for, delete, or replace unprintable (8-bit or control) | ||
| 1055 | characters? | ||
| 1056 | |||
| 1057 | To search for a single character that appears in the buffer as, for | ||
| 1058 | example, "\237", you can type "C-s C-q 2 3 7". (This assumes the value | ||
| 1059 | of search-quote-char is 17 (i.e., `C-q').) Searching for ALL unprintable | ||
| 1060 | characters is best done with a regular expression ("regexp") search. The | ||
| 1061 | easiest regexp to use for the unprintable chars is the complement of the | ||
| 1062 | regexp for the printable chars. | ||
| 1063 | |||
| 1064 | Regexp for the printable chars: [\t\n\r\f -~] | ||
| 1065 | Regexp for the unprintable chars: [^\t\n\r\f -~] | ||
| 1066 | |||
| 1067 | To type these special characters in an interactive argument to | ||
| 1068 | isearch-forward-regexp or re-search-forward, you need to use C-q. (`\t', | ||
| 1069 | `\n', `\r', and `\f' stand respectively for TAB, LFD, RET, and C-l.) So, | ||
| 1070 | to search for unprintable characters using re-search-forward: | ||
| 1071 | |||
| 1072 | M-x re-search-forward RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET | ||
| 1073 | |||
| 1074 | Using isearch-forward-regexp: | ||
| 1075 | |||
| 1076 | M-C-s [^ TAB RET C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] | ||
| 1077 | |||
| 1078 | To delete all unprintable characters, simply use replace-regexp: | ||
| 1079 | |||
| 1080 | M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET RET | ||
| 1081 | |||
| 1082 | Replacing is similar to the above. To replace all unprintable characters | ||
| 1083 | with a colon, use: | ||
| 1084 | |||
| 1085 | M-x replace-regexp RET [^ TAB C-q LFD C-q RET C-q C-l SPC -~] RET : RET | ||
| 1086 | |||
| 1087 | NOTE: * You don't need to quote TAB with either isearch or typing | ||
| 1088 | something in the minibuffer. | ||
| 1089 | |||
| 1090 | 34: How can I highlight a region of text in Emacs? | ||
| 1091 | |||
| 1092 | If you are using a windowing system such as X, you can cause the region | ||
| 1093 | to be highlighted when the mark is active by including | ||
| 1094 | |||
| 1095 | (transient-mark-mode t) | ||
| 1096 | |||
| 1097 | in your .emacs file, using Customize or via the Help->Options menu. | ||
| 1098 | (Also see question 66.) | ||
| 1099 | |||
| 1100 | 35: How do I control Emacs's case-sensitivity when searching/replacing? | ||
| 1101 | |||
| 1102 | For searching, the value of the variable case-fold-search determines | ||
| 1103 | whether they are case sensitive: | ||
| 1104 | |||
| 1105 | (setq case-fold-search nil) ; make searches case sensitive | ||
| 1106 | (setq case-fold-search t) ; make searches case insensitive | ||
| 1107 | |||
| 1108 | To change this or similar variables during an Emacs session, use | ||
| 1109 | M-x set-variable. | ||
| 1110 | |||
| 1111 | Similarly, for replacing, the variable case-replace determines whether | ||
| 1112 | replacements preserve case. | ||
| 1113 | |||
| 1114 | To change the case sensitivity just for one major mode, use the major | ||
| 1115 | mode's hook. For example: | ||
| 1116 | |||
| 1117 | (add-hook 'XXX-mode-hook | ||
| 1118 | (lambda () | ||
| 1119 | (setq case-fold-search nil))) | ||
| 1120 | |||
| 1121 | 36: How do I make Emacs wrap words for me? | ||
| 1122 | |||
| 1123 | Use auto-fill mode, activated by typing "M-x auto-fill-mode". The | ||
| 1124 | default maximum line width is 70, determined by the variable fill-column. | ||
| 1125 | To learn how to turn this on automatically, see question 31. | ||
| 1126 | |||
| 1127 | 37: Where can I get a better spelling checker for Emacs? | ||
| 1128 | |||
| 1129 | Use Ispell. See question 110. | ||
| 1130 | |||
| 1131 | 38: How can I spell-check TeX or *roff documents? | ||
| 1132 | |||
| 1133 | Use Ispell. See question 110. Ispell can handle TeX and *roff | ||
| 1134 | documents. | ||
| 1135 | |||
| 1136 | 39: How do I change load-path? | ||
| 1137 | |||
| 1138 | In general, you should only *add* to the load-path. You can add | ||
| 1139 | directory /XXX/YYY to the load path like this: | ||
| 1140 | |||
| 1141 | (setq load-path (cons "/XXX/YYY/" load-path)) | ||
| 1142 | |||
| 1143 | To do this relative to your home directory: | ||
| 1144 | |||
| 1145 | (setq load-path (cons "~/YYY/" load-path) | ||
| 1146 | |||
| 1147 | 40: How do I use an already running Emacs from another window? | ||
| 1148 | |||
| 1149 | Emacsclient, which comes with Emacs, is for editing a file using an | ||
| 1150 | already running Emacs rather than starting up a new Emacs. It does this | ||
| 1151 | by sending a request to the already running Emacs, which must be | ||
| 1152 | expecting the request. | ||
| 1153 | |||
| 1154 | * Setup | ||
| 1155 | |||
| 1156 | Emacs must have executed the "server-start" function for emacsclient to | ||
| 1157 | work. This can be done either by a command line option: | ||
| 1158 | |||
| 1159 | emacs -f server-start | ||
| 1160 | |||
| 1161 | or by invoking server-start from the .emacs file: | ||
| 1162 | |||
| 1163 | (if (some conditions are met) (server-start)) | ||
| 1164 | |||
| 1165 | When this is done, Emacs starts a subprocess running a program called | ||
| 1166 | "server". "server" creates a Unix domain socket in the user's home | ||
| 1167 | directory named .emacs_server. | ||
| 1168 | |||
| 1169 | To get your news reader, mail reader, etc., to invoke emacsclient, try | ||
| 1170 | setting the environment variable EDITOR (or sometimes VISUAL) to the | ||
| 1171 | value "emacsclient". You may have to specify the full pathname of the | ||
| 1172 | emacsclient program instead. Examples: | ||
| 1173 | |||
| 1174 | # csh commands: | ||
| 1175 | setenv EDITOR emacsclient | ||
| 1176 | setenv EDITOR /usr/local/emacs/etc/emacsclient # using full pathname | ||
| 1177 | |||
| 1178 | # sh command: | ||
| 1179 | EDITOR=emacsclient ; export EDITOR | ||
| 1180 | |||
| 1181 | * Normal use | ||
| 1182 | |||
| 1183 | When emacsclient is run, it connects to the ".emacs_server" socket and | ||
| 1184 | passes its command line options to "server". When "server" receives | ||
| 1185 | these requests, it sends this information on the the Emacs process, | ||
| 1186 | which at the next opportunity will visit the files specified. (Line | ||
| 1187 | numbers can be specified just like with Emacs.) The user will have to | ||
| 1188 | switch to the Emacs window by hand. When the user is done editing a | ||
| 1189 | file, the user can type "C-x #" (or M-x server-edit) to indicate this. | ||
| 1190 | If there is another buffer requested by emacsclient, Emacs will switch | ||
| 1191 | to it; otherwise emacsclient will exit, signaling the calling program | ||
| 1192 | to continue. | ||
| 1193 | |||
| 1194 | NOTE: "emacsclient" and "server" must be running on machines which | ||
| 1195 | share the same filesystem for this to work. The pathnames that | ||
| 1196 | emacsclient specifies should be correct for the filesystem that the | ||
| 1197 | Emacs process sees. The Emacs process should not be suspended at the | ||
| 1198 | time emacsclient is invoked. emacsclient should either be invoked from | ||
| 1199 | another X window or from a shell window inside Emacs itself. | ||
| 1200 | |||
| 1201 | There is an enhanced version of emacsclient/server called "gnuserv" by | ||
| 1202 | Andy Norman <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com> which is available in the Emacs Lisp | ||
| 1203 | Archive (see question 90). Gnuserv uses Internet domain sockets, so it | ||
| 1204 | can work across most network connections. It also supports the | ||
| 1205 | execution of arbitrary Emacs Lisp forms and does not require the client | ||
| 1206 | program to wait for completion. | ||
| 1207 | |||
| 1208 | The alpha version of an enhanced version of gnuserv is available at | ||
| 1209 | |||
| 1210 | ftp://ftp.splode.com/pub/users/friedman/packages/fgnuserv-1.0.tar.gz | ||
| 1211 | |||
| 1212 | 41: How do I make Emacs recognize my compiler's funny error messages? | ||
| 1213 | |||
| 1214 | The variable compilation-error-regexp-alist helps control how Emacs | ||
| 1215 | parses your compiler output. It is a list of triples of the form: | ||
| 1216 | |||
| 1217 | (REGEXP FILE-IDX LINE-IDX) | ||
| 1218 | |||
| 1219 | where REGEXP, FILE-IDX and LINE-IDX are strings. To help determine what | ||
| 1220 | the constituent elements should be, load compile.el and then use | ||
| 1221 | |||
| 1222 | C-h v compilation-error-regexp-alist RET | ||
| 1223 | |||
| 1224 | to see the current value. A good idea is to look at compile.el itself as | ||
| 1225 | the comments included for this variable are quite useful -- the regular | ||
| 1226 | expressions required for your compiler's output may be very close to one | ||
| 1227 | already provided. Once you have determined the proper regexps, use the | ||
| 1228 | following to inform Emacs of your changes: | ||
| 1229 | |||
| 1230 | (add-to-list 'compilation-error-regexp-alist | ||
| 1231 | '(REGEXP FILE-IDX LINE-IDX)) | ||
| 1232 | |||
| 1233 | 42: How do I indent C switch statements like this? | ||
| 1234 | |||
| 1235 | Many people want to indent their switch statements like this: | ||
| 1236 | |||
| 1237 | f() | ||
| 1238 | { | ||
| 1239 | switch(x) { | ||
| 1240 | case A: | ||
| 1241 | x1; | ||
| 1242 | break; | ||
| 1243 | case B: | ||
| 1244 | x2; | ||
| 1245 | break; | ||
| 1246 | default: | ||
| 1247 | x3; | ||
| 1248 | } | ||
| 1249 | } | ||
| 1250 | |||
| 1251 | The solution at first appears to be: set c-indent-level to 4 and | ||
| 1252 | c-label-offset to -2. However, this will give you an indentation spacing | ||
| 1253 | of four instead of two. | ||
| 1254 | |||
| 1255 | The solution is to use cc-mode (the default mode for C programming in | ||
| 1256 | Emacs 20) and add the following line: | ||
| 1257 | |||
| 1258 | (c-set-offset 'case-label '+) | ||
| 1259 | |||
| 1260 | There appears to be no way to do this with the old c-mode. | ||
| 1261 | |||
| 1262 | 43: How can I make Emacs automatically scroll horizontally? | ||
| 1263 | |||
| 1264 | Use hscroll-mode, included in Emacs 20. Here is some information from | ||
| 1265 | the documentation, available by typing C-h f hscroll-mode RET: | ||
| 1266 | |||
| 1267 | Automatically scroll horizontally when the point moves off the | ||
| 1268 | left or right edge of the window. | ||
| 1269 | |||
| 1270 | - Type "M-x hscroll-mode" to enable it in the current buffer. | ||
| 1271 | - Type "M-x hscroll-global-mode" to enable it in every buffer. | ||
| 1272 | - "turn-on-hscroll" is useful in mode hooks as in: | ||
| 1273 | (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'turn-on-hscroll) | ||
| 1274 | |||
| 1275 | - hscroll-margin controls how close the cursor can get to the edge | ||
| 1276 | of the window. | ||
| 1277 | - hscroll-step-percent controls how far to jump once we decide to do so. | ||
| 1278 | |||
| 1279 | 44: How do I make Emacs "typeover" or "overwrite" instead of inserting? | ||
| 1280 | |||
| 1281 | M-x overwrite-mode (a minor mode). This toggles overwrite-mode on and | ||
| 1282 | off, so exiting from overwrite-mode is as easy as another M-x | ||
| 1283 | overwrite-mode. | ||
| 1284 | |||
| 1285 | On some systems the "Insert" key toggles overwrite-mode on and off. | ||
| 1286 | |||
| 1287 | 45: How do I stop Emacs from beeping on a terminal? | ||
| 1288 | |||
| 1289 | Martin R. Frank <martin@cc.gatech.edu> writes: | ||
| 1290 | |||
| 1291 | Tell Emacs to use the "visible bell" instead of the audible bell, and | ||
| 1292 | set the visible bell to nothing. | ||
| 1293 | |||
| 1294 | That is, put the following in your TERMCAP environment variable | ||
| 1295 | (assuming you have one): | ||
| 1296 | |||
| 1297 | ... :vb=: ... | ||
| 1298 | |||
| 1299 | And evaluate the following Lisp form: | ||
| 1300 | |||
| 1301 | (setq visible-bell t) | ||
| 1302 | |||
| 1303 | There is also a way to turn off _all_ effects of a bell, by defining | ||
| 1304 | a custom `ring-bell-function' that does nothing. | ||
| 1305 | |||
| 1306 | 46: How do I turn down the bell volume in Emacs running under X Windows? | ||
| 1307 | |||
| 1308 | You can adjust the bell volume and duration for all programs with the | ||
| 1309 | shell command xset. | ||
| 1310 | |||
| 1311 | Invoking xset without any arguments produces some basic information, | ||
| 1312 | including the following: | ||
| 1313 | |||
| 1314 | usage: xset [-display host:dpy] option ... | ||
| 1315 | To turn bell off: | ||
| 1316 | -b b off b 0 | ||
| 1317 | To set bell volume, pitch and duration: | ||
| 1318 | b [vol [pitch [dur]]] b on | ||
| 1319 | |||
| 1320 | 47: How do I tell Emacs to automatically indent a new line to the | ||
| 1321 | indentation of the previous line? | ||
| 1322 | |||
| 1323 | Such behavior is automatic in text mode in Emacs 20. From the NEWS file | ||
| 1324 | for Emacs 20.2: | ||
| 1325 | |||
| 1326 | ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs. This makes | ||
| 1327 | it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode in Text mode, | ||
| 1328 | and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode). TAB in Text mode | ||
| 1329 | now runs the command indent-relative; this makes a practical difference | ||
| 1330 | only when you use indented paragraphs. | ||
| 1331 | |||
| 1332 | As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode, | ||
| 1333 | and is an alias for it. | ||
| 1334 | |||
| 1335 | If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph, use | ||
| 1336 | the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode. | ||
| 1337 | |||
| 1338 | If you have auto-fill mode on (see question 31), you can tell Emacs to | ||
| 1339 | prefix every line with a certain character sequence, the "fill prefix." | ||
| 1340 | Type the prefix at the beginning of a line, position point after it, and | ||
| 1341 | then type "C-x ." (set-fill-prefix) to set the fill prefix. Thereafter, | ||
| 1342 | auto-filling will automatically put the fill prefix at the beginning of | ||
| 1343 | new lines, and M-q (fill-paragraph) will maintain any fill prefix when | ||
| 1344 | refilling the paragraph. | ||
| 1345 | |||
| 1346 | NOTE: If you have paragraphs with different levels of indentation, you | ||
| 1347 | will have to set the fill prefix to the correct value each time you move | ||
| 1348 | to a new paragraph. To avoid this hassle, try one of the many packages | ||
| 1349 | available from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 90.) Look up "fill" | ||
| 1350 | and "indent" in the Lisp Code Directory for guidance. | ||
| 1351 | |||
| 1352 | 48: How do I show which parenthesis matches the one I'm looking at? | ||
| 1353 | |||
| 1354 | As of version 19, Emacs comes with paren.el, which (when loaded) will | ||
| 1355 | automatically highlight matching parentheses whenever point (i.e., the | ||
| 1356 | cursor) is located over one. To load paren automatically, include the | ||
| 1357 | line | ||
| 1358 | |||
| 1359 | (require 'paren) | ||
| 1360 | |||
| 1361 | in your .emacs file. As of version 20.1, you must instead call | ||
| 1362 | show-paren-mode in your .emacs file: | ||
| 1363 | |||
| 1364 | (show-paren-mode 1) | ||
| 1365 | |||
| 1366 | and the "require" is redundant. | ||
| 1367 | |||
| 1368 | The "customize" facility will let you turn on show-paren-mode. Use M-x | ||
| 1369 | customize-group RET paren-showing RET. From within customize, you can | ||
| 1370 | also go directly to the "paren-showing" group. | ||
| 1371 | |||
| 1372 | Alternatives to paren include: | ||
| 1373 | |||
| 1374 | * If you're looking at a right parenthesis (or brace or bracket) you can | ||
| 1375 | delete it and reinsert it. Emacs will blink the cursor on the matching | ||
| 1376 | parenthesis. | ||
| 1377 | |||
| 1378 | * M-C-f (forward-sexp) and M-C-b (backward-sexp) will skip over one set | ||
| 1379 | of balanced parentheses, so you can see which parentheses match. (You | ||
| 1380 | can train it to skip over balanced brackets and braces at the same time | ||
| 1381 | by modifying the syntax table.) | ||
| 1382 | |||
| 1383 | * Here is some Emacs Lisp that will make the % key show the matching | ||
| 1384 | parenthesis, like in vi. In addition, if the cursor isn't over a | ||
| 1385 | parenthesis, it simply inserts a % like normal. (`Parenthesis' actually | ||
| 1386 | includes and character with `open' or `close' syntax, which usually means | ||
| 1387 | "()[]{}".) | ||
| 1388 | |||
| 1389 | ;; By an unknown contributor | ||
| 1390 | |||
| 1391 | (global-set-key "%" 'match-paren) | ||
| 1392 | |||
| 1393 | (defun match-paren (arg) | ||
| 1394 | "Go to the matching parenthesis if on parenthesis otherwise insert %." | ||
| 1395 | (interactive "p") | ||
| 1396 | (cond ((looking-at "\\s\(") (forward-list 1) (backward-char 1)) | ||
| 1397 | ((looking-at "\\s\)") (forward-char 1) (backward-list 1)) | ||
| 1398 | (t (self-insert-command (or arg 1))))) | ||
| 1399 | |||
| 1400 | 49: In C mode, can I show just the lines that will be left after #ifdef | ||
| 1401 | commands are handled by the compiler? | ||
| 1402 | |||
| 1403 | M-x hide-ifdef-mode. (This is a minor mode.) You might also want to try | ||
| 1404 | cpp.el, available at the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question 90). | ||
| 1405 | |||
| 1406 | 50: Is there an equivalent to the `.' (dot) command of vi? | ||
| 1407 | |||
| 1408 | (`.' is the redo command in vi. It redoes the last insertion/deletion.) | ||
| 1409 | |||
| 1410 | In Emacs 20.3 and later, use the C-x z ("repeat") command to repeat `simple | ||
| 1411 | commands'. | ||
| 1412 | |||
| 1413 | Otherwise you can type "C-x ESC ESC" (repeat-complex-command) to reinvoke | ||
| 1414 | commands that used the minibuffer to get arguments. In | ||
| 1415 | repeat-complex-command you can type M-p and M-n to scan through all the | ||
| 1416 | different complex commands you've typed. | ||
| 1417 | |||
| 1418 | To repeat a set of commands, use keyboard macros. (See "Keyboard Macros" | ||
| 1419 | in the on-line manual.) | ||
| 1420 | |||
| 1421 | VIPER, which comes with Emacs, emulates vi, including `.'. (See question | ||
| 1422 | 107.) | ||
| 1423 | |||
| 1424 | 51: What are the valid X resource settings (i.e., stuff in .Xdefaults)? | ||
| 1425 | |||
| 1426 | See Emacs man page, or "Resources X" in the on-line manual. | ||
| 1427 | |||
| 1428 | You can also use a resource editor, such as editres (for X11R5 and | ||
| 1429 | onwards), to look at the resource names for the menu bar, assuming Emacs | ||
| 1430 | was compiled with the X toolkit. | ||
| 1431 | |||
| 1432 | 52: How do I execute ("evaluate") a piece of Emacs Lisp code? | ||
| 1433 | |||
| 1434 | There are a number of ways to execute ("evaluate," in Lisp lingo) an | ||
| 1435 | Emacs Lisp "form": | ||
| 1436 | |||
| 1437 | * If you want it evaluated every time you run Emacs, put it in a file | ||
| 1438 | named ".emacs" in your home directory. This is known as your ".emacs | ||
| 1439 | file," and contains all of your personal customizations. | ||
| 1440 | |||
| 1441 | * You can type the form in the *scratch* buffer, and then type LFD (or | ||
| 1442 | C-j) after it. The result of evaluating the form will be inserted in | ||
| 1443 | the buffer. | ||
| 1444 | |||
| 1445 | * In Emacs-Lisp mode, typing M-C-x evaluates a top-level form before or | ||
| 1446 | around point. | ||
| 1447 | |||
| 1448 | * Typing "C-x C-e" in any buffer evaluates the Lisp form immediately | ||
| 1449 | before point and prints its value in the echo area. | ||
| 1450 | |||
| 1451 | * Typing M-: or M-x eval-expression allows you to type a Lisp form | ||
| 1452 | in the minibuffer which will be evaluated. | ||
| 1453 | |||
| 1454 | * You can use M-x load-file to have Emacs evaluate all the Lisp forms in | ||
| 1455 | a file. (To do this from Lisp use the function "load" instead.) | ||
| 1456 | |||
| 1457 | These functions are also useful (see question 16 if you want to learn | ||
| 1458 | more about them): | ||
| 1459 | |||
| 1460 | load-library, eval-region, eval-current-buffer, require, autoload | ||
| 1461 | |||
| 1462 | 53: How do I change Emacs's idea of the tab character's length? | ||
| 1463 | |||
| 1464 | Set the variable default-tab-width. For example, to set tab stops every | ||
| 1465 | 10 characters, insert the following in your .emacs file: | ||
| 1466 | |||
| 1467 | (setq default-tab-width 10) | ||
| 1468 | |||
| 1469 | Do not confuse variable tab-width with variable tab-stop-list. The | ||
| 1470 | former is used for the display of literal tab characters. The latter | ||
| 1471 | controls what characters are inserted when you press the TAB character in | ||
| 1472 | certain modes. | ||
| 1473 | |||
| 1474 | 54: How do I insert `>' at the beginning of every line? | ||
| 1475 | |||
| 1476 | To do this to an entire buffer, type "M-< M-x replace-regexp RET ^ RET > | ||
| 1477 | RET". | ||
| 1478 | |||
| 1479 | To do this to a region, use "string-rectangle" ("C-x r t"). Set the mark | ||
| 1480 | (`C-SPC') at the beginning of the first line you want to prefix, move the | ||
| 1481 | cursor to last line to be prefixed, and type "C-x r t > RET". To do this | ||
| 1482 | for the whole buffer, type "C-x h C-x r t > RET". In Emacs 20.3 and | ||
| 1483 | later, this will affect only the current region if Transient Mark mode is | ||
| 1484 | on (see NEWS via C-h N). | ||
| 1485 | |||
| 1486 | If you are trying to prefix a yanked mail message with '>', you might | ||
| 1487 | want to set the variable mail-yank-prefix. Better yet, get the Supercite | ||
| 1488 | package (see question 105), which provides flexible citation for yanked | ||
| 1489 | mail and news messages. | ||
| 1490 | |||
| 1491 | 55: How do I insert "_^H" before each character in a region to get an | ||
| 1492 | underlined paragraph? | ||
| 1493 | |||
| 1494 | M-x underline-region. | ||
| 1495 | |||
| 1496 | 56: How do I repeat a command as many times as possible? | ||
| 1497 | |||
| 1498 | Use "C-x (" and "C-x )" to make a keyboard macro that invokes the command | ||
| 1499 | and then type "M-0 C-x e". | ||
| 1500 | |||
| 1501 | WARNING: any messages your command prints in the echo area will be | ||
| 1502 | suppressed. | ||
| 1503 | |||
| 1504 | 57: How do I make Emacs behave like this: when I go up or down, the cursor | ||
| 1505 | should stay in the same column even if the line is too short? | ||
| 1506 | |||
| 1507 | M-x picture-mode. | ||
| 1508 | |||
| 1509 | 58: How do I tell Emacs to iconify itself? | ||
| 1510 | |||
| 1511 | "C-z" iconifies Emacs when running under X Windows and suspends Emacs | ||
| 1512 | otherwise. See "Misc X" in the on-line manual. | ||
| 1513 | |||
| 1514 | 59: How do I use regexps (regular expressions) in Emacs? | ||
| 1515 | |||
| 1516 | See "Regexps" in the on-line manual. | ||
| 1517 | |||
| 1518 | WARNING: The "or" operator is `\|', not `|', and the grouping operators | ||
| 1519 | are `\(' and `\)'. Also, the string syntax for a backslash is `\\'. To | ||
| 1520 | specify a regular expression like xxx\(foo\|bar\) in a Lisp string, use | ||
| 1521 | |||
| 1522 | "xxx\\(foo\\|bar\\)" | ||
| 1523 | |||
| 1524 | Notice the doubled backslashes! | ||
| 1525 | |||
| 1526 | WARNING: Unlike in Unix grep, sed, etc., a complement character set | ||
| 1527 | ([^...]) can match a newline character (LFD aka C-j aka \n), unless | ||
| 1528 | newline is mentioned as one of the characters not to match. | ||
| 1529 | |||
| 1530 | WARNING: The character syntax regexps (e.g., "\sw") are not meaningful | ||
| 1531 | inside character set regexps (e.g., "[aeiou]"). (This is actually | ||
| 1532 | typical for regexp syntax.) | ||
| 1533 | |||
| 1534 | 60: How do I perform a replace operation across more than one file? | ||
| 1535 | |||
| 1536 | The "tags" feature of Emacs includes the command tags-query-replace which | ||
| 1537 | performs a query-replace across all the files mentioned in the TAGS file. | ||
| 1538 | See "Tags Search" in the on-line manual. | ||
| 1539 | |||
| 1540 | As of Emacs 19.29, Dired mode ("M-x dired RET", or C-x d) supports the | ||
| 1541 | command dired-do-query-replace, which allows users to replace regular | ||
| 1542 | expressions in multiple files. | ||
| 1543 | |||
| 1544 | 61: Where is the documentation for "etags"? | ||
| 1545 | |||
| 1546 | "etags" is documented in the Tags node of the Emacs manual. The "etags" | ||
| 1547 | man page should be in the same place as the "emacs" man page. | ||
| 1548 | |||
| 1549 | Quick command-line switch descriptions are also available. For example, | ||
| 1550 | "etags -H". | ||
| 1551 | |||
| 1552 | 62: How do I disable backup files? | ||
| 1553 | |||
| 1554 | You probably don't want to do this, since backups are useful. | ||
| 1555 | |||
| 1556 | To avoid seeing backup files (and other "uninteresting" files) in Dired, | ||
| 1557 | load dired-x by adding the following to your .emacs file: | ||
| 1558 | |||
| 1559 | (add-hook 'dired-load-hook | ||
| 1560 | (function (lambda () | ||
| 1561 | (load "dired-x")))) | ||
| 1562 | |||
| 1563 | With dired-x loaded, `M-o' toggles omitting in each dired buffer. You | ||
| 1564 | can make omitting the default for new dired buffers by putting the | ||
| 1565 | following in your .emacs: | ||
| 1566 | |||
| 1567 | (setq initial-dired-omit-files-p t) | ||
| 1568 | |||
| 1569 | If you're tired of seeing backup files whenever you do an "ls" at the | ||
| 1570 | Unix shell, try GNU ls with the "-B" option. GNU ls is part of the GNU | ||
| 1571 | fileutils package, available at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org (see question 92). | ||
| 1572 | |||
| 1573 | To disable or change how backups are made, see "Backup Names" in the | ||
| 1574 | on-line manual. | ||
| 1575 | |||
| 1576 | 63: How do I disable auto-save-mode? | ||
| 1577 | |||
| 1578 | You probably don't want to do this, since auto-saving is useful, | ||
| 1579 | especially when Emacs or your computer crashes while you are editing a | ||
| 1580 | document. | ||
| 1581 | |||
| 1582 | Instead, you might want to change the variable auto-save-interval, which | ||
| 1583 | specifies how many keystrokes Emacs waits before auto-saving. Increasing | ||
| 1584 | this value forces Emacs to wait longer between auto-saves, which might | ||
| 1585 | annoy you less. | ||
| 1586 | |||
| 1587 | You might also want to look into Sebastian Kremer's auto-save package, | ||
| 1588 | available from the Lisp Code Archive (see question 90). This package | ||
| 1589 | also allows you to place all auto-save files in one directory, such as | ||
| 1590 | /tmp. | ||
| 1591 | |||
| 1592 | To disable or change how auto-save-mode works, see "Auto Save" in the | ||
| 1593 | on-line manual. | ||
| 1594 | |||
| 1595 | 64: How can I create or modify new pull-down menu options? | ||
| 1596 | |||
| 1597 | Each menu title (e.g., Buffers, File, Edit) represents a local or global | ||
| 1598 | keymap. Selecting a menu title with the mouse displays that keymap's | ||
| 1599 | non-nil contents in the form of a menu. | ||
| 1600 | |||
| 1601 | So to add a menu option to an existing menu, all you have to do is add a | ||
| 1602 | new definition to the appropriate keymap. Adding a "forward word" | ||
| 1603 | command to the "Edit" menu thus requires the following Lisp code: | ||
| 1604 | |||
| 1605 | (define-key global-map | ||
| 1606 | [menu-bar edit forward] | ||
| 1607 | '("Forward word" . forward-word)) | ||
| 1608 | |||
| 1609 | The first line adds the entry to the global keymap, which includes global | ||
| 1610 | menu bar entries. Replacing the reference to "global-map" with a local | ||
| 1611 | keymap would add this menu option only within a particular mode. | ||
| 1612 | |||
| 1613 | The second line describes the path from the menu-bar to the new entry. | ||
| 1614 | Placing this menu entry underneath the "File" menu would mean changing | ||
| 1615 | the word "edit" in the second line to "file." | ||
| 1616 | |||
| 1617 | The third line is a cons cell whose first element is the title that will | ||
| 1618 | be displayed, and whose second element is the function that will be | ||
| 1619 | called when that menu option is invoked. | ||
| 1620 | |||
| 1621 | To add a new menu, rather than a new option to an existing menu, we must | ||
| 1622 | define an entirely new keymap: | ||
| 1623 | |||
| 1624 | (define-key global-map [menu-bar words] | ||
| 1625 | (cons "Words" (make-sparse-keymap "Words"))) | ||
| 1626 | |||
| 1627 | The above code creates a new sparse keymap, gives it the name "Words", | ||
| 1628 | and attaches it to the global menu bar. Adding the "forward word" | ||
| 1629 | command to this new menu would thus require the following code: | ||
| 1630 | |||
| 1631 | (define-key global-map | ||
| 1632 | [menu-bar words forward] | ||
| 1633 | '("Forward word" . forward-word)) | ||
| 1634 | |||
| 1635 | Note that because of the way keymaps work, menu options are displayed | ||
| 1636 | with the more recently defined items at the top. Thus if you were to | ||
| 1637 | define menu options "foo", "bar", and "baz" (in that order), menu option | ||
| 1638 | "baz" would appear at the top, and "foo" would be at the bottom. | ||
| 1639 | |||
| 1640 | One way to avoid this problem is to use the function define-key-after, | ||
| 1641 | which works the same as define-key, but lets you modify where items | ||
| 1642 | appear. The following Lisp code would insert the "forward word" function | ||
| 1643 | in the "edit" menu immediately following the "undo" option: | ||
| 1644 | |||
| 1645 | (define-key-after | ||
| 1646 | (lookup-key global-map [menu-bar edit]) | ||
| 1647 | [forward] | ||
| 1648 | '("Forward word" . forward-word) | ||
| 1649 | 'undo) | ||
| 1650 | |||
| 1651 | Note how the second and third arguments to define-key-after are different | ||
| 1652 | from those of define-key, and that we have added a new (final) argument, | ||
| 1653 | the function after which our new key should be defined. | ||
| 1654 | |||
| 1655 | To move a menu option from one position to another, simply evaluate | ||
| 1656 | define-key-after with the appropriate final argument. | ||
| 1657 | |||
| 1658 | More detailed information -- and more examples of how to create and | ||
| 1659 | modify menu options -- are in the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual, under | ||
| 1660 | "Menu Keymaps." (See question 16 for information on this manual.) | ||
| 1661 | |||
| 1662 | Note that Emacs 20.3 introduced a better (`extended') format for menu | ||
| 1663 | items, described in the NEWS file and the Lisp Manual. The "easymenu" | ||
| 1664 | package provides support for defining menus conveniently with some | ||
| 1665 | portability amongst Emacs versions. | ||
| 1666 | |||
| 1667 | 65: How do I delete menus and menu options? | ||
| 1668 | |||
| 1669 | The simplest way to remove a menu is to set its keymap to nil. For | ||
| 1670 | example, to delete the "Words" menu (from question 64), use: | ||
| 1671 | |||
| 1672 | (define-key global-map [menu-bar words] nil) | ||
| 1673 | |||
| 1674 | Similarly, removing a menu option requires redefining a keymap entry to | ||
| 1675 | nil. For example, to delete the "Forward word" menu option from the | ||
| 1676 | "Edit" menu (we added it in question 64), use: | ||
| 1677 | |||
| 1678 | (define-key global-map [menu-bar edit forward] nil) | ||
| 1679 | |||
| 1680 | 66: How do I turn on syntax highlighting? | ||
| 1681 | |||
| 1682 | Font-lock mode is the standard way to have Emacs perform syntax | ||
| 1683 | highlighting. With font-lock mode invoked, different types of text will | ||
| 1684 | appear in different colors. For instance, if you turn on font-lock in a | ||
| 1685 | programming mode, variables will appear in one face, keywords in a | ||
| 1686 | second, and comments in a third. | ||
| 1687 | |||
| 1688 | Earlier versions of Emacs supported hilit19, a similar package. Use of | ||
| 1689 | hilit19 is now considered non-standard, although hilit19.el comes with | ||
| 1690 | the stock Emacs distribution. It is no longer maintained. | ||
| 1691 | |||
| 1692 | To turn font-lock mode on within an existing buffer, use "M-x | ||
| 1693 | font-lock-mode RET". | ||
| 1694 | |||
| 1695 | To automatically invoke font-lock mode when a particular major mode is | ||
| 1696 | invoked, set the major mode's hook or define font-lock-global-modes as a | ||
| 1697 | list with the mode name as an element. For example, to fontify all | ||
| 1698 | c-mode buffers, add the following to your .emacs file: | ||
| 1699 | |||
| 1700 | (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock) | ||
| 1701 | |||
| 1702 | To automatically invoke font-lock mode for all major modes, you can turn | ||
| 1703 | on global-font-lock mode by including the following line in your .emacs | ||
| 1704 | file (or use Custom): | ||
| 1705 | |||
| 1706 | (global-font-lock-mode 1) | ||
| 1707 | |||
| 1708 | This instructs Emacs to turn on font-lock mode in those buffers for which | ||
| 1709 | a font-lock mode definition has been provided (in the variable | ||
| 1710 | font-lock-global-modes or via the variable font-lock-defaults-alist). If | ||
| 1711 | you edit a file in pie-ala-mode, and no font-lock definitions have been | ||
| 1712 | provided for pie-ala files, then the above setting will have no effect on | ||
| 1713 | that particular buffer. | ||
| 1714 | |||
| 1715 | Highlighting with font-lock mode can take quite a while, and thus | ||
| 1716 | different levels of decoration are available, from slight to gaudy. To | ||
| 1717 | control how decorated your buffers should become, set the value of | ||
| 1718 | font-lock-maximum-decoration in your .emacs file, with a nil value | ||
| 1719 | indicating default (usually minimum) decoration, and a t value indicating | ||
| 1720 | the maximum decoration. For the gaudiest possible look, then, include | ||
| 1721 | the line | ||
| 1722 | |||
| 1723 | (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t) | ||
| 1724 | |||
| 1725 | in your .emacs file. You can also set this variable such that different | ||
| 1726 | modes are highlighted in a different ways; for more information, see the | ||
| 1727 | documentation for font-lock-maximum-decoration with "C-h v" (or "M-x | ||
| 1728 | describe-variable RET"). | ||
| 1729 | |||
| 1730 | You might also want to investigate fast-lock-mode and lazy-lock-mode, | ||
| 1731 | versions of font-lock-mode that speed up highlighting. The advantage of | ||
| 1732 | lazy-lock-mode is that it only fontifies buffers when certain conditions | ||
| 1733 | are met, such as after a certain amount of idle time, or after you have | ||
| 1734 | finished scrolling through text. See the documentation for | ||
| 1735 | lazy-lock-mode by typing C-h f lazy-lock-mode ("M-x describe-function RET | ||
| 1736 | lazy-lock-mode RET"). | ||
| 1737 | |||
| 1738 | Also see the documentation for the function font-lock-mode, available by | ||
| 1739 | typing C-h f font-lock-mode ("M-x describe-function RET font-lock-mode | ||
| 1740 | RET"). | ||
| 1741 | |||
| 1742 | For more information on font-lock mode, particularly adding new patterns, | ||
| 1743 | see the Lisp Reference Manual and the commentary in the source | ||
| 1744 | font-lock.el, which you can find in Emacs 20 (if it is installed) using, | ||
| 1745 | say, M-x find-function font-lock-mode. | ||
| 1746 | |||
| 1747 | To print buffers with the faces (i.e., colors and fonts) intact, use | ||
| 1748 | "M-x ps-print-buffer-with-faces" or "M-x ps-print-region-with-faces". | ||
| 1749 | |||
| 1750 | 67: How can I force Emacs to scroll only one line when I move past the | ||
| 1751 | bottom of the screen? | ||
| 1752 | |||
| 1753 | Place the following Lisp form in your .emacs file: | ||
| 1754 | |||
| 1755 | (setq scroll-step 1) | ||
| 1756 | |||
| 1757 | Also see "Scrolling" in the on-line manual. | ||
| 1758 | |||
| 1759 | 68: How can I replace highlighted text with what I type? | ||
| 1760 | |||
| 1761 | Use delete-selection mode, which you can start automatically by placing | ||
| 1762 | the following Lisp form in your .emacs file: | ||
| 1763 | |||
| 1764 | (delete-selection-mode t) | ||
| 1765 | |||
| 1766 | According to the documentation string for delete-selection mode (which | ||
| 1767 | you can read using M-x describe-function RET delete-selection-mode RET): | ||
| 1768 | |||
| 1769 | When ON, typed text replaces the selection if the selection is active. | ||
| 1770 | When OFF, typed text is just inserted at point. | ||
| 1771 | |||
| 1772 | This mode also allows you to delete (not kill) the highlighted region by | ||
| 1773 | pressing DEL. | ||
| 1774 | |||
| 1775 | 69: How can I edit MS-DOS-style text files using Emacs? | ||
| 1776 | |||
| 1777 | As of Emacs 20, detection and handling of MS-DOS (and Windows) files is | ||
| 1778 | performed transparently. You can open an MS-DOS file on a Unix system | ||
| 1779 | (and vice versa), edit it, and save it without having to worry about the | ||
| 1780 | file format. To save it with a different end-of-line convention use | ||
| 1781 | C-x RET c to specify a new coding system such as undecided-unix. | ||
| 1782 | |||
| 1783 | When editing an MS-DOS style file, a backslash (\) will appear in the | ||
| 1784 | mode line. | ||
| 1785 | |||
| 1786 | You can avoid translation of the end-of-line conventions either by | ||
| 1787 | visiting a file using M-x find-file-literally or by setting the variable | ||
| 1788 | inhibit-eol-conversion to t. | ||
| 1789 | |||
| 1790 | If you are running an earlier version of Emacs, get crypt++ from | ||
| 1791 | ftp://ftp.cs.umb.edu/pub/misc/crypt++.el. Among other things, crypt++ | ||
| 1792 | transparently modifies MS-DOS files as they are loaded and saved, | ||
| 1793 | allowing you to ignore the different conventions that Unix and MS-DOS | ||
| 1794 | have for delineating the end of a line. | ||
| 1795 | |||
| 1796 | 70: How can I tell Emacs to fill paragraphs with a single space after | ||
| 1797 | each period? | ||
| 1798 | |||
| 1799 | Ulrich Mueller <ulm@vsnhd1.cern.ch> suggests adding the following two | ||
| 1800 | lines to your .emacs file: | ||
| 1801 | |||
| 1802 | (setq sentence-end "[.?!][]\"')}]*\\($\\|[ \t]\\)[ \t\n]*") | ||
| 1803 | (setq sentence-end-double-space nil) | ||
| 1804 | |||
| 1805 | See "Sentences" in the online manual. | ||
| 1806 | |||
| 1807 | |||
| 1808 | Bugs/Problems | ||
| 1809 | |||
| 1810 | 71: Does Emacs have problems with files larger than 8 megabytes? | ||
| 1811 | |||
| 1812 | Old versions (i.e., anything before 19.29) of Emacs had problems editing | ||
| 1813 | files larger than 8 megabytes. As of version 19.29, the maximum buffer | ||
| 1814 | size is at least 2^27-1, or 134,217,727 bytes. | ||
| 1815 | |||
| 1816 | If you are using an older version of Emacs and cannot upgrade, you will | ||
| 1817 | have to recompile. Leonard N. Zubkoff <lnz@lucid.com> suggests putting | ||
| 1818 | the following two lines in src/config.h before compiling Emacs to allow | ||
| 1819 | for 26-bit integers and pointers (and thus file sizes of up to 33,554,431 | ||
| 1820 | bytes): | ||
| 1821 | |||
| 1822 | #define VALBITS 26 | ||
| 1823 | #define GCTYPEBITS 5 | ||
| 1824 | |||
| 1825 | WARNING: This method may result in "ILLEGAL DATATYPE" and other random | ||
| 1826 | errors on some machines. | ||
| 1827 | |||
| 1828 | David Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu> explains how this problems | ||
| 1829 | crops up; while his numbers are true only for pre-19.29 versions of | ||
| 1830 | Emacs, the theory remains the same with current versions. | ||
| 1831 | |||
| 1832 | Emacs is largely written in a dialect of Lisp; Lisp is a freely-typed | ||
| 1833 | language in the sense that you can put any value of any type into any | ||
| 1834 | variable, or return it from a function, and so on. So each value must | ||
| 1835 | carry a "tag" along with it identifying what kind of thing it is, e.g., | ||
| 1836 | integer, pointer to a list, pointer to an editing buffer, and so on. | ||
| 1837 | Emacs uses standard 32-bit integers for data objects, taking the top 8 | ||
| 1838 | bits for the tag and the bottom 24 bits for the value. So integers | ||
| 1839 | (and pointers) are somewhat restricted compared to true C integers and | ||
| 1840 | pointers. | ||
| 1841 | |||
| 1842 | 72: How do I get rid of ^M or echoed commands in my shell buffer? | ||
| 1843 | |||
| 1844 | Try typing "M-x shell-strip-ctrl-m RET" while in shell-mode to make them | ||
| 1845 | go away. You might add this function to comint-output-filter-functions: | ||
| 1846 | |||
| 1847 | (add-hook 'comint-output-filter-functions 'shell-strip-ctrl-m) | ||
| 1848 | |||
| 1849 | If that doesn't work, you have several options: | ||
| 1850 | |||
| 1851 | For tcsh, put this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file: | ||
| 1852 | |||
| 1853 | if ($?EMACS) then | ||
| 1854 | if ("$EMACS" == t) then | ||
| 1855 | if ($?tcsh) unset edit | ||
| 1856 | stty nl | ||
| 1857 | endif | ||
| 1858 | endif | ||
| 1859 | |||
| 1860 | Or put this in your .emacs_tcsh file: | ||
| 1861 | |||
| 1862 | unset edit | ||
| 1863 | stty nl | ||
| 1864 | |||
| 1865 | Alternatively, use csh in your shell buffers instead of tcsh. One way | ||
| 1866 | is: | ||
| 1867 | |||
| 1868 | (setq explicit-shell-file-name "/bin/csh") | ||
| 1869 | |||
| 1870 | and another is to do this in your .cshrc (or .tcshrc) file: | ||
| 1871 | |||
| 1872 | setenv ESHELL /bin/csh | ||
| 1873 | |||
| 1874 | (You must start Emacs over again with the environment variable properly | ||
| 1875 | set for this to take effect.) | ||
| 1876 | |||
| 1877 | You can also set the ESHELL environment variable in Emacs Lisp with | ||
| 1878 | the following Lisp form, | ||
| 1879 | |||
| 1880 | (setenv "ESHELL" "/bin/csh") | ||
| 1881 | |||
| 1882 | On a related note: If your shell is echoing your input line in the shell | ||
| 1883 | buffer, you might want to try the following command in your shell | ||
| 1884 | start-up file: | ||
| 1885 | |||
| 1886 | stty -icrnl -onlcr -echo susp ^Z | ||
| 1887 | |||
| 1888 | 73: Why do I get "Process shell exited abnormally with code 1"? | ||
| 1889 | |||
| 1890 | The most likely reason for this message is that the "env" program is not | ||
| 1891 | properly installed. Compile this program for your architecture, and | ||
| 1892 | install it with a+x permission in the architecture-dependent Emacs | ||
| 1893 | program directory. (You can find what this directory is at your site by | ||
| 1894 | inspecting the value of the variable exec-directory by typing "C-h v | ||
| 1895 | exec-directory RET".) | ||
| 1896 | |||
| 1897 | You should also check for other programs named "env" in your path (e.g., | ||
| 1898 | SunOS has a program named /usr/bin/env). We don't understand why this | ||
| 1899 | can cause a failure and don't know a general solution for working around | ||
| 1900 | the problem in this case. | ||
| 1901 | |||
| 1902 | It has been reported that this sometimes happened when Emacs was started | ||
| 1903 | as an X client from an xterm window (i.e., had a controlling tty) but the | ||
| 1904 | xterm was later terminated. | ||
| 1905 | |||
| 1906 | See also etc/PROBLEMS for other possible causes of this message. | ||
| 1907 | |||
| 1908 | 74: Where is the termcap/terminfo entry for terminal type "emacs"? | ||
| 1909 | |||
| 1910 | The termcap entry for terminal type "emacs" is ordinarily put in the | ||
| 1911 | TERMCAP environment variable of subshells. It may help in certain | ||
| 1912 | situations (e.g., using rlogin from shell buffer) to add an entry for | ||
| 1913 | "emacs" to the system-wide termcap file. Here is a correct termcap entry | ||
| 1914 | for "emacs": | ||
| 1915 | |||
| 1916 | emacs:tc=unknown: | ||
| 1917 | |||
| 1918 | To make a terminfo entry for "emacs", use "tic" or "captoinfo." You need | ||
| 1919 | to generate /usr/lib/terminfo/e/emacs. It may work to simply copy | ||
| 1920 | /usr/lib/terminfo/d/dumb to /usr/lib/terminfo/e/emacs. | ||
| 1921 | |||
| 1922 | Having a termcap/terminfo entry will not enable the use of full screen | ||
| 1923 | programs in shell buffers. Use M-x terminal-emulator for that instead. | ||
| 1924 | |||
| 1925 | A workaround to the problem of missing termcap/terminfo entries is to | ||
| 1926 | change terminal type "emacs" to type "dumb" or "unknown" in your shell | ||
| 1927 | start up file. "csh" users could put this in their .cshrc files: | ||
| 1928 | |||
| 1929 | if ("$term" == emacs) set term=dumb | ||
| 1930 | |||
| 1931 | 75: Why does Emacs spontaneously start displaying "I-search:" and beeping? | ||
| 1932 | |||
| 1933 | Your terminal (or something between your terminal and the computer) is | ||
| 1934 | sending C-s and C-q for flow control, and Emacs is receiving these | ||
| 1935 | characters and interpreting them as commands. (The C-s character | ||
| 1936 | normally invokes the isearch-forward command.) For possible solutions, | ||
| 1937 | see question 122. | ||
| 1938 | |||
| 1939 | 76: Why can't Emacs talk to certain hosts (or certain hostnames)? | ||
| 1940 | |||
| 1941 | The problem may be that Emacs is linked with a wimpier version of | ||
| 1942 | gethostbyname than the rest of the programs on the machine. This is | ||
| 1943 | often manifested as a message on startup of "X server not responding. | ||
| 1944 | Check your DISPLAY environment variable." or a message of "Unknown host" | ||
| 1945 | from open-network-stream. | ||
| 1946 | |||
| 1947 | On a Sun, this may be because Emacs had to be linked with the static C | ||
| 1948 | library. The version of gethostbyname in the static C library may only | ||
| 1949 | look in /etc/hosts and the NIS (YP) maps, while the version in the | ||
| 1950 | dynamic C library may be smart enough to check DNS in addition to or | ||
| 1951 | instead of NIS. On a Motorola Delta running System V R3.6, the version | ||
| 1952 | of gethostbyname in the standard library works, but the one that works | ||
| 1953 | with NIS doesn't (the one you get with -linet). Other operating systems | ||
| 1954 | have similar problems. | ||
| 1955 | |||
| 1956 | Try these options: | ||
| 1957 | |||
| 1958 | * Explicitly add the host you want to communicate with to /etc/hosts. | ||
| 1959 | |||
| 1960 | * Relink Emacs with this line in src/config.h: | ||
| 1961 | |||
| 1962 | #define LIBS_SYSTEM -lresolv | ||
| 1963 | |||
| 1964 | * Replace gethostbyname and friends in libc.a with more useful versions | ||
| 1965 | such as the ones in libresolv.a. Then relink Emacs. | ||
| 1966 | |||
| 1967 | * If you are actually running NIS, make sure that "ypbind" is properly | ||
| 1968 | told to do DNS lookups with the correct command line switch. | ||
| 1969 | |||
| 1970 | 77: Why does Emacs say "Error in init file"? | ||
| 1971 | |||
| 1972 | An error occurred while loading either your .emacs file or the | ||
| 1973 | system-wide lisp/default.el file. For information on how to debug your | ||
| 1974 | .emacs file, see question 27. | ||
| 1975 | |||
| 1976 | It may be the case that you need to load some package first, or use a | ||
| 1977 | hook that will be evaluated after the package is loaded. A common case | ||
| 1978 | of this is explained in question 118. | ||
| 1979 | |||
| 1980 | 78: Why does Emacs ignore my X resources (my .Xdefaults file)? | ||
| 1981 | |||
| 1982 | As of version 19, Emacs searches for X resources in the files specified | ||
| 1983 | by the XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR environment | ||
| 1984 | variables, emulating the functionality provided by programs written using | ||
| 1985 | Xt. | ||
| 1986 | |||
| 1987 | XFILESEARCHPATH and XUSERFILESEARCHPATH should be a list of file names | ||
| 1988 | separated by colons; XAPPLRESDIR should be a list of directory names | ||
| 1989 | separated by colons. | ||
| 1990 | |||
| 1991 | Emacs searches for X resources | ||
| 1992 | |||
| 1993 | + specified on the command line, with the "-xrm RESOURCESTRING" | ||
| 1994 | option, | ||
| 1995 | + then in the value of the XENVIRONMENT environment variable, | ||
| 1996 | - or if that is unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults-HOSTNAME if it | ||
| 1997 | exists | ||
| 1998 | (where HOSTNAME is the hostname of the machine Emacs is running on), | ||
| 1999 | + then in the screen-specific and server-wide resource properties | ||
| 2000 | provided by the server, | ||
| 2001 | - or if those properties are unset, in the file named ~/.Xdefaults | ||
| 2002 | if it exists, | ||
| 2003 | + then in the files listed in XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, | ||
| 2004 | - or in files named LANG/Emacs in directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR | ||
| 2005 | (where LANG is the value of the LANG environment variable), if | ||
| 2006 | the LANG environment variable is set, | ||
| 2007 | - or in files named Emacs in the directories listed in XAPPLRESDIR | ||
| 2008 | - or in ~/LANG/Emacs (if the LANG environment variable is set), | ||
| 2009 | - or in ~/Emacs, | ||
| 2010 | + then in the files listed in XFILESEARCHPATH. | ||
| 2011 | |||
| 2012 | 79: Why does Emacs take 20 seconds to visit a file? | ||
| 2013 | |||
| 2014 | Old versions of Emacs (i.e., versions before Emacs 20.x) often | ||
| 2015 | encountered this when the master lock file, "!!!SuperLock!!!" has been | ||
| 2016 | left in the lock directory somehow. Delete it. | ||
| 2017 | |||
| 2018 | Mark Meuer <meuer@geom.umn.edu> says that NeXT NFS has a bug where an | ||
| 2019 | exclusive create succeeds but returns an error status. This can cause | ||
| 2020 | the same problem. Since Emacs's file locking doesn't work over NFS | ||
| 2021 | anyway, the best solution is to recompile Emacs with CLASH_DETECTION | ||
| 2022 | undefined. | ||
| 2023 | |||
| 2024 | 80: How do I edit a file with a `$' in its name? | ||
| 2025 | |||
| 2026 | When entering a filename in the minibuffer, Emacs will attempt to expand | ||
| 2027 | a `$' followed by a word as an environment variable. To suppress this | ||
| 2028 | behavior, type "$$" instead. | ||
| 2029 | |||
| 2030 | 81: Why does shell mode lose track of the shell's current directory? | ||
| 2031 | |||
| 2032 | Emacs has no way of knowing when the shell actually changes its | ||
| 2033 | directory. This is an intrinsic limitation of Unix. So it tries to | ||
| 2034 | guess by recognizing "cd" commands. If you type "cd" followed by a | ||
| 2035 | directory name with a variable reference ("cd $HOME/bin") or with a shell | ||
| 2036 | metacharacter ("cd ../lib*"), Emacs will fail to correctly guess the | ||
| 2037 | shell's new current directory. A huge variety of fixes and enhancements | ||
| 2038 | to shell mode for this problem have been written to handle this problem. | ||
| 2039 | Check the Lisp Code Directory (see question 89). | ||
| 2040 | |||
| 2041 | You can tell Emacs the shell's current directory with the command "M-x | ||
| 2042 | dirs". | ||
| 2043 | |||
| 2044 | 82: Are there any security risks in Emacs? | ||
| 2045 | |||
| 2046 | * the "movemail" incident (No, this is not a risk.) | ||
| 2047 | |||
| 2048 | In his book "The Cuckoo's Egg," Cliff Stoll describes this in chapter | ||
| 2049 | 4. The site at LBL had installed the "etc/movemail" program setuid | ||
| 2050 | root. (As of version 19, movemail is in your architecture-specific | ||
| 2051 | directory; type "C-h v exec-directory RET" to see what it is.) Since | ||
| 2052 | "movemail" had not been designed for this situation, a security hole | ||
| 2053 | was created and users could get root privileges. | ||
| 2054 | |||
| 2055 | "movemail" has since been changed so that this security hole will not | ||
| 2056 | exist, even if it is installed setuid root. However, movemail no | ||
| 2057 | longer needs to be installed setuid root, which should eliminate this | ||
| 2058 | particular risk. | ||
| 2059 | |||
| 2060 | We have heard unverified reports that the 1988 Internet worm took | ||
| 2061 | advantage of this configuration problem. | ||
| 2062 | |||
| 2063 | * the file-local-variable feature (Yes, a risk, but easy to change.) | ||
| 2064 | |||
| 2065 | There is an Emacs feature that allows the setting of local values for | ||
| 2066 | variables when editing a file by including specially formatted text | ||
| 2067 | near the end of the file. This feature also includes the ability to | ||
| 2068 | have arbitrary Emacs Lisp code evaluated when the file is visited. | ||
| 2069 | Obviously, there is a potential for Trojan horses to exploit this | ||
| 2070 | feature. | ||
| 2071 | |||
| 2072 | Emacs 18 allowed this feature by default; users could disable it by | ||
| 2073 | setting the variable inhibit-local-variables to a non-nil value. | ||
| 2074 | |||
| 2075 | As of Emacs 19, Emacs has a list of local variables that create a | ||
| 2076 | security risk. If a file tries to set one of them, it asks the user to | ||
| 2077 | confirm whether the variables should be set. You can also tell Emacs | ||
| 2078 | whether to allow the evaluation of Emacs Lisp code found at the bottom | ||
| 2079 | of files by setting the variable enable-local-eval. | ||
| 2080 | |||
| 2081 | For more information, see "File Variables" in the on-line manual. | ||
| 2082 | |||
| 2083 | * synthetic X events (Yes, a risk; use MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 or better.) | ||
| 2084 | |||
| 2085 | Emacs accepts synthetic X events generated by the SendEvent request as | ||
| 2086 | though they were regular events. As a result, if you are using the | ||
| 2087 | trivial host-based authentication, other users who can open X | ||
| 2088 | connections to your X workstation can make your Emacs process do | ||
| 2089 | anything, including run other processes with your privileges. | ||
| 2090 | |||
| 2091 | The only fix for this is to prevent other users from being able to open | ||
| 2092 | X connections. The standard way to prevent this is to use a real | ||
| 2093 | authentication mechanism, such as MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1. If using the | ||
| 2094 | "xauth" program has any effect, then you are probably using | ||
| 2095 | MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1. Your site may be using a superior authentication | ||
| 2096 | method; ask your system administrator. | ||
| 2097 | |||
| 2098 | If real authentication is not a possibility, you may be satisfied by | ||
| 2099 | just allowing hosts access for brief intervals while you start your X | ||
| 2100 | programs, then removing the access. This reduces the risk somewhat by | ||
| 2101 | narrowing the time window when hostile users would have access, but | ||
| 2102 | DOES NOT ELIMINATE THE RISK. | ||
| 2103 | |||
| 2104 | On most computers running Unix and X Windows, you enable and disable | ||
| 2105 | access using the "xhost" command. To allow all hosts access to your X | ||
| 2106 | server, use | ||
| 2107 | |||
| 2108 | xhost + | ||
| 2109 | |||
| 2110 | at the shell prompt, which (on an HP machine, at least) produces the | ||
| 2111 | following message: | ||
| 2112 | |||
| 2113 | access control disabled, clients can connect from any host | ||
| 2114 | |||
| 2115 | To deny all hosts access to your X server (except those explicitly | ||
| 2116 | allowed by name), use | ||
| 2117 | |||
| 2118 | xhost - | ||
| 2119 | |||
| 2120 | On the test HP computer, this command generated the following message: | ||
| 2121 | |||
| 2122 | access control enabled, only authorized clients can connect | ||
| 2123 | |||
| 2124 | 83: Dired says, "no file on this line" when I try to do something. | ||
| 2125 | |||
| 2126 | Chances are you're using a localized version of Unix that doesn't | ||
| 2127 | use US date format in dired listings. You can check this by looking | ||
| 2128 | at dired listings or by typing `ls -l' to a shell and looking at the | ||
| 2129 | dates that come out. | ||
| 2130 | |||
| 2131 | Dired uses a regular expression to find the beginning of a file | ||
| 2132 | name. In a long Unix-style directory listing ("ls -l"), the file | ||
| 2133 | name starts after the date. The regexp has thus been written to | ||
| 2134 | look for the date, the format of which can vary on non-US systems. | ||
| 2135 | |||
| 2136 | There are two approaches to solving this. The first one involves | ||
| 2137 | setting things up so that "ls -l" outputs US date format. This can | ||
| 2138 | be done by setting the locale. See your OS manual for more | ||
| 2139 | information. | ||
| 2140 | |||
| 2141 | The second approach involves changing the regular expression used by | ||
| 2142 | dired, dired-move-to-filename-regexp. | ||
| 2143 | |||
| 2144 | |||
| 2145 | Difficulties Building/Installing/Porting Emacs | ||
| 2146 | |||
| 2147 | 84: How do I install Emacs? | ||
| 2148 | |||
| 2149 | This answer is meant for users of Unix and Unix-like systems. Users of | ||
| 2150 | other operating systems should see the series of questions beginning with | ||
| 2151 | question 94, which describe where to get non-Unix source and binaries. | ||
| 2152 | These packages should come with installation instructions. | ||
| 2153 | |||
| 2154 | For Unix and Unix-like systems, the easiest way is often to compile it | ||
| 2155 | from scratch. You will need: | ||
| 2156 | |||
| 2157 | * Emacs sources. See question 92 for a list of ftp sites that make them | ||
| 2158 | available. On ftp.gnu.org, the main GNU distribution site, sources are | ||
| 2159 | available at | ||
| 2160 | |||
| 2161 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/emacs-20.4.tar.gz | ||
| 2162 | |||
| 2163 | The above will obviously change as new versions of Emacs come out. For | ||
| 2164 | instance, when Emacs 20.5 is released, it will most probably be | ||
| 2165 | available at | ||
| 2166 | |||
| 2167 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/emacs-20.5.tar.gz | ||
| 2168 | |||
| 2169 | Again, you should use one of the mirror sites in question 92 (and | ||
| 2170 | adjust the URL accordingly) so as to reduce load on ftp.gnu.org. | ||
| 2171 | |||
| 2172 | * Gzip, the GNU compression utility. You can get gzip via anonymous ftp | ||
| 2173 | at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org sites; it should compile and install without | ||
| 2174 | much trouble on most systems. Once you have retrieved the Emacs | ||
| 2175 | sources, you will probably be able to uncompress them with the command | ||
| 2176 | |||
| 2177 | gunzip --verbose emacs-20.4.tar.gz | ||
| 2178 | |||
| 2179 | changing the Emacs version (20.4), as necessary. Once gunzip has | ||
| 2180 | finished doing its job, a file by the name of "emacs-20.4.tar" should | ||
| 2181 | be in your build directory. | ||
| 2182 | |||
| 2183 | * Tar, the "tape archiving" program, which moves multiple files into and | ||
| 2184 | out of archive files, or "tarfiles." All of the files comprising the | ||
| 2185 | Emacs source come in a single tarfile, and must be extracted using tar | ||
| 2186 | before you can build Emacs. Typically, the extraction command would | ||
| 2187 | look like | ||
| 2188 | |||
| 2189 | tar -xvvf emacs-20.4.tar | ||
| 2190 | |||
| 2191 | The `x' indicates that we want to extract files from this tarfile, the | ||
| 2192 | two `v's force verbose output, and the `f' tells tar to use a disk | ||
| 2193 | file, rather than one on tape. | ||
| 2194 | |||
| 2195 | If you're using GNU tar (available at mirrors of ftp.gnu.org), you can | ||
| 2196 | combine this step and the previous one by using the command | ||
| 2197 | |||
| 2198 | tar -zxvvf emacs-20.4.tar.gz | ||
| 2199 | |||
| 2200 | The additional `z' at the beginning of the options list tells GNU tar | ||
| 2201 | to uncompress the file with gunzip before extracting the tarfile's | ||
| 2202 | components. | ||
| 2203 | |||
| 2204 | At this point, the Emacs sources (all 25+ megabytes of them) should be | ||
| 2205 | sitting in a directory called "emacs-20.4". On most common Unix and | ||
| 2206 | Unix-like systems, you should be able to compile Emacs (with X Windows | ||
| 2207 | support) with the following commands: | ||
| 2208 | |||
| 2209 | cd emacs-20.4 [ change directory to emacs-20.4 ] | ||
| 2210 | ./configure [ configure Emacs for your particular system ] | ||
| 2211 | make [ use Makefile to build components, then Emacs ] | ||
| 2212 | |||
| 2213 | If the "make" completes successfully, the odds are fairly good that the | ||
| 2214 | build has gone well. (See question 86 if you weren't successful.) | ||
| 2215 | |||
| 2216 | To install Emacs in its default directories of /usr/local/bin (binaries), | ||
| 2217 | /usr/local/share/emacs/20.xx (Lisp code and support files), | ||
| 2218 | /usr/local/libexec/CONFIGURATION/emacs/VERSION (executable files to be | ||
| 2219 | run by Emacs rather than users), /usr/local/man/man1 (man pages) and | ||
| 2220 | /usr/local/info (Info documentation), become the super-user and type | ||
| 2221 | |||
| 2222 | make install | ||
| 2223 | |||
| 2224 | Note that "make install" will overwrite /usr/local/bin/emacs and any | ||
| 2225 | Emacs Info files that might be in /usr/local/info. | ||
| 2226 | |||
| 2227 | Much more verbose instructions (with many more hints and suggestions) | ||
| 2228 | come with the Emacs sources, in the file "INSTALL". | ||
| 2229 | |||
| 2230 | 85: How do I update Emacs to the latest version? | ||
| 2231 | |||
| 2232 | Follow the instructions in question 84. | ||
| 2233 | |||
| 2234 | Emacs places nearly everything in version-specific directories (e.g., | ||
| 2235 | /usr/local/share/emacs/20.4), so the only files that can be overwritten | ||
| 2236 | when installing a new release are /usr/local/bin/emacs and the Emacs Info | ||
| 2237 | documentation in /usr/local/info. Back up these files before you install | ||
| 2238 | a new release, and you shouldn't have too much trouble. | ||
| 2239 | |||
| 2240 | 86: What should I do if I have trouble building Emacs? | ||
| 2241 | |||
| 2242 | First look in the file PROBLEMS (in the top-level directory when you | ||
| 2243 | unpack the Emacs source) to see if there is already a solution for your | ||
| 2244 | problem. Next, look for other questions in this FAQ that have to do with | ||
| 2245 | Emacs installation and compilation problems. | ||
| 2246 | |||
| 2247 | If you'd like to have someone look at your problem and help solve it, see | ||
| 2248 | question 21. | ||
| 2249 | |||
| 2250 | If you don't find a solution, then report your problem via e-mail to | ||
| 2251 | bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. Please do not post it to gnu.emacs.help | ||
| 2252 | or e-mail it to help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org. For further guidelines, | ||
| 2253 | see question 8 and question 10. | ||
| 2254 | |||
| 2255 | 87: Why does linking Emacs with -lX11 fail? | ||
| 2256 | |||
| 2257 | Emacs needs to be linked with the static version of the X11 library, | ||
| 2258 | libX11.a. This may be missing. | ||
| 2259 | |||
| 2260 | Under OpenWindows, you may need to use "add_services" to add the | ||
| 2261 | "OpenWindows Programmers" optional software category from the CD-ROM. | ||
| 2262 | |||
| 2263 | Under HP-UX 8.0, you may need to run "update" again to load the X11-PRG | ||
| 2264 | "fileset". This may be missing even if you specified "all filesets" the | ||
| 2265 | first time. If libcurses.a is missing, you may need to load the | ||
| 2266 | "Berkeley Development Option." | ||
| 2267 | |||
| 2268 | David Zuhn <zoo@armadillo.com> says that MIT X builds shared libraries by | ||
| 2269 | default, and only shared libraries, on those platforms that support them. | ||
| 2270 | These shared libraries can't be used when undumping temacs (the last | ||
| 2271 | stage of the Emacs build process). To get regular libraries in addition | ||
| 2272 | to shared libraries, add this to site.cf: | ||
| 2273 | |||
| 2274 | #define ForceNormalLib YES | ||
| 2275 | |||
| 2276 | Other systems may have similar problems. You can always define | ||
| 2277 | CANNOT_DUMP and link with the shared libraries instead. | ||
| 2278 | |||
| 2279 | To get the Xmenu stuff to work, you need to find a copy of MIT's | ||
| 2280 | liboldX.a. | ||
| 2281 | |||
| 2282 | |||
| 2283 | Finding/Getting Emacs and Related Packages | ||
| 2284 | |||
| 2285 | 88: Where can I get Emacs on the net (or by snail mail)? | ||
| 2286 | |||
| 2287 | Look in the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for information on nearby | ||
| 2288 | archive sites and etc/ORDERS for mail orders. If you don't already have | ||
| 2289 | Emacs, see question 20 for how to get these files. | ||
| 2290 | |||
| 2291 | See question 84 for information on how to obtain and build the latest | ||
| 2292 | version of Emacs, and question 92 for a list of archive sites that make | ||
| 2293 | GNU software available. | ||
| 2294 | |||
| 2295 | 89: How do I find a Emacs Lisp package that does XXX? | ||
| 2296 | |||
| 2297 | First of all, you should check to make sure that the package isn't | ||
| 2298 | already available. For example, typing "M-x apropos RET wordstar RET" | ||
| 2299 | lists all functions and variables containing the string "wordstar". | ||
| 2300 | |||
| 2301 | It is also possible that the package is on your system, but has not been | ||
| 2302 | loaded. To see which packages are available for loading, look through your | ||
| 2303 | computer's lisp directory (see question 4) or use the Finder (C-h p) to | ||
| 2304 | search under keywords. The Lisp source to most packages contains a | ||
| 2305 | short description of how they should be loaded, invoked, and configured -- | ||
| 2306 | so before you use or modify a Lisp package, see if the author has provided | ||
| 2307 | any hints in the source code. | ||
| 2308 | |||
| 2309 | If a package does not come with Emacs, check the Lisp Code | ||
| 2310 | Directory, maintained (unfortunately slowly at present) by Dave | ||
| 2311 | Brennan <brennan@gnu.org>. The directory is contained in the file | ||
| 2312 | LCD-datafile.Z, available from the Emacs Lisp Archive (see question | ||
| 2313 | 90), and is accessed using the "lispdir" package, available from the | ||
| 2314 | same site. Note that lispdir.el requires crypt++, which you can | ||
| 2315 | grab from the Emacs Lisp Archive's "misc" subdirectory when you get | ||
| 2316 | lispdir.el. | ||
| 2317 | |||
| 2318 | Once you have installed lispdir.el and LCD-datafile, you can use "M-x | ||
| 2319 | lisp-dir-apropos" to search the listing. For example, "M-x | ||
| 2320 | lisp-dir-apropos RET ange-ftp RET" produces this output: | ||
| 2321 | |||
| 2322 | GNU Emacs Lisp Code Directory Apropos -- "ange-ftp" | ||
| 2323 | "~/" refers to ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu:pub/emacs-lisp/ | ||
| 2324 | |||
| 2325 | ange-ftp (4.18) 15-Jul-1992 | ||
| 2326 | Andy Norman, <ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com> | ||
| 2327 | ~/packages/ange-ftp.tar.Z | ||
| 2328 | transparent FTP Support for GNU Emacs | ||
| 2329 | auto-save (1.19) 01-May-1992 | ||
| 2330 | Sebastian Kremer, <sk@thp.uni-koeln.de> | ||
| 2331 | ~/misc/auto-save.el.Z | ||
| 2332 | Safer autosaving with support for ange-ftp and /tmp | ||
| 2333 | ftp-quik (1.0) 28-Jul-1993 | ||
| 2334 | Terrence Brannon, <tb06@pl122f.eecs.lehigh.edu> | ||
| 2335 | ~/modes/ftp-quik.el.Z | ||
| 2336 | Quik access to dired'ing of ange-ftp and normal paths | ||
| 2337 | |||
| 2338 | You actually don't need the directory file LCD-datafile if your computer | ||
| 2339 | is on the Internet, since the latest version is retrieved automatically | ||
| 2340 | the first time you type "M-x lisp-dir-apropos" in a particular Emacs | ||
| 2341 | session. If you would prefer to use a local copy of LCD-datafile, be | ||
| 2342 | sure to set the variable lisp-code-directory at the top of the lispdir.el | ||
| 2343 | source code. | ||
| 2344 | |||
| 2345 | A searchable version of the LCD is also available at | ||
| 2346 | |||
| 2347 | http://www.cs.indiana.edu/LCD/cover.html | ||
| 2348 | |||
| 2349 | 90: Where can I get Emacs Lisp packages that don't come with Emacs? | ||
| 2350 | |||
| 2351 | First, check the Lisp Code Directory to find the name of the package you | ||
| 2352 | are looking for (see question 89). Next, check local archives and the | ||
| 2353 | Emacs Lisp Archive to find a copy of the relevant files. If you still | ||
| 2354 | haven't found it, you can send e-mail to the author asking for a copy. | ||
| 2355 | If you find Emacs Lisp code that doesn't appear in the LCD, please submit | ||
| 2356 | a copy to the LCD (see question 91). | ||
| 2357 | |||
| 2358 | You can access the Emacs Lisp Archive at the following sites: | ||
| 2359 | |||
| 2360 | ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/emacs-lisp/ | ||
| 2361 | ftp://ftp.uni-mainz.de/pub/gnu/elisp-archive/ | ||
| 2362 | ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/GNU/elisp-archive/ | ||
| 2363 | ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/ | ||
| 2364 | ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/elisp-archive/ | ||
| 2365 | ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/public/Mirrors/ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/emacs-lisp/ | ||
| 2366 | |||
| 2367 | Retrieve and read the file README first. | ||
| 2368 | |||
| 2369 | NOTE: * The archive maintainers do not have time to answer individual | ||
| 2370 | requests for packages or the list of packages in the archive. If | ||
| 2371 | you cannot use FTP or UUCP to access the archive yourself, try to | ||
| 2372 | find a friend who can, but please don't ask the maintainers. | ||
| 2373 | |||
| 2374 | * Any files with names ending in ".Z", ".z", or ".gz" are | ||
| 2375 | compressed, so you should use "binary" mode in FTP to retrieve | ||
| 2376 | them. You should also use binary mode whenever you retrieve any | ||
| 2377 | files with names ending in ".elc". | ||
| 2378 | |||
| 2379 | Packages which have been posted to gnu.emacs.sources should be locatable | ||
| 2380 | via a service like Dejanews. | ||
| 2381 | |||
| 2382 | 91: How do I submit code to the Emacs Lisp Archive? | ||
| 2383 | |||
| 2384 | Guidelines and procedures for submission to the archive can be found in | ||
| 2385 | the file GUIDELINES in the archive directory (see question 90). It | ||
| 2386 | covers documentation, copyrights, packaging, submission, and the Lisp | ||
| 2387 | Code Directory Record. Anonymous FTP uploads are not permitted. | ||
| 2388 | Instead, all submissions are mailed to elisp-archive@cis.ohio-state.edu. | ||
| 2389 | The lispdir.el package has a function named submit-lcd-entry which will | ||
| 2390 | help you with this. | ||
| 2391 | |||
| 2392 | Note that maintenance of the archive is currently very slow. | ||
| 2393 | |||
| 2394 | 92: Where can I get other up-to-date GNU stuff? | ||
| 2395 | |||
| 2396 | The most up-to-date official GNU software is normally kept on | ||
| 2397 | ftp.gnu.org and is available at | ||
| 2398 | |||
| 2399 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu | ||
| 2400 | |||
| 2401 | Read the files etc/DISTRIB and etc/FTP for more information. | ||
| 2402 | |||
| 2403 | A list of sites mirroring ftp.gnu.org can be found at | ||
| 2404 | |||
| 2405 | http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html | ||
| 2406 | |||
| 2407 | 93: What is the difference between Emacs and XEmacs (formerly "Lucid | ||
| 2408 | Emacs")? | ||
| 2409 | |||
| 2410 | XEmacs is a modified version of GNU Emacs. | ||
| 2411 | |||
| 2412 | This FAQ refers to the latest version to be distributed by the FSF | ||
| 2413 | as "Emacs," partly because the XEmacs maintainers now refer to their | ||
| 2414 | product using the "XEmacs" name, and partly because there isn't any | ||
| 2415 | accurate way to differentiate between the two without getting mired | ||
| 2416 | in paragraphs of legalese and history. | ||
| 2417 | |||
| 2418 | XEmacs, which began life as Lucid Emacs, is based on an early version of | ||
| 2419 | Emacs 19 and Epoch, an X-aware version of Emacs 18. | ||
| 2420 | |||
| 2421 | Emacs (i.e., the version distributed by the FSF) has a larger installed | ||
| 2422 | base and now always contains the MULE multilingual facilities. XEmacs | ||
| 2423 | can do some clever tricks with X Windows, such as putting arbitrary | ||
| 2424 | graphics in a buffer; similar facilities have been implemented for Emacs, | ||
| 2425 | which will be integrated after version 20.4. Emacs and XEmacs each come | ||
| 2426 | with some Lisp packages that are lacking or more up-to-date in the other; | ||
| 2427 | RMS says that the FSF would include more packages that come with XEmacs, | ||
| 2428 | but that the XEmacs maintainers don't always keep track of the authors of | ||
| 2429 | contributed code, which makes it impossible for the FSF to have certain | ||
| 2430 | legal papers signed. (Without these legal papers, the FSF will not | ||
| 2431 | distribute Lisp packages with Emacs.) The two versions have some | ||
| 2432 | significant differences at the Lisp programming level. | ||
| 2433 | |||
| 2434 | 94: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS? | ||
| 2435 | |||
| 2436 | A pre-built binary distribution of Emacs is available from the Simtel | ||
| 2437 | archives. This version works under MS-DOS and Windows (3.x, 9x, and NT) and | ||
| 2438 | supports long file names under Windows 9x. More information is available | ||
| 2439 | from: | ||
| 2440 | |||
| 2441 | ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu/emacs.README | ||
| 2442 | |||
| 2443 | And the binary itself is available in the files em1934*.zip in the | ||
| 2444 | directory | ||
| 2445 | |||
| 2446 | ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu/ | ||
| 2447 | |||
| 2448 | If you prefer to compile Emacs for yourself, you will need a 386 (or | ||
| 2449 | better) processor, and are running MS-DOS 3.0 or later. According to Eli | ||
| 2450 | Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> and Darrel Hankerson | ||
| 2451 | <hankedr@dms.auburn.edu>, you will need the following: | ||
| 2452 | |||
| 2453 | Compiler: djgpp version 1.12 maint 1 or later. Djgpp 2.0 or later is | ||
| 2454 | recommended, since 1.x is being phased out. Djgpp 2 supports | ||
| 2455 | long filenames under Windows 9x. | ||
| 2456 | |||
| 2457 | You can get the latest release of djgpp by retrieving | ||
| 2458 | all of the files in | ||
| 2459 | |||
| 2460 | ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp | ||
| 2461 | |||
| 2462 | Gunzip and tar: | ||
| 2463 | |||
| 2464 | The easiest way is to use "djtar" which comes with djgpp v2.x, | ||
| 2465 | because it can open gzip'ed tarfiles (i.e., those ending with | ||
| 2466 | ".tar.gz") in one step. Djtar comes in "djdev201.zip", from | ||
| 2467 | the URL mentioned above. | ||
| 2468 | |||
| 2469 | Utilities: make, mv, sed, rm. | ||
| 2470 | |||
| 2471 | All of these utilities are available at | ||
| 2472 | |||
| 2473 | ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu | ||
| 2474 | |||
| 2475 | 16-bit utilities can be found in GNUish: | ||
| 2476 | |||
| 2477 | ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/gnuish | ||
| 2478 | |||
| 2479 | The files INSTALL and etc/PROBLEMS in the Emacs source contains some | ||
| 2480 | additional information regarding Emacs under MS-DOS. | ||
| 2481 | |||
| 2482 | For a list of other MS-DOS implementations of Emacs (and Emacs | ||
| 2483 | look-alikes), consult the list of "Emacs implementations and literature," | ||
| 2484 | available at | ||
| 2485 | |||
| 2486 | ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs/ | ||
| 2487 | |||
| 2488 | Note that while many of these programs look similar to Emacs, they often | ||
| 2489 | lack certain features, particularly the Emacs Lisp extension language. | ||
| 2490 | |||
| 2491 | 95: Where can I get Emacs for Microsoft Windows, Windows 9x, or Windows | ||
| 2492 | NT? | ||
| 2493 | |||
| 2494 | GNU Emacs has been fully ported to Windows NT and Windows 95/98. | ||
| 2495 | If you have MSVC 4.0 or greater, then you can compile GNU Emacs | ||
| 2496 | directly from the source distribution. First read the file | ||
| 2497 | nt/README, and then the file nt/INSTALL, for step by step | ||
| 2498 | instructions on how to compile and install GNU Emacs on your system. | ||
| 2499 | |||
| 2500 | You can also download precompiled distributions of GNU Emacs from: | ||
| 2501 | |||
| 2502 | ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs | ||
| 2503 | |||
| 2504 | If you need the gunzip and tar utilities for unpacking distributions, | ||
| 2505 | you can download precompiled versions from: | ||
| 2506 | |||
| 2507 | ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/utilities | ||
| 2508 | |||
| 2509 | For more information on configuring your favorite package to run with | ||
| 2510 | GNU Emacs on Windows NT/95/98, see the following FAQ: | ||
| 2511 | |||
| 2512 | http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html | ||
| 2513 | ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/docs/ntemacs.html | ||
| 2514 | |||
| 2515 | If you are running Windows 3.11, and if you compile GNU Emacs for MSDOS | ||
| 2516 | with the tools listed in the previous question, it will run under | ||
| 2517 | Microsoft Windows in a DOS box. | ||
| 2518 | |||
| 2519 | 96: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running OS/2? | ||
| 2520 | |||
| 2521 | Emacs 19.33 is ported for emx on OS/2 2.0 or 2.1, and is available at: | ||
| 2522 | |||
| 2523 | ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/editors/emacs/v19.33/ | ||
| 2524 | |||
| 2525 | 97: Where can I get Emacs for my Atari ST? | ||
| 2526 | |||
| 2527 | Roland Schäuble reports that Emacs 18.58 running on plain TOS and MiNT | ||
| 2528 | is available at | ||
| 2529 | |||
| 2530 | ftp://atari.archive.umich.edu/Editors/Emacs-18-58/1858b-d3.zoo | ||
| 2531 | |||
| 2532 | 98: Where can I get Emacs for my Amiga? | ||
| 2533 | |||
| 2534 | The files you need are available at | ||
| 2535 | |||
| 2536 | ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/gnu/ | ||
| 2537 | |||
| 2538 | David Gilbert <dgilbert@gamiga.guelphnet.dweomer.org> has released a beta | ||
| 2539 | version of Emacs 19.25 for the Amiga. You can get the binary at | ||
| 2540 | |||
| 2541 | ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/gnu/a2.0bEmacs-bin.lha | ||
| 2542 | |||
| 2543 | 99: Where can I get Emacs for NeXTSTEP? | ||
| 2544 | |||
| 2545 | Emacs.app is a NeXTSTEP version of Emacs 19.34 which supports colors, | ||
| 2546 | menus, and multiple frames. You can get it from | ||
| 2547 | |||
| 2548 | ftp://next-ftp.peak.org/pub/next/apps/emacs/Emacs_for_NeXTstep.4.20a1.NIHS.b.tar.gz | ||
| 2549 | |||
| 2550 | 100: Where can I get Emacs for my Apple computer? | ||
| 2551 | |||
| 2552 | |||
| 2553 | There used to be a boycott of Apple because of its "look and feel" | ||
| 2554 | lawsuit. The lawsuit failed, and the boycott is over. | ||
| 2555 | Currently the GNU project treats Apple like other computer companies. | ||
| 2556 | |||
| 2557 | Since the Mac operating system is very different from Unix and GNU, | ||
| 2558 | support for it would be a big job. And this job would be tangential | ||
| 2559 | to the GNU project's goals. Meanwhile, we don't have the resources | ||
| 2560 | to do all we want to do on supporting Emacs for GNU-like systems. | ||
| 2561 | So if we had to do work on support for the Macintosh, that would | ||
| 2562 | directly harm the GNU project. | ||
| 2563 | |||
| 2564 | Of course, the same is true for MSDOS and Windows NT. We decided to | ||
| 2565 | incorporate support for those systems because the code was very modular, | ||
| 2566 | because volunteers not only wrote all the code but also investigate | ||
| 2567 | all the bugs reported on those systems, and because we hoped that we | ||
| 2568 | will be able to raise funds for GNU using these versions, and in this | ||
| 2569 | way these ports will make up for the effort that they took. (We still | ||
| 2570 | hope so, but it has not happened yet.) | ||
| 2571 | |||
| 2572 | An unofficial port of GNU Emacs 18.59 to the Macintosh is available at a | ||
| 2573 | number of ftp sites, the home being | ||
| 2574 | |||
| 2575 | ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/parmet/Emacs-1.17.sit.bin | ||
| 2576 | |||
| 2577 | To the best of our knowledge, Emacs 19 has not been ported to the | ||
| 2578 | Macintosh. | ||
| 2579 | |||
| 2580 | Apple's forthcoming "OS X" is based largely on NeXTSTEP and OpenStep. | ||
| 2581 | See question 99 for more details about that version. | ||
| 2582 | |||
| 2583 | 101: Where do I get Emacs that runs on VMS under DECwindows? | ||
| 2584 | |||
| 2585 | Up-to-date information about GNU software (including Emacs) for VMS is | ||
| 2586 | available at | ||
| 2587 | |||
| 2588 | http://vms.gnu.org/ | ||
| 2589 | |||
| 2590 | 102: Where can I get modes for Lex, Yacc/Bison, Bourne shell, Csh, C++, | ||
| 2591 | Objective-C, Pascal, Java, and Awk? | ||
| 2592 | |||
| 2593 | Most of these modes are now available in standard Emacs distribution. To | ||
| 2594 | get additional modes, look in the Lisp Code Directory (see question 89). | ||
| 2595 | For C++, if you use lisp-dir-apropos, you must specify the pattern like | ||
| 2596 | this: | ||
| 2597 | |||
| 2598 | M-x lisp-dir-apropos RET c\+\+ RET | ||
| 2599 | |||
| 2600 | Note that Barry Warsaw's cc-mode now works for C, C++, Objective-C, and | ||
| 2601 | Java code. You can get the latest version from the Emacs Lisp Archive; | ||
| 2602 | see question 90 for details. A FAQ for cc-mode is available at | ||
| 2603 | |||
| 2604 | http://www.python.org/emacs/cc-mode/ | ||
| 2605 | |||
| 2606 | 103: What is the IP address of XXX.YYY.ZZZ? | ||
| 2607 | |||
| 2608 | If you are on a Unix machine, try using the "nslookup" command, included | ||
| 2609 | in the Berkeley BIND package. For example, to find the IP address of | ||
| 2610 | "ftp.gnu.org", you would type | ||
| 2611 | |||
| 2612 | nslookup ftp.gnu.org | ||
| 2613 | |||
| 2614 | Your computer should then provide the IP address of that computer. | ||
| 2615 | |||
| 2616 | If your site's nameserver is deficient, you can use IP addresses to FTP | ||
| 2617 | files. You can get this information by | ||
| 2618 | |||
| 2619 | * E-mail: | ||
| 2620 | |||
| 2621 | To: dns@[134.214.84.25] (to grasp.insa-lyon.fr) | ||
| 2622 | Body: ip XXX.YYY.ZZZ (or "help" for more information | ||
| 2623 | and options - no quotes) | ||
| 2624 | or: | ||
| 2625 | |||
| 2626 | To: resolve@[147.31.254.130] (to laverne.cs.widener.edu) | ||
| 2627 | Body: site XXX.YYY.ZZZ | ||
| 2628 | |||
| 2629 | |||
| 2630 | Major Emacs Lisp Packages, Emacs Extensions, and Related Programs | ||
| 2631 | |||
| 2632 | 104: VM (View Mail) -- another mail reader within Emacs, with MIME support | ||
| 2633 | |||
| 2634 | Author: Kyle Jones <kyle@uunet.uu.net> | ||
| 2635 | Latest version: 6.67 | ||
| 2636 | Anonymous FTP: | ||
| 2637 | ftp://ftp.wonderworks.com/pub/vm/vm.tar.gz | ||
| 2638 | Newsgroups and mailing lists: | ||
| 2639 | Informational newsgroup/mailing list: | ||
| 2640 | gnu.emacs.vm.info (newsgroup) | ||
| 2641 | info-vm-request@uunet.uu.net (for subscriptions) | ||
| 2642 | info-vm@uunet.uu.net (for submissions) | ||
| 2643 | Bug reports newsgroup/mailing list: | ||
| 2644 | gnu.emacs.vm.bug (newsgroup) | ||
| 2645 | bug-vm-request@uunet.uu.net (for subscriptions) | ||
| 2646 | bug-vm@uunet.uu.net (for submissions) | ||
| 2647 | NOTE: VM 6 is not guaranteed to work under Emacs 20 (although many people | ||
| 2648 | seem to use it without too much trouble). Users of Emacs 20 might prefer | ||
| 2649 | to use VM 5.97, available from the same FTP site. | ||
| 2650 | |||
| 2651 | 105: Supercite -- mail and news citation package within Emacs | ||
| 2652 | |||
| 2653 | Author: Barry Warsaw <bwarsaw@cen.com> | ||
| 2654 | Latest version: 3.1 (comes with Emacs 20) | ||
| 2655 | |||
| 2656 | World Wide Web: | ||
| 2657 | http://www.python.org/emacs/supercite.tar.gz | ||
| 2658 | Mailing list: | ||
| 2659 | supercite-request@python.org (for subscriptions) | ||
| 2660 | supercite@python.org (for submissions) | ||
| 2661 | NOTE: Superyank is an old version of Supercite. | ||
| 2662 | |||
| 2663 | 106: Calc -- poor man's Mathematica within Emacs | ||
| 2664 | |||
| 2665 | Author: Dave Gillespie <daveg@csvax.cs.caltech.edu> | ||
| 2666 | Latest version: 2.02f | ||
| 2667 | Anonymous FTP: | ||
| 2668 | ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/calc/calc-2.02f.tar.gz | ||
| 2669 | NOTE: Unlike Wolfram Research, Dave has never threatened to sue | ||
| 2670 | anyone for having a program with a similar command language to | ||
| 2671 | Calc. :-) | ||
| 2672 | |||
| 2673 | 107: VIPER -- vi emulation for Emacs | ||
| 2674 | |||
| 2675 | Since Emacs 19.29, the preferred vi emulation in Emacs is VIPER (M-x | ||
| 2676 | viper-mode RET), which comes with Emacs. It extends and supersedes VIP | ||
| 2677 | (including VIP 4.3) and provides vi emulation at several levels, from one | ||
| 2678 | that closely follows vi to one that departs from vi in several | ||
| 2679 | significant ways. | ||
| 2680 | |||
| 2681 | For Emacs 19.28 and earlier, the following version of VIP is generally | ||
| 2682 | better than the one distributed with Emacs: | ||
| 2683 | |||
| 2684 | Author: Aamod Sane <sane@cs.uiuc.edu> | ||
| 2685 | Latest version: 4.3 | ||
| 2686 | Anonymous FTP: | ||
| 2687 | ftp://ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu/pub/emacs-lisp/modes/vip-mode.tar.Z | ||
| 2688 | |||
| 2689 | 108: AUC TeX -- enhanced LaTeX mode with debugging facilities | ||
| 2690 | |||
| 2691 | Authors: Kresten Krab Thorup <krab@iesd.auc.dk> | ||
| 2692 | and Per Abrahamsen <abraham@iesd.auc.dk> | ||
| 2693 | Latest version: 9.8l | ||
| 2694 | Anonymous FTP: | ||
| 2695 | ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/packages/auctex/auctex.tar.gz | ||
| 2696 | Mailing list: | ||
| 2697 | auc-tex-request@iesd.auc.dk (for subscriptions) | ||
| 2698 | auc-tex@iesd.auc.dk (for submissions) | ||
| 2699 | auc-tex_mgr@iesd.auc.dk (auc-tex development team) | ||
| 2700 | World Wide Web: | ||
| 2701 | http://sunsite.auc.dk/auctex/ | ||
| 2702 | |||
| 2703 | 109: BBDB -- personal Info Rolodex integrated with mail/news readers | ||
| 2704 | |||
| 2705 | Maintainer: Matt Simmons <simmonmt@acm.org> | ||
| 2706 | Latest released version: 2.00 | ||
| 2707 | Available from: | ||
| 2708 | http://www.netcom.com/~simmonmt/bbdb/index.html | ||
| 2709 | Mailing lists: | ||
| 2710 | info-bbdb-request@xemacs.org (for subscriptions) | ||
| 2711 | info-bbdb@xemacs.org (for submissions) | ||
| 2712 | bbdb-announce-request@xemacs.org (to be informed of new releases) | ||
| 2713 | |||
| 2714 | 110: Ispell -- spell checker in C with interface for Emacs | ||
| 2715 | |||
| 2716 | Author: Geoff Kuenning <geoff@itcorp.com> | ||
| 2717 | Latest released version: 3.1.20 | ||
| 2718 | Anonymous FTP: | ||
| 2719 | Master Sites: | ||
| 2720 | ftp://ftp.cs.ucla.edu/pub/ispell/ispell-3.1.20.tar.gz | ||
| 2721 | Known Mirror Sites: | ||
| 2722 | ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/dicts/ispell/ | ||
| 2723 | ftp://ftp.nl.net/pub/textproc/ispell/ | ||
| 2724 | World Wide Web: | ||
| 2725 | http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/geoff/ispell.html | ||
| 2726 | |||
| 2727 | NOTE: * Do not ask Geoff to send you the latest version of Ispell. | ||
| 2728 | He does not have free e-mail. | ||
| 2729 | |||
| 2730 | * This Ispell program is distinct from GNU Ispell 4.0. GNU | ||
| 2731 | Ispell 4.0 is no longer a supported product. | ||
| 2732 | |||
| 2733 | 111: W3-mode -- A World Wide Web browser inside of Emacs | ||
| 2734 | |||
| 2735 | Author: Bill Perry <wmperry@spry.com> | ||
| 2736 | Latest version: 4.0pre.39 | ||
| 2737 | Anonymous FTP: | ||
| 2738 | ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/elisp/w3/.betas/w3.tar.gz | ||
| 2739 | Mailing lists: | ||
| 2740 | w3-announce-request@indiana.edu (to get announcements of new versions) | ||
| 2741 | w3-beta-request@indiana.edu (for beta-testers of new versions) | ||
| 2742 | w3-dev@indiana.edu (for developers of W3) | ||
| 2743 | |||
| 2744 | 112: EDB -- Database program for Emacs; replaces forms editing modes | ||
| 2745 | |||
| 2746 | Author: Michael Ernst <mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu> | ||
| 2747 | Latest version: 1.21 | ||
| 2748 | Anonymous FTP: | ||
| 2749 | ftp://theory.lcs.mit.edu/pub/emacs/edb | ||
| 2750 | |||
| 2751 | 113: Mailcrypt -- PGP interface within Emacs mail and news | ||
| 2752 | |||
| 2753 | Authors: Patrick J. LoPresti <patl@lcs.mit.edu> and | ||
| 2754 | Jin S. Choi <jin@atype.com> | ||
| 2755 | Maintainer: Len Budney <lbudney@pobox.com> | ||
| 2756 | Latest version: 3.5.1 | ||
| 2757 | Anonymous FTP: | ||
| 2758 | ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/crypto/mailcrypt-3.5.1.tar.gz | ||
| 2759 | World Wide Web: | ||
| 2760 | http://www.nb.net/~lbudney/linux/software/mailcrypt.html | ||
| 2761 | |||
| 2762 | 114: JDE -- Development environment for Java programming | ||
| 2763 | |||
| 2764 | Author: Paul Kinnucan <paulk@mathworks.com> | ||
| 2765 | Mailing list: jde-subscribe@sunsite.auc.dk | ||
| 2766 | Latest version: 2.1.4 | ||
| 2767 | World Wide Web: http://sunsite.auc.dk/jde/ | ||
| 2768 | |||
| 2769 | 115: Patch -- program to apply "diffs" for updating files | ||
| 2770 | |||
| 2771 | Author: Larry Wall <lwall@wall.org> (with GNU modifications) | ||
| 2772 | Latest version: 2.5 | ||
| 2773 | Anonymous FTP: See question 92 | ||
| 2774 | |||
| 2775 | |||
| 2776 | Changing Key Bindings and Handling Key Binding Problems | ||
| 2777 | |||
| 2778 | 116: How do I bind keys (including function keys) to commands? | ||
| 2779 | |||
| 2780 | Keys can be bound to commands either interactively or in your .emacs | ||
| 2781 | file. To interactively bind keys for all modes, type | ||
| 2782 | |||
| 2783 | M-x global-set-key RET KEY CMD RET | ||
| 2784 | |||
| 2785 | To bind a key just in the current major mode, type | ||
| 2786 | |||
| 2787 | M-x local-set-key RET KEY CMD RET | ||
| 2788 | |||
| 2789 | See "Key Bindings" in the on-line manual for further details. | ||
| 2790 | |||
| 2791 | To bind keys on starting Emacs or on starting any given mode, use the | ||
| 2792 | following "trick": First bind the key interactively, then immediately | ||
| 2793 | type "C-x ESC ESC C-a C-k C-g". Now, the command needed to bind the key | ||
| 2794 | is in the kill ring, and can be yanked into your .emacs file. If the key | ||
| 2795 | binding is global, no changes to the command are required. For example, | ||
| 2796 | |||
| 2797 | (global-set-key [f1] 'help-for-help) | ||
| 2798 | |||
| 2799 | can be placed directly into the .emacs file. If the key binding is | ||
| 2800 | local, the command is used in conjunction with the "add-hook" command. | ||
| 2801 | For example, in tex-mode, a local binding might be | ||
| 2802 | |||
| 2803 | (add-hook 'tex-mode-hook | ||
| 2804 | (lambda () | ||
| 2805 | (local-set-key [f1] 'help-for-help))) | ||
| 2806 | |||
| 2807 | NOTE: * Control characters in key sequences, in the form yanked from the | ||
| 2808 | kill ring are given in their graphic form -- i.e., CTRL is shown | ||
| 2809 | as `^', TAB as a set of spaces (usually 8), etc. You may want to | ||
| 2810 | convert these into their vector or string forms. | ||
| 2811 | |||
| 2812 | * If a prefix key of the character sequence to be bound is already | ||
| 2813 | bound as a complete key, then you must unbind it before the new | ||
| 2814 | binding. For example, if "ESC {" is previously bound: | ||
| 2815 | |||
| 2816 | (global-unset-key [?\e ?{]) ;; or | ||
| 2817 | (local-unset-key [?\e ?{]) | ||
| 2818 | |||
| 2819 | * Aside from commands and "lambda lists," a vector or string also | ||
| 2820 | can be bound to a key and thus treated as a macro. For example: | ||
| 2821 | |||
| 2822 | (global-set-key [f10] [?\C-x?\e?\e?\C-a?\C-k?\C-g]) ;; or | ||
| 2823 | (global-set-key [f10] "\C-x\e\e\C-a\C-k\C-g") | ||
| 2824 | |||
| 2825 | * The "kbd" macro is convenient for converting a key description in | ||
| 2826 | the form used in documentation or printed by C-h c (except that | ||
| 2827 | function key symbols must be enclosed in angle brackets). For | ||
| 2828 | example: | ||
| 2829 | |||
| 2830 | (global-set-key (kbd "<f1>") 'help-for-help) | ||
| 2831 | (global-set-key (kbd "C-h") 'help-for-help) | ||
| 2832 | (local-set-key (kbd "DEL") 'scroll-down) | ||
| 2833 | |||
| 2834 | 117: Why does Emacs say "Key sequence XXX uses invalid prefix characters"? | ||
| 2835 | |||
| 2836 | Usually, one of two things has happened. In one case, the control | ||
| 2837 | character in the key sequence has been misspecified (e.g. "C-f" used | ||
| 2838 | instead of "\C-f" within a Lisp expression). In the other case, a | ||
| 2839 | "prefix key" in the keystroke sequence you were trying to bind was | ||
| 2840 | already bound as a "complete key." Historically, the "ESC [" prefix was | ||
| 2841 | usually the problem, in which case you should evaluate either of these | ||
| 2842 | forms before attempting to bind the key sequence: | ||
| 2843 | |||
| 2844 | (global-unset-key [?\e ?[]) ;; or | ||
| 2845 | (global-unset-key "\e[") | ||
| 2846 | |||
| 2847 | 118: Why doesn't this [terminal or window-system setup] code work in my | ||
| 2848 | .emacs file, but it works just fine after Emacs starts up? | ||
| 2849 | |||
| 2850 | During startup, Emacs initializes itself according to a given code/file | ||
| 2851 | order. If some of the code executed in your .emacs file needs to be | ||
| 2852 | postponed until the initial terminal or window-system setup code has been | ||
| 2853 | executed but is not, then you will experience this problem (this | ||
| 2854 | code/file execution order is not enforced after startup). | ||
| 2855 | |||
| 2856 | To postpone the execution of Emacs Lisp code until after terminal or | ||
| 2857 | window-system setup, treat the code as a "lambda list" and set the value | ||
| 2858 | of either the "term-setup-hook" or "window-setup-hook" variable to this | ||
| 2859 | "lambda function." For example, | ||
| 2860 | |||
| 2861 | (setq term-setup-hook | ||
| 2862 | (function | ||
| 2863 | (lambda () | ||
| 2864 | (cond ((string-match "\\`vt220" (or (getenv "TERM") "")) | ||
| 2865 | ;; Make vt220's "Do" key behave like M-x: | ||
| 2866 | (global-set-key [do] 'execute-extended-command)) | ||
| 2867 | )))) | ||
| 2868 | |||
| 2869 | For information on what Emacs does every time it is started, see | ||
| 2870 | "Starting Up Emacs" in the Lisp Reference Manual. | ||
| 2871 | |||
| 2872 | 119: How do I use function keys under X Windows? | ||
| 2873 | |||
| 2874 | With Emacs 19, functions keys under X are bound like any other key. See | ||
| 2875 | question 116 for details. | ||
| 2876 | |||
| 2877 | 120: How do I tell what characters or symbols my function or arrow keys | ||
| 2878 | emit? | ||
| 2879 | |||
| 2880 | Type "C-h c" then the function or arrow keys. The command will return | ||
| 2881 | either a function key symbol or character sequence (see the Emacs on-line | ||
| 2882 | documentation for an explanation). This works for other keys as well. | ||
| 2883 | |||
| 2884 | 121: How do I set the X key "translations" for Emacs? | ||
| 2885 | |||
| 2886 | Emacs is not written using the Xt library by default, so there are no | ||
| 2887 | "translations" to be set. (We aren't sure how to set such translations | ||
| 2888 | if you do build Emacs with Xt; please let us know if you've done this!) | ||
| 2889 | |||
| 2890 | The only way to affect the behavior of keys within Emacs is through | ||
| 2891 | "xmodmap" (outside Emacs) or "define-key" (inside Emacs). The | ||
| 2892 | "define-key" command should be used in conjunction with the | ||
| 2893 | "function-key-map" map. For instance, | ||
| 2894 | |||
| 2895 | (define-key function-key-map [M-tab] [?\M-\t]) | ||
| 2896 | |||
| 2897 | defines the "M-TAB" key sequence. | ||
| 2898 | |||
| 2899 | 122: How do I handle C-s and C-q being used for flow control? | ||
| 2900 | |||
| 2901 | C-s and C-q are used in the XON/XOFF flow control protocol. This messes | ||
| 2902 | things up when you're using Emacs, because Emacs binds these keys to | ||
| 2903 | commands by default. Because Emacs won't honor them as flow control | ||
| 2904 | characters, too many of these characters are not passed on and overwhelm | ||
| 2905 | output buffers. Sometimes, intermediate software using XON/XOFF flow | ||
| 2906 | control will prevent Emacs from ever seeing C-s and C-q. | ||
| 2907 | |||
| 2908 | Possible solutions: | ||
| 2909 | |||
| 2910 | * Disable the use of C-s and C-q for flow control. | ||
| 2911 | |||
| 2912 | You need to determine the cause of the flow control. | ||
| 2913 | |||
| 2914 | * your terminal | ||
| 2915 | |||
| 2916 | Your terminal may use XON/XOFF flow control to have time to display | ||
| 2917 | all the characters it receives. For example, VT series terminals do | ||
| 2918 | this. It may be possible to turn this off from a setup menu. For | ||
| 2919 | example, on a VT220 you may select "No XOFF" in the setup menu. This | ||
| 2920 | is also true for some terminal emulation programs on PCs. | ||
| 2921 | |||
| 2922 | When you turn off flow control at the terminal, you will also need to | ||
| 2923 | turn it off at the other end, which might be at the computer you are | ||
| 2924 | logged in to or at some terminal server in between. | ||
| 2925 | |||
| 2926 | If you turn off flow control, characters may be lost; using a printer | ||
| 2927 | connected to the terminal may fail. You may be able to get around | ||
| 2928 | this problem by modifying the "termcap" entry for your terminal to | ||
| 2929 | include extra NUL padding characters. | ||
| 2930 | |||
| 2931 | * a modem | ||
| 2932 | |||
| 2933 | If you are using a dialup connection, the modems may be using | ||
| 2934 | XON/XOFF flow control. It's not clear how to get around this. | ||
| 2935 | |||
| 2936 | * a router or terminal server | ||
| 2937 | |||
| 2938 | Some network box between the terminal and your computer may be using | ||
| 2939 | XON/XOFF flow control. It may be possible to make it use some other | ||
| 2940 | kind of flow control. You will probably have to ask your local | ||
| 2941 | network experts for help with this. | ||
| 2942 | |||
| 2943 | * tty and/or pty devices | ||
| 2944 | |||
| 2945 | If your connection to Emacs goes through multiple tty and/or pty | ||
| 2946 | devices, they may be using XON/XOFF flow control even when it is not | ||
| 2947 | necessary. | ||
| 2948 | |||
| 2949 | Eirik Fuller <eirik@theory.tn.cornell.edu> writes: | ||
| 2950 | |||
| 2951 | Some versions of "rlogin" (and possibly telnet) do not pass flow | ||
| 2952 | control characters to the remote system to which they connect. On | ||
| 2953 | such systems, Emacs on the remote system cannot disable flow | ||
| 2954 | control on the local system. Sometimes "rlogin -8" will avoid this | ||
| 2955 | problem. | ||
| 2956 | |||
| 2957 | One way to cure this is to disable flow control on the local host | ||
| 2958 | (the one running rlogin, not the one running rlogind) using the | ||
| 2959 | stty command, before starting the rlogin process. On many systems, | ||
| 2960 | "stty start u stop u" will do this. | ||
| 2961 | |||
| 2962 | Some versions of "tcsh" will prevent even this from working. One | ||
| 2963 | way around this is to start another shell before starting rlogin, | ||
| 2964 | and issue the stty command to disable flow control from that shell. | ||
| 2965 | |||
| 2966 | Use "stty -ixon" instead of "stty start u stop u" on some systems. | ||
| 2967 | |||
| 2968 | * Make Emacs speak the XON/XOFF flow control protocol. | ||
| 2969 | |||
| 2970 | You can make Emacs treat C-s and C-q as flow control characters by | ||
| 2971 | evaluating the form | ||
| 2972 | |||
| 2973 | (enable-flow-control) | ||
| 2974 | |||
| 2975 | to unconditionally enable flow control or | ||
| 2976 | |||
| 2977 | (enable-flow-control-on "vt100" "h19") | ||
| 2978 | |||
| 2979 | (using your terminal names instead of "vt100" or "h19") to enable | ||
| 2980 | selectively. These commands will automatically swap `C-s' and `C-q' to | ||
| 2981 | `C-\' and `C-^'. Variables can be used to change the default swap keys | ||
| 2982 | ("flow-control-c-s-replacement" and "flow-control-c-q-replacement"). | ||
| 2983 | |||
| 2984 | If you are fixing this for yourself, simply put the form in your .emacs | ||
| 2985 | file. If you are fixing this for your entire site, the best place to | ||
| 2986 | put it is in the lisp/site-start.el file. Putting this form in | ||
| 2987 | lisp/default.el has the problem that if the user's .emacs file has an | ||
| 2988 | error, this will prevent lisp/default.el from being loaded and Emacs | ||
| 2989 | may be unusable for the user, even for correcting their .emacs file | ||
| 2990 | (unless they're smart enough to move it to another name). | ||
| 2991 | |||
| 2992 | For further discussion of this issue, read the file PROBLEMS (in the | ||
| 2993 | top-level directory when you unpack the Emacs source). | ||
| 2994 | |||
| 2995 | 123: How do I bind `C-s' and `C-q' (or any key) if these keys are filtered | ||
| 2996 | out? | ||
| 2997 | |||
| 2998 | To bind `C-s' and `C-q', use either "enable-flow-control" or | ||
| 2999 | "enable-flow-control-on". See question 122 for usage and implementation | ||
| 3000 | details. | ||
| 3001 | |||
| 3002 | To bind other keys, use "keyboard-translate". See question 126 for usage | ||
| 3003 | details. To do this for an entire site, you should swap the keys in | ||
| 3004 | lisp/site-start.el. See question 122 for an explanation of why | ||
| 3005 | lisp/default.el should not be used. | ||
| 3006 | |||
| 3007 | NOTE: * If you do this for an entire site, the users will be confused by | ||
| 3008 | the disparity between what the documentation says and how Emacs | ||
| 3009 | actually behaves. | ||
| 3010 | |||
| 3011 | 124: Why does the "Backspace" key invoke help? | ||
| 3012 | |||
| 3013 | The "Backspace" key (on most keyboards) generates ASCII code 8. `C-h' | ||
| 3014 | sends the same code. In Emacs by default `C-h' invokes help-command. | ||
| 3015 | This is intended to be easy to remember since the first letter of "help" | ||
| 3016 | is `h'. The easiest solution to this problem is to use `C-h' (and | ||
| 3017 | Backspace) for help and DEL (the Delete key) for deleting the previous | ||
| 3018 | character. | ||
| 3019 | |||
| 3020 | For many people this solution may be problematic: | ||
| 3021 | |||
| 3022 | * They normally use Backspace outside of Emacs for deleting the previous | ||
| 3023 | character. This can be solved by making DEL the command for deleting | ||
| 3024 | the previous character outside of Emacs. On many Unix systems, this | ||
| 3025 | command will remap DEL: | ||
| 3026 | |||
| 3027 | stty erase `^?' | ||
| 3028 | |||
| 3029 | * The person may prefer using the Backspace key for deleting the previous | ||
| 3030 | character because it is more conveniently located on their keyboard or | ||
| 3031 | because they don't even have a separate Delete key. In this case, the | ||
| 3032 | Backspace key should be made to behave like Delete. There are several | ||
| 3033 | methods. | ||
| 3034 | |||
| 3035 | * Some terminals (e.g., VT3## terminals) allow the character generated by | ||
| 3036 | the Backspace key to be changed from a setup menu. | ||
| 3037 | |||
| 3038 | * You may be able to get a keyboard that is completely programmable. | ||
| 3039 | |||
| 3040 | * Under X or on a dumb terminal, it is possible to swap the Backspace and | ||
| 3041 | Delete keys inside Emacs: | ||
| 3042 | |||
| 3043 | (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?) | ||
| 3044 | |||
| 3045 | See question 126 for further details of "keyboard-translate". | ||
| 3046 | |||
| 3047 | * Another approach is to switch key bindings and put help on "C-x h" | ||
| 3048 | instead: | ||
| 3049 | |||
| 3050 | (global-set-key "\C-h" 'delete-backward-char) | ||
| 3051 | (global-set-key "\C-xh" 'help-command) ;; overrides mark-whole-buffer | ||
| 3052 | |||
| 3053 | Other popular key bindings for help are M-? and "C-x ?". | ||
| 3054 | |||
| 3055 | NOTE: * Don't try to bind DEL to help-command, because there are many | ||
| 3056 | modes that have local bindings of DEL that will interfere. | ||
| 3057 | |||
| 3058 | 125: Why doesn't Emacs look at the stty settings for Backspace vs. Delete? | ||
| 3059 | |||
| 3060 | Good question! | ||
| 3061 | |||
| 3062 | 126: How do I "swap" two keys? | ||
| 3063 | |||
| 3064 | In Emacs 19, you can swap two keys (or key sequences) by using the | ||
| 3065 | "keyboard-translate" function. For example, to turn `C-h' into DEL and | ||
| 3066 | DEL to `C-h', use | ||
| 3067 | |||
| 3068 | (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?) ; translate `C-h' to DEL | ||
| 3069 | (keyboard-translate ?\C-? ?\C-h) ; translate DEL to `C-h'. | ||
| 3070 | |||
| 3071 | The first key sequence of the pair after the function identifies what is | ||
| 3072 | produced by the keyboard; the second, what is matched for in the keymaps. | ||
| 3073 | |||
| 3074 | Keyboard translations are not the same as key bindings in keymaps. Emacs | ||
| 3075 | contains numerous keymaps that apply in different situations, but there | ||
| 3076 | is only one set of keyboard translations, and it applies to every | ||
| 3077 | character that Emacs reads from the terminal. Keyboard translations take | ||
| 3078 | place at the lowest level of input processing; the keys that are looked | ||
| 3079 | up in keymaps contain the characters that result from keyboard | ||
| 3080 | translation. | ||
| 3081 | |||
| 3082 | Also see "Keyboard Translations" in the on-line manual. | ||
| 3083 | |||
| 3084 | 127: How do I produce C-XXX with my keyboard? | ||
| 3085 | |||
| 3086 | On terminals (but not under X), some common "aliases" are: | ||
| 3087 | |||
| 3088 | C-2 or C-SPC for C-@ | ||
| 3089 | C-6 for C-^ | ||
| 3090 | C-7 or C-S-- for C-_ | ||
| 3091 | C-4 for C-\ | ||
| 3092 | C-5 for C-] | ||
| 3093 | C-/ for C-? | ||
| 3094 | |||
| 3095 | Often other aliases exist; use the "C-h c" command and try `CTRL' with | ||
| 3096 | all of the digits on your keyboard to see what gets generated. You can | ||
| 3097 | also try the "C-h w" command if you know the name of the command. | ||
| 3098 | |||
| 3099 | 128: What if I don't have a Meta key? | ||
| 3100 | |||
| 3101 | Instead of typing "M-a", you can type "ESC a". In fact, Emacs converts | ||
| 3102 | M-a internally into "ESC a" anyway (depending on the value of | ||
| 3103 | meta-prefix-char). Note that you press "Meta" and `a' together, while | ||
| 3104 | you press `ESC', release it, and then press `a'. | ||
| 3105 | |||
| 3106 | 129: What if I don't have an Escape key? | ||
| 3107 | |||
| 3108 | Type `C-[' instead. This should send ASCII code 27 just like an Escape | ||
| 3109 | key would. `C-3' may also work on some terminal (but not under X). For | ||
| 3110 | many terminals (notably DEC terminals) `F11' generates ESC. If not, the | ||
| 3111 | following form can be used to bind it: | ||
| 3112 | |||
| 3113 | (define-key function-key-map [f11] [?\e]) ; F11 is the documented ESC | ||
| 3114 | ; replacement on DEC terminals. | ||
| 3115 | |||
| 3116 | 130: Can I make my "Compose Character" key behave like a Meta key? | ||
| 3117 | |||
| 3118 | On a dumb terminal such as a VT220, no. It is rumored that certain VT220 | ||
| 3119 | clones could have their Compose key configured this way. If you're using | ||
| 3120 | X, you might be able to do this with the "xmodmap" program. | ||
| 3121 | |||
| 3122 | 131: How do I bind a combination of modifier key and function key? | ||
| 3123 | |||
| 3124 | With Emacs 19 you can represent modified function keys in vector format | ||
| 3125 | by adding prefixes to the function key symbol. For example (from the | ||
| 3126 | on-line documentation): | ||
| 3127 | |||
| 3128 | (global-set-key [?\C-x right] 'forward-page) | ||
| 3129 | |||
| 3130 | where "?\C-x" is the Lisp character constant for the character "C-x". | ||
| 3131 | |||
| 3132 | You can use the modifier keys Control, Meta, Hyper, Super, Alt, and Shift | ||
| 3133 | with function keys. To represent these modifiers, prepend the strings | ||
| 3134 | "C-", "M-", "H-", "s-", "A-", and "S-" to the symbol name. Here is how | ||
| 3135 | to make "Hyper-Meta-RIGHT" move forward a word: | ||
| 3136 | |||
| 3137 | (global-set-key [H-M-right] 'forward-word) | ||
| 3138 | |||
| 3139 | In recent Emacs versions this may also be written as: | ||
| 3140 | |||
| 3141 | (global-set-key [(hyper meta right)] 'forward-word) | ||
| 3142 | |||
| 3143 | NOTE: * Not all modifiers are permitted in all situations. Hyper, Super, | ||
| 3144 | and Alt are available only under X (provided there are such | ||
| 3145 | keys). Non-ASCII keys and mouse events (e.g. "C-=" and | ||
| 3146 | "mouse-1") also fall under this category. | ||
| 3147 | |||
| 3148 | See question 116 for general key binding instructions. | ||
| 3149 | |||
| 3150 | 132: Why doesn't my Meta key work in an xterm window? | ||
| 3151 | |||
| 3152 | Try all of these methods before asking for further help: | ||
| 3153 | |||
| 3154 | * You may have big problems using "mwm" as your window manager. {Does | ||
| 3155 | anyone know a good generic solution to allow the use of the Meta key in | ||
| 3156 | Emacs with mwm?} | ||
| 3157 | |||
| 3158 | * For X11: Make sure it really is a Meta key. Use "xev" to find out what | ||
| 3159 | keysym your Meta key generates. It should be either Meta_L or Meta_R. | ||
| 3160 | If it isn't, use xmodmap to fix the situation. | ||
| 3161 | |||
| 3162 | * Make sure the pty the xterm is using is passing 8 bit characters. | ||
| 3163 | "stty -a" (or "stty everything") should show "cs8" somewhere. If it | ||
| 3164 | shows "cs7" instead, use "stty cs8 -istrip" (or "stty pass8") to fix | ||
| 3165 | it. | ||
| 3166 | |||
| 3167 | * If there is an rlogin connection between the xterm and the Emacs, the | ||
| 3168 | "-8" argument may need to be given to rlogin to make it pass all 8 bits | ||
| 3169 | of every character. | ||
| 3170 | |||
| 3171 | * If the Emacs is running under Ultrix, it is reported that evaluating | ||
| 3172 | (set-input-mode t nil) helps. | ||
| 3173 | |||
| 3174 | * If all else fails, you can make xterm generate "ESC W" when you type | ||
| 3175 | M-W, which is the same conversion Emacs would make if it got the M-W | ||
| 3176 | anyway. In X11R4, the following resource specification will do this: | ||
| 3177 | |||
| 3178 | XTerm.VT100.EightBitInput: false | ||
| 3179 | |||
| 3180 | (This changes the behavior of the insert-eight-bit action.) | ||
| 3181 | |||
| 3182 | With older xterms, you can specify this behavior with a translation: | ||
| 3183 | |||
| 3184 | XTerm.VT100.Translations: #override \ | ||
| 3185 | Meta<KeyPress>: string(0x1b) insert() | ||
| 3186 | |||
| 3187 | You might have to replace "Meta" with "Alt". | ||
| 3188 | |||
| 3189 | 133: Why doesn't my ExtendChar key work as a Meta key under HP-UX 8.0 | ||
| 3190 | and 9.x? | ||
| 3191 | |||
| 3192 | This is a result of an internationalization extension in X11R4 and the | ||
| 3193 | fact that HP is now using this extension. Emacs assumes that | ||
| 3194 | XLookupString returns the same result regardless of the Meta key state | ||
| 3195 | which is no longer necessarily true. Until Emacs is fixed, the temporary | ||
| 3196 | kludge is to run this command after each time the X server is started but | ||
| 3197 | preferably before any xterm clients are: | ||
| 3198 | |||
| 3199 | xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Mode_switch' | ||
| 3200 | |||
| 3201 | NOTE: This will disable the use of the extra keysyms systemwide, which | ||
| 3202 | may be undesirable if you actually intend to use them. | ||
| 3203 | |||
| 3204 | |||
| 3205 | Using Emacs with Alternate Character Sets | ||
| 3206 | |||
| 3207 | 134: How do I make Emacs display 8-bit characters? | ||
| 3208 | |||
| 3209 | Emacs 19 introduced built-in support for 8-bit characters. Emacs 20 can | ||
| 3210 | operate similarly in Unibyte mode or else in Multibyte mode. See the | ||
| 3211 | "International" node in the online manual, specifically "Single-Byte | ||
| 3212 | European Support". | ||
| 3213 | |||
| 3214 | 135: How do I input 8-bit characters? | ||
| 3215 | |||
| 3216 | Again, see the "International" node of the on-line manual. | ||
| 3217 | |||
| 3218 | 136: Where can I get an Emacs that handles kanji, Chinese, or other | ||
| 3219 | character sets? | ||
| 3220 | |||
| 3221 | Emacs 20 now includes many of the features of MULE, the Multilingual | ||
| 3222 | Enhancement of Emacs. See question 84 for information on where to find | ||
| 3223 | and download Emacs. | ||
| 3224 | |||
| 3225 | 137: Where is an Emacs that can handle Semitic (right-to-left) alphabets? | ||
| 3226 | |||
| 3227 | Emacs 20 supports Hebrew characters (ISO 8859-8), but does not yet | ||
| 3228 | support right-to-left character entry. | ||
| 3229 | |||
| 3230 | Joel M. Hoffman <joel@exc.com> has written a Lisp package called | ||
| 3231 | hebrew.el that allows right-to-left editing of Hebrew. It reportedly | ||
| 3232 | works out of the box with Emacs 19, but requires patches for Emacs 18. | ||
| 3233 | Write to Joel if you want the patches or package. | ||
| 3234 | |||
| 3235 | Hebrew.el requires a Hebrew screen font, but no other Hardware support. | ||
| 3236 | Joel has a screen font for PCs running MS-DOS and Linux. | ||
| 3237 | |||
| 3238 | You might also try to query archie for files named with "hebrew"; several | ||
| 3239 | ftp sites in Israel may also have the necessary files. | ||
| 3240 | |||
| 3241 | |||
| 3242 | Mail and News | ||
| 3243 | |||
| 3244 | 138: How do I change the included text prefix in mail/news followups? | ||
| 3245 | |||
| 3246 | If you read mail with Rmail or news with Gnus, set the variable | ||
| 3247 | mail-yank-prefix. For VM, set vm-included-text-prefix. For mh-e, set | ||
| 3248 | mh-ins-buf-prefix. | ||
| 3249 | |||
| 3250 | For fancier control of citations, use Supercite. See question 105. | ||
| 3251 | |||
| 3252 | To prevent Emacs from including various headers of the replied-to | ||
| 3253 | message, set the value of mail-yank-ignored-headers to an appropriate | ||
| 3254 | regexp. | ||
| 3255 | |||
| 3256 | 139: How do I save a copy of outgoing mail? | ||
| 3257 | |||
| 3258 | You can either mail yourself a copy by including a "BCC:" header in the | ||
| 3259 | mail message, or store a copy of the message directly to a file by | ||
| 3260 | including an "FCC:" header. | ||
| 3261 | |||
| 3262 | If you use standard mail, you can automatically create a "BCC:" to | ||
| 3263 | yourself by putting | ||
| 3264 | |||
| 3265 | (setq mail-self-blind t) | ||
| 3266 | |||
| 3267 | in your .emacs file. You can automatically include an "FCC:" field by | ||
| 3268 | putting something like the following in your .emacs file: | ||
| 3269 | |||
| 3270 | (setq mail-archive-file-name (expand-file-name "~/outgoing")) | ||
| 3271 | |||
| 3272 | The output file will be in Unix mail format, which can be read directly | ||
| 3273 | by VM, but not always by Rmail. See question 141. | ||
| 3274 | |||
| 3275 | For Gnus, see the `Archived Messages node of the Gnus manual. | ||
| 3276 | |||
| 3277 | If you use mh-e, add an "FCC:" or "BCC:" field to your components file. | ||
| 3278 | |||
| 3279 | It does not work to put "set record filename" in the .mailrc file. | ||
| 3280 | |||
| 3281 | 140: Why doesn't Emacs expand my aliases when sending mail? | ||
| 3282 | |||
| 3283 | * You must separate multiple addresses in the headers of the mail buffer | ||
| 3284 | with commas. This is because Emacs supports RFC822 standard addresses | ||
| 3285 | like this one: | ||
| 3286 | |||
| 3287 | To: Willy Smith <wks@xpnsv.lwyrs.com> | ||
| 3288 | |||
| 3289 | However, you do not need to -- and probably should not, unless your | ||
| 3290 | system's version of /usr/ucb/mail (aka mailx) supports RFC822 -- | ||
| 3291 | separate addresses with commas in your ~/.mailrc file. | ||
| 3292 | |||
| 3293 | * Emacs normally only reads the ".mailrc" file once per session, when you | ||
| 3294 | start to compose your first mail message. If you edit .mailrc, you can | ||
| 3295 | type "M-x rebuild-mail-abbrevs RET" to make Emacs reread your ~/.mailrc | ||
| 3296 | file. | ||
| 3297 | |||
| 3298 | * If you like, you can expand mail aliases as abbrevs, as soon as you | ||
| 3299 | type them in. To enable this feature, execute the following: | ||
| 3300 | |||
| 3301 | (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook 'mail-abbrevs-setup) | ||
| 3302 | |||
| 3303 | Note that the aliases are expanded automatically only after you type | ||
| 3304 | RET or a punctuation character (e.g. `,'). You can force their | ||
| 3305 | expansion by moving point to the end of the alias and typing "C-x a e" | ||
| 3306 | (M-x expand-abbrev). | ||
| 3307 | |||
| 3308 | 141: Why does Rmail think all my saved messages are one big message? | ||
| 3309 | |||
| 3310 | A file created through the FCC: field in a message is in Unix mail | ||
| 3311 | format, not the format that Rmail uses (BABYL format). Rmail will try to | ||
| 3312 | convert a Unix mail file into BABYL format on input, but sometimes it | ||
| 3313 | makes errors. For guaranteed safety, you can make the saved-messages | ||
| 3314 | file be an inbox for your Rmail file by using the function | ||
| 3315 | set-rmail-inbox-list. | ||
| 3316 | |||
| 3317 | 142: How can I sort the messages in my Rmail folder? | ||
| 3318 | |||
| 3319 | In Rmail, type "C-c C-s C-h" to get a list of sorting functions and their | ||
| 3320 | key bindings. | ||
| 3321 | |||
| 3322 | 143: Why does Rmail need to write to /usr/spool/mail? | ||
| 3323 | |||
| 3324 | This is the behavior of the "movemail" program which Rmail uses. This | ||
| 3325 | indicates that movemail is configured to use lock files. | ||
| 3326 | |||
| 3327 | RMS writes: | ||
| 3328 | |||
| 3329 | Certain systems require lock files to interlock access to mail files. | ||
| 3330 | On these systems, movemail must write lock files, or you risk losing | ||
| 3331 | mail. You simply must arrange to let movemail write them. | ||
| 3332 | |||
| 3333 | Other systems use the flock system call to interlock access. On these | ||
| 3334 | systems, you should configure movemail to use flock. | ||
| 3335 | |||
| 3336 | 144: How do I recover my mail files after Rmail munges their format? | ||
| 3337 | |||
| 3338 | If you have just done rmail-input on a file and you don't want to save it | ||
| 3339 | in Rmail's format (called BABYL), just kill the buffer (with C-x k). | ||
| 3340 | |||
| 3341 | If you typed M-x rmail and it read some messages out of your inbox and | ||
| 3342 | you want to put them in a Unix mail file, use C-o on each message. | ||
| 3343 | |||
| 3344 | If you want to convert an existing file from BABYL format to Unix mail | ||
| 3345 | format, use the command M-x unrmail: it will prompt you for the input and | ||
| 3346 | output file names. | ||
| 3347 | |||
| 3348 | 145: How can I force Rmail to reply to the sender of a message, but not the | ||
| 3349 | other recipients? | ||
| 3350 | |||
| 3351 | Ron Isaacson <isaacson@seas.upenn.edu> says: When you hit "r" to reply in | ||
| 3352 | Rmail, by default it CCs all of the original recipients (everyone on the | ||
| 3353 | original "To" and "CC" lists). With a prefix argument (i.e., typing "C-u" | ||
| 3354 | before "r"), it replies only to the sender. However, going through the | ||
| 3355 | whole C-u business every time you want to reply is a pain. This is the | ||
| 3356 | best fix I've been able to come up with: | ||
| 3357 | |||
| 3358 | (defun rmail-reply-t () | ||
| 3359 | "Reply only to the sender of the current message. (See rmail-reply.)" | ||
| 3360 | (interactive) | ||
| 3361 | (rmail-reply t)) | ||
| 3362 | |||
| 3363 | (add-hook 'rmail-mode-hook | ||
| 3364 | '(lambda () | ||
| 3365 | (define-key rmail-mode-map "r" 'rmail-reply-t) | ||
| 3366 | (define-key rmail-mode-map "R" 'rmail-reply))) | ||
| 3367 | |||
| 3368 | 146: How can I get my favorite Emacs mail package to support MIME? | ||
| 3369 | |||
| 3370 | Look at the Emacs MIME FAQ, maintained by MacDonald Hall Jackson | ||
| 3371 | <trey@cs.berkeley.edu> at | ||
| 3372 | |||
| 3373 | http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/~trey/emacs/mime.html | ||
| 3374 | |||
| 3375 | Version 6.x of VM supports MIME. See question 104. | ||
| 3376 | |||
| 3377 | MIME support has been added in the development version of Gnus which will | ||
| 3378 | be included with a future version of Emacs. | ||
| 3379 | |||
| 3380 | 147: How do I make Emacs automatically start my mail/news reader? | ||
| 3381 | |||
| 3382 | To start Emacs in Gnus: | ||
| 3383 | |||
| 3384 | emacs -f gnus | ||
| 3385 | |||
| 3386 | in Rmail: | ||
| 3387 | |||
| 3388 | emacs -f rmail | ||
| 3389 | |||
| 3390 | A more convenient way to start with Gnus: | ||
| 3391 | |||
| 3392 | alias gnus 'emacs -f gnus' | ||
| 3393 | gnus | ||
| 3394 | |||
| 3395 | It is probably unwise to automatically start your mail or news reader | ||
| 3396 | from your .emacs file. This would cause problems if you needed to run | ||
| 3397 | two copies of Emacs at one time. Also, this would make it difficult for | ||
| 3398 | you to start Emacs quickly when you needed to. | ||
| 3399 | |||
| 3400 | 148: How do I read news under Emacs? | ||
| 3401 | |||
| 3402 | Use M-x gnus. It is documented in Info (see question 14). | ||
| 3403 | |||
| 3404 | 149: Why doesn't Gnus work via NNTP? | ||
| 3405 | |||
| 3406 | There is a bug in NNTP version 1.5.10, such that when multiple requests | ||
| 3407 | are sent to the NNTP server, the server only handles the first one before | ||
| 3408 | blocking waiting for more input which never comes. NNTP version 1.5.11 | ||
| 3409 | claims to fix this. | ||
| 3410 | |||
| 3411 | You can work around the bug inside Emacs like this: | ||
| 3412 | |||
| 3413 | (setq nntp-maximum-request 1) | ||
| 3414 | |||
| 3415 | You can find out what version of NNTP your news server is running by | ||
| 3416 | telnetting to the NNTP port (usually 119) on the news server machine | ||
| 3417 | (i.e., "telnet server-machine 119"). The server should give its version | ||
| 3418 | number in the welcome message. Type "quit" to get out. | ||
| 3419 | |||
| 3420 | Also see question 75 in this FAQ for some additional ideas. | ||
| 3421 | |||
| 3422 | 150: How do I view news articles with embedded underlining (e.g., | ||
| 3423 | ClariNews)? | ||
| 3424 | |||
| 3425 | Underlining appears like this: | ||
| 3426 | |||
| 3427 | _^Hu_^Hn_^Hd_^He_^Hr_^Hl_^Hi_^Hn_^Hi_^Hn_^Hg | ||
| 3428 | |||
| 3429 | Use Gnus' "Overstrike" function from the Article -> Washing menu (or type | ||
| 3430 | "W o"). You can do this for all articles with: | ||
| 3431 | |||
| 3432 | (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook 'gnus-article-treat-overstrike) | ||
| 3433 | |||
| 3434 | If you prefer to do away with underlining altogether, you can | ||
| 3435 | destructively remove it with M-x ununderline-region; do this | ||
| 3436 | automatically via | ||
| 3437 | |||
| 3438 | (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook | ||
| 3439 | (lambda () (ununderline-region (point-min) (point-max)))) | ||
| 3440 | |||
| 3441 | See the Gnus manual for more information about this and similar methods | ||
| 3442 | for treating article contents. | ||
| 3443 | |||
| 3444 | 151: How do I save all the items of a multi-part posting in Gnus? | ||
| 3445 | |||
| 3446 | Use gnus-uu. Type C-c C-v C-h in the Gnus summary buffer to see a list | ||
| 3447 | of available commands. | ||
| 3448 | |||
| 3449 | 152: How do I make Gnus start up faster? | ||
| 3450 | |||
| 3451 | From the Gnus FAQ (see question 158): | ||
| 3452 | |||
| 3453 | Pranav Kumar Tiwari <pktiwari@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: I posted the same | ||
| 3454 | query recently and I got an answer to it. I am going to repeat the | ||
| 3455 | answer. What you need is a newer version of gnus, version 5.0.4+. I am | ||
| 3456 | using 5.0.12 and it works fine with me with the following settings: | ||
| 3457 | |||
| 3458 | (setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil | ||
| 3459 | gnus-read-active-file 'some | ||
| 3460 | gnus-nov-is-evil nil | ||
| 3461 | gnus-select-method '(nntp gnus-nntp-server)) | ||
| 3462 | |||
| 3463 | 153: How do I catch up all newsgroups in Gnus? | ||
| 3464 | |||
| 3465 | In the "*Newsgroup*" buffer, type the following magical incantation: | ||
| 3466 | |||
| 3467 | M-< C-x ( c y C-x ) M-0 C-x e | ||
| 3468 | |||
| 3469 | Leave off the "M-<" if you only want to catch up from point to the end of | ||
| 3470 | the "*Newsgroup" buffer. | ||
| 3471 | |||
| 3472 | 154: Why can't I kill in Gnus based on the Newsgroups/Keywords/Control | ||
| 3473 | headers? | ||
| 3474 | |||
| 3475 | Gnus will complain that the "Newsgroups:", "Keywords:", and "Control:" | ||
| 3476 | headers are "Unknown header" fields. | ||
| 3477 | |||
| 3478 | For the "Newsgroups:" header, there is an easy workaround: kill on the | ||
| 3479 | "Xref" header instead, which will be present on any cross-posted article | ||
| 3480 | (as long as your site carries the cross-post group). | ||
| 3481 | |||
| 3482 | If you really want to kill on one of these headers, you can do it like | ||
| 3483 | this: | ||
| 3484 | |||
| 3485 | (gnus-kill nil "^Newsgroups: .*\\(bad\\.group\\|worse\\.group\\)") | ||
| 3486 | |||
| 3487 | 155: How do I get rid of flashing messages in Gnus for slow connections? | ||
| 3488 | |||
| 3489 | Set nntp-debug-read to nil. | ||
| 3490 | |||
| 3491 | 156: Why is catch up slow in Gnus? | ||
| 3492 | |||
| 3493 | Because Gnus is marking crosspostings read. You can control this with | ||
| 3494 | the variable gnus-use-cross-reference. | ||
| 3495 | |||
| 3496 | 157: Why does Gnus hang for a long time when posting? | ||
| 3497 | |||
| 3498 | David Lawrence <tale@uunet.uu.net> explains: | ||
| 3499 | |||
| 3500 | The problem is almost always interaction between NNTP and C News. NNTP | ||
| 3501 | POST asks C News's inews to not background itself but rather hang | ||
| 3502 | around and give its exit status so it knows whether the post was | ||
| 3503 | successful. (That wait will on some systems not return the exit status | ||
| 3504 | of the waited for job is a different sort of problem.) It ends up | ||
| 3505 | taking a long time because inews is calling relaynews, which often | ||
| 3506 | waits for another relaynews to free the lock on the news system so it | ||
| 3507 | can file the article. | ||
| 3508 | |||
| 3509 | My preferred solution is to change inews to not call relaynews, but | ||
| 3510 | rather use newsspool. This loses some error-catching functionality, | ||
| 3511 | but is for the most part safe as inews will detect a lot of the errors | ||
| 3512 | on its own. The C News folks have sped up inews, too, so speed should | ||
| 3513 | look better to most folks as that update propagates around. | ||
| 3514 | |||
| 3515 | 158: Where can I find out more about Gnus? | ||
| 3516 | |||
| 3517 | Visit http://www.gnus.org/, which has a pointer to the current Gnus FAQ and | ||
| 3518 | more information. The relevant newsgroup is gnu.emacs.gnus. | ||
| 3519 | |||
| 3520 | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ||
| 3521 | Modified, with permission, for the Emacs 20.4 distribution by Dave Love. | ||
| 3522 | |||
| 3523 | Copyright 1994-1998 Reuven M. Lerner | ||
| 3524 | Copyright 1992-1993 Steven Byrnes | ||
| 3525 | Copyright 1990-1992 Joseph Brian Wells | ||
| 3526 | |||
| 3527 | This list of frequently asked questions about GNU Emacs with answers | ||
| 3528 | ("FAQ") may be translated into other languages, transformed into other | ||
| 3529 | formats (e.g. Texinfo, Info, WWW, WAIS), and updated with new information. | ||
| 3530 | |||
| 3531 | The same conditions apply to any derivative of the FAQ as apply to the FAQ | ||
| 3532 | itself. Every copy of the FAQ must include this notice or an approved | ||
| 3533 | translation, information on who is currently maintaining the FAQ and how to | ||
| 3534 | contact them (including their e-mail address), and information on where the | ||
| 3535 | latest version of the FAQ is archived (including FTP information). | ||
| 3536 | |||
| 3537 | The FAQ may be copied and redistributed under these conditions, except that | ||
| 3538 | the FAQ may not be embedded in a larger literary work unless that work | ||
| 3539 | itself allows free copying and redistribution. | ||
| 3540 | |||
| 3541 | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ||
| 3542 | |||
| 3543 | People who helped with this version of the FAQ: | ||
| 3544 | |||
| 3545 | Ethan Bradford <ethanb@u.washington.edu>, William G. Dubuque | ||
| 3546 | <wgd@martigny.ai.mit.edu>, Michael Ernst <mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu>, | ||
| 3547 | and Denby Wong <3dw16@qlink.QueensU.CA>. | ||