EMACS

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Emacs has an extensive interactive help facility, but the facility assumes that you know how to manipulate Emacs windows and buffers. CTRL-h (backspace or CTRL-h) enters the Help facility. Help Tutorial (CTRL-h t) requests an interactive tutorial which can teach beginners the fundamentals of Emacs in a few minutes. Help Apropos (CTRL-h a) helps you find a command given its functionality, Help Character (CTRL-h c) describes a given character's effect, and Help Function (CTRL-h f) describes a given Lisp function specified by name.

Emacs's Undo can undo several steps of modification to your buffers, so it is easy to recover from editing mistakes.

GNU Emacs's many special packages handle mail reading (RMail) and sending (Mail), outline editing (Outline), compiling (Compile), running subshells within Emacs windows (Shell), running a Lisp read-eval-print loop (Lisp-Interaction-Mode), and automated psychotherapy (Doctor).

There is an extensive reference manual, but users of other Emacses should have little trouble adapting even without a copy. Users new to Emacs will be able to use basic features fairly rapidly by studying the tutorial and using the self-documentation features.

Emacs Options

The following options are of general interest:

file

Edit file.

+number

Go to the line specified by number (do not insert a space between the "+" sign and the number).

-q

Do not load an init file.

-u user

Load user's init file.

-t file

Use specified file as the terminal instead of using stdin/stdout. This must be the first argument specified in the command line.

The following options are lisp-oriented (these options are processed in the order encountered):

-f function

Execute the lisp function function.

-l file

Load the lisp code in the file file.

The following options are useful when running Emacs as a batch editor:

-batch commandfile

Edit in batch mode using the commands found in commandfile. The editor will send messages to stdout. This option must be the first in the argument list.

-kill

Exit Emacs while in batch mode.

Using Emacs with X

Emacs has been tailored to work well with the X window system. If you run Emacs from under X windows, it will create its own X window to display in. You will probably want to start the editor as a background process so that you can continue using your original window.

Emacs can be started with the following X switches:

-rn name

Specifies the program name which should be used when looking up defaults in the user's X resources. This must be the first option specified in the command line.

-wn name

Specifies the name which should be assigned to the Emacs window.

-r

Display the Emacs window in reverse video.

-i

Use the "kitchen sink" bitmap icon when iconifying the Emacs window.

-font font, -fn font

Set the Emacs window's font to that specified by font. You will find the various X fonts in the /usr/lib/X11/fonts directory. Note that Emacs will only accept fixed width fonts. Under the X11 Release 4 font-naming conventions, any font with the value "m" or "c" in the eleventh field of the font name is a fixed width font. Furthermore, fonts whose name are of the form widthxheight are generally fixed width, as is the font fixed. See xlsfonts(1) for more information.

When you specify a font, be sure to put a space between the switch and the font name.

-b pixels

Set the Emacs window's border width to the number of pixels specified by pixels. Defaults to one pixel on each side of the window.

-ib pixels

Set the window's internal border width to the number of pixels specified by pixels. Defaults to one pixel of padding on each side of the window.

-w geometry, -geometry geometry

Set the Emacs window's width, height, and position as specified. The geometry specification is in the standard X format; see X(1) for more information. The width and height are specified in characters; the default is 80 by 24.

-fg color

On color displays, sets the color of the text.

See the file /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt for a list of valid color names.

-bg color

On color displays, sets the color of the window's background.

-bd color

On color displays, sets the color of the window's border.

-cr color

On color displays, sets the color of the window's text cursor.

-ms color

On color displays, sets the color of the window's mouse cursor.

-d displayname, -display displayname

Create the Emacs window on the display specified by displayname. Must be the first option specified in the command line.

-nw

Tells Emacs not to use its special interface to X. If you use this switch when invoking Emacs from an xterm(1) window, display is done in that window. This must be the first option specified in the command line.

You can set X default values for your Emacs windows in your .Xresources file (see xrdb(1)). Use the following format:

emacs.keyword:value

where value specifies the default value of keyword. Emacs lets you set default values for the following keywords:

font (class Font)

Sets the window's text font.

reverseVideo (class ReverseVideo)

If reverseVideo's value is set to on, the window will be displayed in reverse video.

bitmapIcon (class BitmapIcon)

If bitmapIcon's value is set to on, the window will iconify into the "kitchen sink."

borderWidth (class BorderWidth)

Sets the window's border width in pixels.

internalBorder (class BorderWidth)

Sets the window's internal border width in pixels.

foreground (class Foreground)

For color displays, sets the window's text color.

background (class Background)

For color displays, sets the window's background color.

borderColor (class BorderColor)

For color displays, sets the color of the window's border.

cursorColor (class Foreground)

For color displays, sets the color of the window's text cursor.

pointerColor (class Foreground)

For color displays, sets the color of the window's mouse cursor.

geometry (class Geometry)

Sets the geometry of the Emacs window (as described above).

title (class Title)

Sets the title of the Emacs window.

iconName (class Title)

Sets the icon name for the Emacs window icon.

If you try to set color values while using a black and white display, the window's characteristics will default as follows: the foreground color will be set to black, the background color will be set to white, the border color will be set to grey, and the text and mouse cursors will be set to black.

Using the Mouse

The following lists the mouse button bindings for the Emacs window under X11.

MOUSE BUTTON                     FUNCTION


left                             Set point.


middle                           Paste text.


right                            Cut text into X cut buffer.


SHIFT-middle                     Cut text into X cut buffer.


SHIFT-right                      Paste text.


CTRL-middle                      Cut text into X cut buffer and kill it.


CTRL-right                       Select this window, then split it into
two windows. Same as typing CTRL-x 2.

CTRL-SHIFT-left                  X buffer menu--hold the buttons and keys
down, wait for menu to appear, select buffer, and release. Move mouse out of menu and release to cancel.

CTRL-SHIFT-middle                X help menu--pop up index card menu for
Emacs help.

CTRL-SHIFT-right                 Select window with mouse, and delete all
other windows. Same as typing CTRL-x 1.

MANUALS

    Free Software Foundation
    675 Mass Ave.
    Cambridge, MA 02139

FILES

/usr/local/emacs/lisp - Lisp source files and compiled files that define most editing commands. Some are preloaded; others are autoloaded from this directory when used.
   /usr/local/emacs/man - sources for the Emacs reference manual.

/usr/local/emacs/etc - various programs that are used with GNU Emacs, and some files of information.

/usr/local/emacs/etc/DOC.* - contains the documentation strings for the Lisp primitives and preloaded Lisp functions of GNU Emacs. They are stored here to reduce the size of Emacs proper.

/usr/local/emacs/etc/DISTRIB discusses GNU Emacs distribution and contains an order form for all of the software and manuals available from the Free Software Foundation.

/usr/local/emacs/etc/DIFF discusses GNU Emacs vs. Twenex Emacs;
/usr/local/emacs/etc/CCADIFF discusses GNU Emacs vs. CCA Emacs;
/usr/local/emacs/etc/GOSDIFF discusses GNU Emacs vs. Gosling Emacs.
/usr/local/emacs/etc/SERVICE lists people offering various services to assist users of GNU Emacs, including education, troubleshooting, porting and customization.
These files also have information useful to anyone wishing to write programs in the Emacs Lisp extension language, which is documented in the GNU Emacs Lisp Manual.

/usr/local/emacs/info - files for the Info documentation browser (a subsystem of Emacs) to refer to. Currently not much of Unix is documented here, but the complete text of the Emacs reference manual is included in a convenient tree structured form.

/usr/local/emacs/lock - holds lock files that are made for all files being modified in Emacs, to prevent simultaneous modification of one file by two users.

/usr/local/emacs/cpp - the GNU cpp, needed for building Emacs on certain versions of Unix where the standard cpp cannot handle long names for macros.

/usr/local/emacs/shortnames - facilities for translating long names to short names in C code, needed for building Emacs on certain versions of Unix where the C compiler cannot handle long names for functions or variables.

/usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt - list of valid X color names.

BUGS

Do not expect a personal answer to a bug report. The purpose of reporting bugs is to get them fixed for everyone in the next release, if possible. For personal assistance, look in the SERVICE file (see above) for a list of people who offer it.

Please do not send anything but bug reports to this mailing list. Send requests to be added to mailing lists to the special list info-gnu-emacs-request@prep.ai.mit.edu (or the corresponding UUCP address). For more information about Emacs mailing lists, see the file /usr/local/emacs/etc/MAILINGLISTS. Bugs tend actually to be fixed if they can be isolated, so it is in your interest to report them in such a way that they can be easily reproduced.

Bugs that I know about are: shell will not work with programs running in Raw mode on some Unix versions.  

UNRESTRICTIONS

Emacs is free; anyone may redistribute copies of Emacs to anyone under the terms stated in the Emacs General Public License, a copy of which accompanies each copy of Emacs and which also appears in the reference manual.

Copies of Emacs may sometimes be received packaged with distributions of Unix systems, but it is never included in the scope of any license covering those systems. Such inclusion violates the terms on which distribution is permitted. In fact, the primary purpose of the General Public License is to prohibit anyone from attaching any other restrictions to redistribution of Emacs.

Richard Stallman encourages you to improve and extend Emacs, and urges that you contribute your extensions to the GNU library. Eventually GNU (Gnu's Not Unix) will be a complete replacement for Berkeley Unix. Everyone will be able to use the GNU system for free.  

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS

Emacs was written by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation. Joachim Martillo and Robert Krawitz added the X features.

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

MANUALS

FILES

BUGS

UNRESTRICTIONS

SEE ALSO

AUTHORS